
Chessmen Duel!
"Chessmen Duel!" is a duelling game between chess pieces requiring strategy, use of statistics and guesswork to win.
HOW THE GAME WORKS
GENERAL
Two teams battling each other are given 10 chess pieces to play with. The chess pieces are:
2x Pawns
2x Knights
2x Bishops
1x Rook
1x Jester
1x Queen
1x King
The two sides are selecting a chess piece each, putting them behind a black curtain, waiting for the duel to start when the timer stops. As the curtain unfolds, the two pieces picked are revealed and the duel starts. The duels will happen again and again until one of the Kings is destroyed. If you do not select a piece, one will be selected in random to duel.
IN BATTLE
Each chess piece has a certain strength and value. The stronger piece in the duel wins and returns to the team, while the weaker is destroyed. If the pieces are of equal strength, both die.
The chess piece's strength goes as follows:
*Jester > King > Rook > Bishop > Knight > Pawn > *Queen
*The Queen, even though it has the weakest strength, it can destroy the enemy King. The Jester loses to Pawns and can only be used once in the game.
SPECIAL MOVES
The Pawn, The Knight and The Bishop have a special move each:
Pawn ("Pawn Promotion"): If a Pawn survives a duel, it gets promoted to a Queen.
Knight ("Fork"): The first Knight that duels for the first time. also kills a random piece from the opponent's team.
Bishop ("2X Fianchetto"): If a Bishop loses a duel while another Bishop exists in the same team, the enemy piece loses as well and gets killed.
KING POWER
With each losing piece, King Power is lost for the losing team. The King loses power equal to the piece's Value. At the end of each duel this is reflected in the King Power bar. If both Kings duel with each other, the King with the most King Power wins the game.
The Value of each piece goes as follows:
| King, Queen, Jester | 0 |
| Pawn | 1 |
| Knight | 2 |
| Bishop | 3 |
| Rook | 5 |
HOW TO WIN
To win the game, you have to destroy the enemy King. There are multiple ways to destroy the enemy King:
- with the Queen
- with the Jester
- with the King (if it has more King Power than the enemy King)
- with the "Fork"
- with the "2X Fianchetto"
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More features are about to come in future updates such as:
- Elo system
- Increased enemy difficulty as elo increases
- Online multiplayer to battle with friends or random opponents
| Status | In development |
| Platforms | HTML5 |
| Author | koutrou |
| Genre | Strategy, Fighting, Puzzle |
| Made with | GameMaker |
| Tags | Chess, duel, GameMaker, Game Maker's Toolkit Jam, No AI, Pixel Art, Retro, Touch-Friendly |
| Average session | A few minutes |
| Languages | English |
| Inputs | Mouse, Touchscreen |
Development log
- v.1.1.0 Release (Special Moves, Mobile Friendly)Aug 19, 2025
- Postmortem of "Chessmen Duel!" in GMTK Jam 2025Aug 19, 2025
- v1.0.0 First Release (GMTK 2025 Jam Submission)Aug 19, 2025






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