If you're not part of the Chess Mess beta, learn more about that here.
I wanted to mention a few things regarding the Chess Mess beta.
Features
Five distinct difficulty levels
Easy:
- 52 pieces
- Hints Allowed
- Turns disabled
- Valid Move Highlighting Enabled
- King DOES NOT Move After Player Captures
Medium:
- 48 pieces
- Hints Allowed
- Turns Disabled
- Valid Move Highlighting Enabled
- King DOES NOT Move After Player Captures
Hard:
- 38 pieces
- Hints Allowed
- Turns Enabled
- Valid Move Highlighting Enabled
- King Moves After Player Captures
- King Does Not Telegraph Next Move
- Pawn Promotion to Opposite Color Pawn
Impossible:
- 32 pieces
- Hints Allowed
- Turns Enabled
- Valid Move Highlighting Disabled
- King Moves After Player Captures
- King Does Not Telegraph Next Move
- Pawn Promotion to Opposite Color Pawn
Seeds
Chess Mess supports Seeded board generation so you can share specific boards and compare scores!
Feel free to share you favorite seed with the tagChess Mess Seed. So far, one of the hardest seeds I've found is Hard b4bc1797. It's quite limited in terms of material and it has a fairly high King In score on Hard!
Themes
There are multiple themes included with Chess Mess including four distinct color schemes and chess sets! My personal go-to is the Chess Mess 2000 that's loosely based on one of my favorite games as a kid.
Cards
The card system in Chess Mess is incredibly powerful and each card can introduce stackable buffs, nerfs, and power-ups. They can effect one piece, the board, and even the rules themselves!
My favorite card so far is "Useful Acolyte" which allows bishops to move through allied pieces. Super powerful and it can come in handy!
Soundtrack (WIP)
Currently, only two songs exist in the game but more are on the way! As usual, my favorite band The Brothers Nylon, have provided the Theme Song and I actually supplied the other track myself.
Steam Deck support (WIP)
Until today, the game ran on Linux but only if you launched it outside of Steam. However, as of 4PM eastern 2024-10-07, the game is now working on Steam on all platforms including Linux, SteamOS, and Windows.
Currently, the game only supports mouse emulation with the left touchpad, but gamepad support is in the works.
