Pawnbarian

Yet another short n small game riffing on general chess vibes and mechanics while still being its own wholly new thing and not really otherwise related to chess in any way. The whole chess thing is really just a starting point for player familiarity with a few game mechanics and I think that makes games that use the chess theme very approachable in a good way (we all know how bishops, rooks and knights move, after all, so when you see those pieces in a game you roughly know what they're going to do even if the context is different), but besides the thematic and moveset relationship to chess it really has nothing in common with its mother game, and I say that while being of the opinion it's very much a good thing! I mean when you think about it, nobody comes to Steam to actually play chess. So really I find that chess-inspired games are wonderful and a whole lot of fun, but games that try to re-invent chess itself tend to be complete garbage. I can very happily report that Pawnbarian is 100% in the camp of just chess-inspired or making use of chess-piece mechanics as a starting point of movesets for a TBT: all that is to say that the Devs have taken inspiration from chess to deliver a really solid little TBT/puzzle adventure experience that has otherwise nothing to do with chess; besides the thematic and piece-moveset overlap, they are two totally different experiences. I've seen more attempts to bring Chess to a more complicated game fail than succeed, so it's nice to see an example that has pulled it off so well. Again I think the reason they pulled it off is that they strictly looked at chess as a source of inspiration, and besides said inspiration they otherwise felt no compulsion or inclination whatsoever to be bound by the wider rules of chess itself. On that note, players shouldn't feel put off or encouraged to play this by virtue of their actual chess experience, if you're really good or bad at chess itself that fact will neither spoiil this game by making it trivial nor spoil it by leaving it too difficult, they're just totally separate things. Also by the way a little public service announcement that the game has very very mild roguelite elements but is absolutely not at all in any way a "roguelike": as always I have NO IDEA why people keep tragging like every random game as a roguelike, I'm convinced that 90% of people have no idea what the term roguelike even means. Anyway, suffice to say this is not in any way a roguelike but it's a very fun chess-inspired turn-based-tactical mini adventure and I can happily recommend it.