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.