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A jam submission

Fool's MateView game page

Can Shawn the Pawn end the Chess War once and for all?
Submitted by gamma_correction — 2 minutes, 24 seconds before the deadline
Rated by 5 people so far
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Comments

Submitted

A reset-level button would be nice because it's annoying to realize you messed up and have to spend time intentionally dying. Now that that's out of the way:

It's more like a puzzle game than a strategy game, which I personally think still counts, as you do have to plan your moves and their consequences. I just wanted to point that out, but that also means there is really only one strategy that works, which limits your strategic freedom a bit. Very well polished, however, and the graphics and sound go well together.

Great job!
Overall: 7.7/10

Submitted

Clever use of the limited moveset in chess to help you contain scope and make something really polished and nice.  I don't play a lot of chess, so some of the levels are surprisingly tricky for me... I'll give it another shot before I rate it, but pretty impressive!

Submitted(+1)

Some very minor criticisms:

  1. I would love a reset level button instead of just a reset game button.  When I know I've messed up, it would be nice to not have to die on purpose and wait for the turn to resolve.
  2. movement selection could use some tweaks:  Its a little weird that the rook always defaults to the square above it but the pawn defaults to the one below it.  It would probably also be better if the cursor snapped to the possible moves instead of giving you full free movement
  3. Subjective:  It's a little weird to me that you are forced to move your pieces into threat, but the AI will skip its turn rather than do the same when at the start they will happily march off of a cliff.  The early levels trained me to think that I could rely on pawns always moving forward no matter what, so when I came up with a plan to trap a pawn and it didn't move, it felt a little unfair.   I'd probably rework the early levels to remove the bottomless pits, or maybe get rid of them altogether and introduce the rook earlier.  Personal preference, so disregard if that's part of your intended difficulty ramp.
Developer (1 edit)

Those are good points. I'll take those into account when I improve the game. How far were you able to get?

Submitted

I was stuck on either 4 or 5 i think, the long vertical one with multiple bishops.  I definitely want to give it another shot, it makes me feel dumb in a good way and I'm itching to beat it.  Really fun game.

For us dumdums who get stuck, it would be good to be able to replay the tips that it gives you when you fail repeatedly

Submitted

Very delicate,interesting game and very good animation with creative chess gameplay. and it is on NES!