Chess to the extreme!
It's that time again for a new episode of Chichuki Plays, the show where I go hands-on with upcoming games and show them off. Usually, it's about an hour or so but I don't want to spoil too much of the game for you. This time we're looking at Gambonanza on Steam. A chess roguelike is an interesting idea!
Chess is an interesting game. Gambonanza is also an interesting game. It is a chess roguelike where you start out with three different chess pieces and try to make your way through the gambit that is chess. Along the way, you'll have to defeat different layouts of chess pieces. Lucky for you, you will get a lot of help in the way of money, new pieces, new skills and more. I like the idea of having a random slot machine at the start of a run to get your three pieces. They can really be anything on a chess board. You could have one pawn, bishop, and knight or two knights and a king. On the plus side, you don't need to have prior chess knowledge as you'll be able to see potential moves before you make them. That was a nice touch because it has been quite some time since I played chess last.
One major issue I had with Gambonanza was a gameplay mechanic issue. You have the ability to get more pieces to add to your board during gameplay. You have to spend money to allow more pieces to your side of the chess board. In theory this should make playing much easier and adds to the fun of a run. The issue I had was that I could never where my extra pieces were being kept. I don't know if it was resolution thing on my PC or I was having a tech issue where the storage area never showed up. I wasn't able to put new pieces to the board.
You can also unlock/buy Gambits that add skills to the gameplay. You might get one that skips enemy turns if you jump a piece or give you new pieces if you do a specific move. You'll have to play and find out. There are also enemy/boss skills that make the level tougher. That could be something like not allowing you to access storage for a round as an example. Fans of chess and roguelikes will have to check this out, I'd like to thank the devs for a review code to check it out.
Make sure you check out the hands-on video below!