Chessarama is the tried-and-true alternative chess game

Electronic technology has allowed us to create and develop a new form of entertainment within a few decades: We are talking, obviously, of video games, a versatile and surprising luxury that is constantly changing. However, humanity has always “played”: over the centuries it has found many ways to have fun, testing its body and ingenuity. An easy example is the game chess.

Immortal, beloved, and sometimes even brought to the small and big screen, the game of chess still inspires many creators today. Minimol Games. This Brazilian team decided to create a new game based on chess: Chessarama.

Thanks to a Steam demo, we had the opportunity to try some components of this alternative version of chess and now we can give you our first impressions of it.

To find out what we think, keep reading this. Chessarama tried.

Farms, shogunates and dragons

Chessarama is not a classic version of chess and is not just “one” game, but consists of several modes that differ from each other in various ways. Generally speaking, we’re talking about a turn-based puzzle game where you are in control of a chess-inspired piece.

this first mini game The Steam demo puts us in the shoes of a Horse that is clearly moving to an L, whose job is to cultivate fields. Fields are a series of boxes, and this shape changes every time we pass over them: if they are barren, they are cultivated and vice versa. At each level we will need to find the right path for our Horse to follow and have a beautiful garden full of vegetables.

this second minigame puts us in the shoes of a warrior queen who must lower a weapon but eliminate her warriors first. If there are other enemies in range, they must be defeated in a specific order, as they can parry our blows. The idea is to find the right combination of moves to clear the way and achieve our ultimate goal.

Finally, third minigame puts us in the shoes of a team of fantasy heroes who must take down a dragon. Our task is to advance a pawn, the only one who can eliminate the dragon: however, the giant lizard breathes fire with every move, eliminating every piece of our team. To avoid this, the various pieces (represented as knight, rook, elephant, knight, dwarf, and wizard) must be positioned so that they can keep each other under fire and protect themselves from the fire.

There difficulty varies from minigame to minigame: the first one was very easy to complete, but the following required a few tries and a few reboots. A good variety in terms of difficulty levels could bring more players closer to Chessarama: we’ll have to see which way the adventure balances out in the full game. Another factor to consider would be diversity: the mini-games played were sufficiently different from each other; we’ll see if that’s the case even if we have access to the entire selection.

Create your own adventure

However, there is another component that might be really interesting: editorUnfortunately, we did not have a chance to try it, as this is not in the demo. All we know is that Chessarama will let you create custom levels of each minigame and share them online with the community.

We don’t know how complicated creating the levels would be, as we haven’t tried it: considering we’re talking about “just” creating a chessboard and placing pawns, it shouldn’t be complicated in terms of commands. We believe the real challenge will be creativity: completing a puzzle is much easier than creating one, but this mod, if done well, can be one of Chessarama’s most important strengths and give it a remarkable longevity.

We will also have to figure out if customization will be possible. graphic side or if we have to make do with dioramas created by developers. On a technical level, Chessarama is nothing short of incredible, with very simple polygon models and particularly detailed textures. Considering the individual levels are so small, more attention to detail wouldn’t have bothered, but on the balance we’re still talking about an independent team: priority, quality of the game, and that’s what we need to look at.