Norwegian game developer offers new spin on pawn vs. queen in “RPG Chess”
Wishlisting available for game coming soon to Steam
By D. Menzies
Chess is a deep rabbit hole. As a strategy game, it’s inherently an intellectual exercise. But seek out the tracks already laid out in recorded history, should you wish, and it could be the intellectual exercise.
As the descendant of similar military battlefield-inspired game that came from South Asia and moved through what was then Persia, the present-day iteration of the “King's Game" stems from it reaching and developing in medieval monarch-dense Europe; an angle Norwegian game developer Oskar Aleksander Melbye takes in the announcement trailer for “RPG Chess,” his game coming via Steam this year, is as striking as the titan vs. “underdog” narratives that, in part, propel shows like “Queen’s Gambit” (2020 — based on the Walter Tevis novel) or this year’s K-drama, “The Match.”
In the “RPG Chess” annoucement trailer (viewable above), a queen piece towers over a pawn only for it to be soon be shown that, despite the queen’s more extensive range/abilities, this pawn has more experience and, in this game, that counts in a way that reflects and builds on how, in the actual board game, it’s possible for a pawn to become a queen.
“The game is sort of designed from the get-go that a queen is stronger than a pawn, but the pawn has a possibility of sort leveling up and matching the queen in a way. And when they engage in battle, it’s very anything-can-happen, really.”
- Oskar Aleksander Melbye
“I’ve been playing a bit of chess for my entire life, I would say,” Melbye told Chilltown Blues last week. “I live in Norway. We have a huge star in Magnus Carlsen, so that’s sort of makes it a natural point of interest. I’m not that good personally. I mostly just watch.”
Melbye’s game features the game of chess play out in a turn-based style that will be familiar to players of games in the RPG genre. But flourishes include an element system and distinct animations for its battle system – which can be explored via player vs. player games or a single-play roguelike in the “King’s Gauntlet.”
“Once I got the core gameplay down and I got the multiplayer working, I also wanted to include a single player campaign that can enrich the game a bit, so it’s not just chess but it’s also sort of an adventure as well,” Melbye said. “The roguelike part it’s taken a bit of time to find out (exactly) how I want to implement. Basically you start out and you can choose between three different teams that’s either two pawns and a king, a king and a bishop, or a king and knight; and going into that you can get into battles that get increasingly harder and are very randomized.
“As you walk across this overworld board, you can either go into battle or go into shops and use coins you’ve gotten from the battles to buy either items unique to the campaign mode or pieces to add to your team. By doing it this way, you can make for a different experience every time because you can place the different pieces wherever you want. Pawns need to be in the front row but other than that you can completely change your setup.”
As an inverted example of the aforementioned pawn-to-queen dynamic, in “RPG Chess” pawns can sacrifice themselves for the king’s benefit.
Melbye’s game looks to have almost as strategic and subtext potential as chess the boardgame while offering the kind of accessibility it doesn’t always lend itself to.
That chess can be obscured as just another game by how revered it has been in segments of history; add the countdown clock to make a move in competitions, and Melbye agrees with something I say about his version of chess.
“You could say maybe I made it so that it’s a bit easier for me to play chess,” he says.
Melbye took inspiration from watching videos on YouTube of someone play the NES game “Battle Chess,” he said.
“In that game (the gameplay) is really just regular chess, but they have these cool animations whenever certain pieces capture other pieces I saw that and thought it would be really cool if they were actually fighting in a way that was animated.”
Melbye really wanted to tap into the potential of visual elements across the (ahem) board.
“I wanted to make sure that I have a bunch of different environments, boards, as well as focus a lot on having memorable animations to varying degrees,” he said. “I have some more basic animations as well, but I really wanted to include some more cinematic animations that are sort of really eye-catching.”
“Summons-worthy” animation generally works as a build-up or just in between more ordinary moves, after all.
There’s been a lot of to develop and hone for a first-time game developer, and Melbye’s timeline with the game has slowed down a bit as he battles to overcome his own sense of perfectionism with making the game as good as he can.
“I’m trying a lot of new stuff in this project, so the game architecture isn’t always optimal. It’s been a bit of going back and changing stuff. It’s sort of a bit messy right now, the project, which means it takes a bit more time to implement all the stuff. But as of right now it’s very close to completion,” he said. “I have this opportunity to try this now. I’m doing the last year of a bachelor’s degree in which I have some time for me. And I wanted to try to actually make a game and release it. If that goes well, maybe I’ll continue making other games, but we’ll see.”
In the game’s initial trailer imagery — of pawn vs. queen — the pawn’s ability to stand up to the queen is depicted as being surprising.
“I really like the whole image of the pawn standing up to a queen,” Melbye said. “The game is sort of designed from the get-go that a queen is stronger than a pawn, but the pawn has a possibility of sort leveling up and matching the queen in a way. And when they engage in battle, it’s very anything-can-happen, really.”
Between offering new approaches to exploring chess, both in a versus format as well as an individual one, Melbye thinks “RPG Chess” has a lot to offer people who recognize the game on any level.
“It’s probably not to be played professionally. It’s a bit more casual, a bit more fun, I would say.”
“Battle Chess” can be added to your wishlist on Steam at https://store.steampowered.com/app/3383450/RPG_Chess; and Melbye can be found on Bluesky at oskaraleksander.bsky.social where you can keep up with status updates on the game.
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