Nice game, even more for those who enjoy chess

Guys, this concept is soooo cooool, to make chess exercises like this was some genius hahaha. Unfortunately i'm really bad at chess so i didn't get very far. The art is clean and i didn't get any bugs =)

Great concept!

So fun to play!!!!!!!

Loved the concept, really interesting one! I feel like it could be a full game with dozens of puzzles -- maybe just straight up copying and tweaking some famous chess puzzles (if that's not how you're doing it already!). The drag and drop was a little confusing, I think making the pieces/souls follow the mouse could've gone a long way, but overall I loved it and wish it were a full game. Nice work!

Hey buddy, I'm up and now chowing down while playing your game. Seriously tough, trying not to die laughing and getting food down the wrong pipe. Your game is fantastic, with the perfect level of challenge and great sound effects – it's incredibly polished. Looks like our team has a lot to learn from you. Hats off, my friend.

Unfortunately a bit intuitive if you don't know the rules of chess, but I like the concept of level-based puzzles.

The game looks very good.

In my opinion, there is not enough small tutorial, and so the idea is very cool

This was actually so fun. It's a chess problem that you can forge the answer to by summoning. The only issue for me was that I was unsure what the order in which my pieces were gonna move, leading them to making some dumb decisions for me. I wish I could control them after I place them and perhaps your mana continues to go down every move and when you hit 0 you lose. But that's a whole nother game. Point is great job!

Great game. Bit simple, could probably have halved the mana you have to work with as had an abundance extra. Bishop/Rook spam with couple pawns around the king is a bit too strong. Overall thoroughly enjoyed it.

Great concept! I do fell like the randomness of the level gives wildly different difficulty for the same level.

I really enjoyed this game a lot!

Great game, I love auto-battler games

Great concept.

Funny concept to add mana to chess pieces, but it hard to predict what your pieces will do

WOW!! I love this game, I love the auto-battle, I love how you managed to use the summon concept, I love chess games, I love puzzle games. This game is perfect!! I also liked the art and the audio, what an amazing videogame!!

Really nice concept! Just felt like the AI was a bit wonky at times, but is understandable for a game jam. The music was pretty nice! I would love to see this as a full release game sometime.

Very cool concept, love chess puzzles even though I'm bad at them :smile: The AI was quite unpredictable at times though. Solid game, would love to see it fleshed out!

Awesome concept! Played through all the levels. Nice music, great art, quite good AI.

https://ldjam.com/markdown

As a chess player, the decisionmaking of the pieces throw me off a bit.
But I totally gets it, different medias work different between themselves.

Still the game is solid. very well done. Good work friends ^~^v

I was expecting a chess game! Very entertaining, I loved it!

really loved this game, very fun execution

Concept is cool! I wish I could reason a bit more about what my pieces would do though. It seems like they were not making moves that would make sense in normal chess (having an opening to attack the king, but not doing so.

Pretty cool concept! A few times I'm pretty sure I had checkmate but my pieces didn't do what I expected haha. The AI made some funny moves sometimes. It was fun watching the game play out though! Love the fire effects around the pieces! nice work :)

I really like the idea of this game! The AI of the pieces can be both really good for the strategy you make, but also detrimental depending on what happens. I think sorting the board randomly every time you retry is a bit flawed though, as that let me kinda have freebies because of luck. I could've spammed towers for some of the levels because of that. But very good game loop, and it's a pretty innovative idea!

lOVVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is very good! The only thing I can say is that I don't love not being able to move the pieces by myself after summoning them.

use all mana to summon pawns just kill the game, love this game so much ,very talent and creative,interesting game play and nie strategy choose ,hope to have more content to play

An innovation based on the classic chess rules. I like the feeling of needing to rehearse the next move in my brain. Great.

One the best games I played during the jam! I really enjoy gemeplay and artstyle is good

I love chess and therefore I love this game :D really nice entry

Amazing game! As a chess enthusiast, this game got me curious what it would be like if there was a chess variant (maybe there's one I don't know about) where both players have a given certain amount of points, and they could "shop" pieces based on their value, and place them themselves.
Would be very interesting to see what top players would come up with, and how the meta would change based on the countless amount of strategies it would introduce.

Sorry for the long thought, but that's what this game made me wonder about. Loved it visually and conceptually, and it was a lot of fun to play!

Very cool take on the theme!

super nice cozy and cool concept, fit well chess

Unexpected take on the theme! Well executed too. Made me feel smart at chess haha

Very nice! Looked cool and was fun to play, very satisfying to see your pieces playing smart moves haha

That key art is beautiful 🥲

Chess pieces are well drawn, good idea and execution, nice work! Also, this brings a whole new meaning to auto chess :D

I am very bad at chess. I found the most consistent way for my smooth brain to win a scenario was to put the queen wherever should could immediately win.

Fun concept, I'd have loved to see pawns turn into queens. But it's fun to have chess be played by itself.

Super cool concept! It felt a little easy when I tried stacking rooks and found they they would pretty quickly shoot to the backlines and take out the king. However even then sometimes the piece AI would be a bit troublesome and not choose the optimal move, which I thought added to the tension and kept it fun!

Really quality idea and great execution on it!

Great game!

The randomization made the game a bit easy at times though, but great efforts (and great grade)

Fun twist on chess! The randomization and chaoticness adds more fun to it (I've dabbled in normal chess problems but they can be a bit dry).

I did play pretty randomly though and mostly used rooks and bishops

Great idea; most chess-based puzzle games don't innovate enough but this is genuinely refreshing. Clogging your board with pawns is OP, should probably limit units that can be placed or increase costs each time a piece is used.

Let me introduce you to an undefeatable strategy: THE PAWN WALL (and a couple of knights to avoid stalemate) :D

Very cool concept, I bet with a little more time you could turn it into a great puzzle game!

Interesting idea -- I like the premise of having a limited cost and needing to figure out which pieces are needed in which position (ideally while minimizing cost). However, since the game doesn’t indicate an execution order, it takes away from the player’s ability to plan piece choice/position.

Had a lot of fun with this one. At first I played strategically to set up forks before the battle even started, but you can't really control pieces so I just started messing around after the first couple levels. I won a few by just spamming pawns but eventually something got behind the pawn line and I couldn't do anything. This strategy would definitely be a lot more powerful if pawns could promote. A chess auto battler is an interesting combo though. I think you could be on to something and the idea could definitely be expanded upon. As for criticisms, I don't have much. I think the art could be improved a bit, some of the pieces look wonky, and also the AI is a bit weird sometimes, but that can understandably be difficult, and maybe it being unpredictable adds some strategy. Also related, the kings never move, which is a bit odd.

That is a VERY COOL idea. One small improvement I'd like would to be able to click instead of dragging the pieces to summon, or better yet hotkeys (1- pawn, 2-knight and so on)

Cool. I know that there is chess for four people. There is a peculiar interpretation with elements of strategy. To be honest, the pawns here are imbalanced. In the final round I called 36 pawns and they ate the whole map. That's not quick but effective))))

As others have said, PAWNWALL. I'm not even good at chess but this was fun to play. Definitely interesting watching the moves play out after the pieces were selected. I found it a little confusing as to which piece would go first, or even next in the turn order. Maybe an icon indicating turn order? Or an explanation as to how pieces would be prioritized every turn?

All that said, pretty fun game, cool mashup of genres! Nice entry!