Chess Wars by Skipi

made by Skipi for LD31 (COMPO)

Chess Wars is a Fire Emblem-style game where you move your units in a turn based strategy to defeat your opponent.

You can play in two modes:
Hero mode where you lead a small force of elite units

Army mode where you control a chess army

Controls:
WASD to move cursor
Space to select
Q to end turn
R to generate new map
Left Shift to speed up movement
Escape to close game

Has DVORAK support!

Known bugs:
Game is currently unwinnable/unlosable. This is not much of a problem since you can easily generate a new board at any time.

Units are unbalanced. This'll be dealt with shortly.

Changelog:
Did some rough balancing. Hero mode is still unwinnable, but army mode is playable.
Added small menu to make getting to game modes easier.
Updated game to load all assets properly
Fixed flavor text clipping off the screen
Fixed several crashes when generating a new board
Compiled in Release configuration (Gotta love optimizations)

Windows	https://www.dropbox.com/s/xrpekrigfa55irs/ChessWars.zip?dl=0
Source	https://www.dropbox.com/s/rtb3tv9oozme1b4/ChessWarsSrc.zip?dl=0
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=34647

Ratings

Coolness	55%	3
Overall	2.97	789

Fun	2.74	873
Graphics	2.87	691
Humor	2.29	705
Innovation	3.55	270
Mood	2.52	902
Theme	3.66	469

Feedback

miguelmurca

08. Dec 2014 · 15:38 UTC

Hey, heads up that your .zip fires a security warning in Chrome!

🎤 Skipi

08. Dec 2014 · 16:41 UTC

Thanks for letting me know. I've gotten that issue before, but I don't know how to fix it. Chrome seems to default flagging binaries it does not recognise.

I can try to find a workaround if this continues to be a problem, but for now I'd recommend downloading in another browser or temporarily turning off malware and phishing protection in Chrome, as that's what blocks the download.

johnbrynte

08. Dec 2014 · 20:00 UTC

Fun concept. A bit slow for me and I felt a bit overwhelmed of all the possible tactics.

I had problem with a missing OpenAL32.dll file when running the game. This link fixed it for me https://code.google.com/p/rallyraid/downloads/detail?name=oalinst.zip&can=2&q=

🎤 Skipi

08. Dec 2014 · 22:15 UTC

I fixed the OpenAL32 issue, I forgot I technically have audio code in the game even if there is no sound or music.

Nitrodeus

09. Dec 2014 · 18:50 UTC

I a bit of a chess fan so I found this game really cool !
Nice graphics too

Aglavra

09. Dec 2014 · 18:57 UTC

Interesting variation of chess game. Some units are difficult to see on some terrain types, especially after they make a move. And I would prefer to use mouse.

JayCee23

09. Dec 2014 · 19:26 UTC

Great idea, I love FE. Feels like there's not much going on, but I guess that's bound to happen with the time limit, isn't it? It's a great start though, and extra features aren't a biggy to add. This could explode pretty nicely.

feizenbara

09. Dec 2014 · 19:52 UTC

Great realisation, but the board is a bit too huge to make it fun for me. Happy to see another entry based on chess :-)

SpartanIceCream

09. Dec 2014 · 20:18 UTC

An interesting take on chess.

Hammers

09. Dec 2014 · 20:23 UTC

Nice start. You've got an impressive amount done in just the 48h. I agree with some above points that the game is currently a bit overwhelming and this also makes it feela bit slow. So maybe a furture feature could be maps that start of small then increase in size?

HuntTheWumpus

09. Dec 2014 · 20:26 UTC

Tried Hero mode at first and thought that my units will be OP -- nope ^^ I died a pretty fast death. Would be fun to see how far one could get with really OPed heroes. Liked the graphics and the arrow where your units go.

For Army mode there are a bit too many units on the board for my taste, which makes the game a bit slow.

HuntTheWumpus

09. Dec 2014 · 20:27 UTC

Oh btw: nice job implementing an AI in 48 hours :)

🎤 Skipi

09. Dec 2014 · 20:27 UTC

That will probably be what happens in the future. Either that, or I zoom in the view so the player isn't overwhelmed by the entire map.

🎤 Skipi

09. Dec 2014 · 20:30 UTC

Thanks! The AI is actually really simple. It just generates a few threat maps and a distance map and paths to the tile with the lowest value if it cannot find an enemy. Nothing too fancy.

zakchaos

09. Dec 2014 · 21:29 UTC

game too slow for me to enjoy seemed to have alot of enemies

KrisDevelopment

09. Dec 2014 · 21:54 UTC

I dont quite what to make out of this... it is cool, but didnt get what to do..

TeamQuadratic

10. Dec 2014 · 01:26 UTC

A cool idea. I love fire emblem and I really want to like this. The problem IMO is the sheer number of pieces. It really makes it overwhelming and time consuming to move pieces and watch the enemy move theirs. Good job though!

whilefun

10. Dec 2014 · 04:02 UTC

Neat idea. I wish the game was more complete/finish-able though. I hope you finish the bits you have left and re-release it. This could be very fun with 2 players.

TriSquare

11. Dec 2014 · 00:08 UTC

This game is actually quite cool, but its a little to easy, other than that its a good game. oh yeah, the charecters are too small, maybe like a custom map that is smaller or that you can scroll through

Coolway99

11. Dec 2014 · 00:11 UTC

Overall not a bad game. Would benefit from sound though. I also found it a bit boring and tedious, it's just a side effect of having like 30 things to control (and then waiting for the computer to do the same). The graphics also blend in with the terrain a bit too much sometimes. Another major issue is it's hard, almost impossible to tell the difference between your pieces and the computer's

ElectricSeagull

11. Dec 2014 · 01:26 UTC

Really interesting idea. Like others, I found it a bit too big / overwhelming / slow to really get into it at the moment. I hope you keep going with it.

14. Dec 2014 · 06:57 UTC

I forgot to rate this game when I first played it! Anyway, this was really really well done. These mechanics were a really bold move, and the concept was really interesting.

The only thing I would change is to add mouse selection. Having to use WASD to traverse 625 cells got a bit slow.

Awesome job! =)

RockhopperGames

27. Dec 2014 · 14:31 UTC

It's pretty great seeing some turn based strategy here, and I think you've done a good job at making this game interesting!

I'm a bit at a loss why you went with the chess theme, but didn't give any of the units their chess movesets though. I also agree with the people who say scale it down; the game takes unreasonably long as is.

All in all though, this is a very impressive little game, and I'm interested in seeing more!

Mach60KAS

27. Dec 2014 · 14:44 UTC

Interesting entry, quite cool to see a fire emblem-like for LD! I found it really difficult to tell which units were mine - the only one which really stood out was the girl, everyone else was just grey. I quite liked the implementation of the movement mechanics and terrain system, as well as the chess inspired-design. I felt it was quite tedious waiting for the CPU to move its 50 or so units across the board since it took longer than my own turn. Overall a pretty good entry, keep it up!

🎤 Skipi

29. Dec 2014 · 00:23 UTC

Rockhopper, that's the plan for when I continue development. The idea is tobgi e each unit slight perks based on their type. For instance, pawns might have a burst of speed on thier first turn. I didn't have nearly enough time to implemebt it, though.