Roll Chess

Submission for GMTK 2022

Game rules:

This game is like the classic game of chess, but with a spin. Each player’s turn is split into two phases, a roll phase and then a move phase. When your opponent’s last king is removed for any reason the game immediately ends.

Roll Phase

On the roll phase, the active player selects one of their pieces to reroll into a different piece. Select a piece and click the dice to reroll that piece. The likelihood of getting a “good” piece is proportional to the amount of experience the piece has. A piece can gain experience by eliminating any enemy piece, up to a maximum of 3 experience. Better pieces have more experience at the start of the game. The experience is shown as 0-3 black circles on the bottom right of the piece’s square. The number of rerolls used can be seen as a hallow around the piece. After the first reroll, 1/3 of a circle will be filled in around the piece to indicate that 1/3 of the rerolls have been used. Once a piece has used all of it's rerolls, it will not be selectable during the roll phase.

Pieces with 3 experience have an equal chance of rerolling into a king or a queen. If a king is rolled, that player gains an additional king that must be eliminated for your opponent to win.

Move Phase

The movement phase is identical to normal chess with the omission of Castling and forced moves on Check. These rules have been removed because they don’t make sense with the possibility of multiple kings per player. Since this game has power creep, pawns have been made slightly more powerful. If they are on the starting row, pawns can capture pieces that two tiles directly in front of them.

Reroll Limits

Each piece can only be rerolled three times. This reroll limit can be extended by gaining additional kills. A piece will gain an additional reroll for each of the opponent’s pieces it eliminated, even if the piece is at maximum experience. If you are forced to reroll your last king then the game immediately ends and your opponent wins the game. Rerolling surplus kings does not end the game. For this reason, it may be a good strategy to eliminate your opponents pieces that have many remaining rerolls.

About

This game was made by a single Unity novice. I recently graduated with a Computer Science degree and I'm exploring the world of Game Development.