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What If Chess Was Way Less Boring? - Pawnbarian Review
24K View2022-07-06If you’ve read my reviews on TapTap, you’ll know that I love strategy games but sorely dislike chess. In my review for Undergrave, I dug into why I detest long, drawn-out games like the classic board game. I’m always willing to take a second look even at things I was pretty certain I hated, though, and here’s an example of why I’m glad to have an open mind. Pawnbarian combines the strategic depth of chess with the fantasy of a great dungeon crawler.
Pawnbarian is a turn-based tactical roguelike puzzle game with chess and card-based mechanics. You can explore the game’s monster-infested dungeons with a variety of different playable characters, each with their own unique passive abilities. A demo version of the game with limited content is available for free, but to unlock all six warriors and the remaining two dungeons, you’ll need to offer up a one-time payment of $6.99.
Image Credited to Pawnbarian | j4nw
Pawnbarian takes a simple concept—chess plus dungeon exploration—and builds on it with complex mechanics that make strategy and patience paramount. Unlike chess, where you lose if your king dies, Pawnbarian focuses on crystals, which are represented as human hearts. Each hit you receive makes you lose one crystal. After you complete a level of one of the game’s three dungeons, you replenish one crystal. But if you lose all of them, you lose the game and have to start over from the beginning.
In Pawnbarian, you play on a five-by-five grid resembling a small chess board, but unlike the traditional board game, you control a single character. To move your warrior, you draw cards depicting chess pieces. The chess piece shown on the card determines what type of movement is available to you. For example, a knight card allows you to move in an L pattern from your current location, while a rook can move in a straight line in any direction across the board. That part might sound pretty similar to chess, but some cards also have status effects that defend, attack in specific directions, or provide an extra movement for that turn.
Pawnbarian’s general gameplay mechanics get rid of the tedious parts of chess and replace them with only the portions I enjoy. Importantly, these changes don’t actually strip away any of the intense, strategic depth of chess. Trust me when I tell you I got a headache from thinking too hard about where to move and which monster to kill in many scenarios. But Pawnbarian is also on a smaller board, which makes matches move a little faster than regular chess, which certainly added to my personal enjoyment. I actually liked Pawnbarian’s riff on chess mechanics. So much so, in fact, that it makes me wonder if maybe one day, I might actually like normal chess and its slower gameplay. Maybe.
Image Credited to Pawnbarian | j4nw
Then again, Pawnbarian takes another big step away from the game that inspired it with its complex system of interlocking enemy and player character passives. Each of the game’s six playable warriors has a unique passive ability that spices up the game and makes it more interesting. For example, the Nomad’s passive allows any card attacking another unit to be cast as a ranged attack. Thus, when play as the Nomad, you can distance yourself from enemies and control the board from afar, making for a very unique experience compared to other warriors.
In chess, there’s an essential tactic known as a “fork,” which is when you position a piece in such a way as to force the opposing player to lose one or more pieces on their battlefield. Succeeding in Pawnbarian involves blending your character’s passive ability and the status effects of cards in a way that plays out very similarly to an expertly planned fork maneuver.
This is where a lot of the strategic options in Pawnbarian become more apparent. My preferred approach was to try to clump monsters up into a small part of the board, allowing me to fork up a bunch of them in one go. And depending on whether I had chosen the Nomad, the Knight, or one of the other warriors available, I had to change up my tactics and plan accordingly. These mechanics allowed Pawnbarian’s core chess features to move up a level and be a lot more interesting than just a mobile board game rendition.
Image Credited to Pawnbarian | j4nw
There are so many other minor things about Pawnbarian that blow my mind. You can get gold after every level, buy new cards, or gain a crystal to help you in your adventure. And every monster has a special passive, making gameplay even more head-scratching. I never caught myself wondering if I was playing a repeat of a level I had already encountered. It was a constantly shifting experience.
Besides Pawnbarian’s intricate gameplay, its minimalistic take on visuals aligns with the complex mechanics I had to learn. I wasn’t bombarded with detailed graphics or heavily-contrasting colors, which could have taken away my focus from the mind games. Pawnbarian’s graphics are more calming, almost fading into the background, which allowed me to keep my attention where it was needed most: on figuring out just what move to make next.
At first, I jumped into Pawnbarian thinking it was identical to chess because of its title and cover art. I wasn’t the happiest person to know I might be going through slow mental torture in another form of chess. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I couldn’t be happier to discover that. For a game encompassing part of another game that I don’t particularly enjoy, Pawnbarian was charming and engaging enough that it just might get me to play boring, old regular chess again.
SCORE: 4 STARS OUT OF 5
PLAY IF YOU LIKE:
• Chess. If you love chess, you’ll adore Pawnbarian for its similar mechanics. Both are definitely unique to itself, but Pawnbarian takes away the best parts of chess. Well, in my opinion.
• Undergrave. If you enjoy turn-based strategic games like Undergrave, Pawnbarian might be the next title to tackle and conquer.
💬 Have you played Pawnbarian? Let us know what you think of it in the comments! Even if you haven't played Pawnbarian, have you ever tried playing chess? Do you agree with me that it’s not that interesting, or am I crazy for not loving it?
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[Pawnbarian] First Impression [Android]
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Pawnbarian is an interesting take on Chess, as a roguelike puzzle game with RPG combat elements, you have to move around the board using the chess cards drawn into your hand. Pay attention to the enemies abilities in order to fight as efficiently as possible. Can you complete the dungeons and defeat all the monsters? Try the game now on TapTap.io or the TapTap app.
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Sora Synn3K2022-06-30
Roguelike Cards with Chess moves - Pawnbarian [First Impressions] Gameplay
Pawnbarian is a Roguelike Card game, where your cards are chess pieces and you move as they are, destroying enemies.
More in this First Impressions/ Review video from 2022.
This video is more of a quick review on the new game. Gameplay looks pretty promising, specifically with all the copycats in its Genre. A lot of unique mechanics and interesting ideas!
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Kosh3K2022-07-07
CHESS SHOOTER 3D | GAME REVIEW
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➤ GAME DESCRIPTION
A classic game of Chess with weapon combat as chess pieces collide, each with its own type of weapon and special skills in combat! You can create a lobby, invite a friend and play against him in multiplayer mode!
GEMIG Official6532023-11-26
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playing chess with someone who's good at it always makes me feel miserable. At least this one is PVE😅
2022-07-07
Author likedAt least...
2022-07-09
Author likedI have been on the lookout for another battle chess game because just like the game commentary, I don't like regular boring chess, but battle chess offered animation sequences on every kill which to me made it more of a video game than chess. so I have got high hopes for Pawnbarian, with an edit to this if in case I enjoy it!
2022-07-08
Author likedI hope you enjoy it! I agree too. Normal chess is pretty boring. Throughout the years, I've usually played Teamfight Tactics which is another auto-chess game I've relished. Let me know what you think of Pawnbarian if you ever play it!
2022-07-09
Author likedI get the feeling that the devs of this game just sat down one day and said, "Hey, let's make chess both epic AND metal!" and this is the result. That or they were big Battle Chess fans back in the day...
2022-07-07
Author likedWell, either way, they definitely did something great with Pawnbarian. It's way more fun than traditional chess, and cuts out all the boring parts, only leaving the best bits of the board game in my opinion. You can tell that I really don't like playing chess too!
2022-07-07
Author liked