Passant: A Chess Roguelike

I played quite a lot of the demo and there was no duck I asked the dev to add a duck, and when the game released there was a duck in the trailer and they even added a duck chess starting set-up Thank you developer for adding a great duck in your great game

The AI is very much just a basic chess engine designed to protect itself from the players attacks, and not lose material value in trades. It plays defensively and tactically for normal chess. The problem with that is that when the player wins after forcing drawing tactics, and a good chess player notices this, its highly exploitable and no longer fun. Finding ways to force trade downs to instantly win when neither player has material, or finding annoying repetitive checking tactics that the AI does nothing to avoid (and would rather walk into than lose material) shouldn't be a win condition for the player. I won a majority of my games by checking the king back and forth for six moves because the AI refused to play a sub-optimal engine move and would rather lose to the repetition win con....that's pretty sad.

I want to like this game. I really, really want to like this game. I love chess riffs. I've played Really Bad Chess every day for the last six years. Pawnbarian and Shotgun King are my all-timers. I effing *love* chess riffs. I *should* like this game. I *should* love this game. But I don't. When the enemy takes one of my pieces I should immediately know which piece they took; I don't. It's like the enemy's turn happens in a microsecond and then I have to rewind to understand what just happened. There are serious interface issues with the semi-3D board. When I select a piece it should always be the piece I intended to select; it isn't. When I move my piece it should always go to the place I intend; it doesn't. The board is just wonky enough to induce unintentional errors. The stakes should noticeably increase with each level; they don't. The bonuses should give me a slight edge over my opponent, and each new badge should get you a little more power; instead, the right badge in r...

When I saw this game, I got really excited. I’ve played many roguelike games before, and since this one was a chess game, I just couldn’t pass it up. However, the game has one big problem. The idea works, and the game is very much in the style of Balatro, BUT: in chess, the most important thing is having good visibility on the board. You must be able to distinguish the pieces at a glance in order to correctly interpret the position. Here, the graphics significantly hinder the gameplay experience. If the game ever receives a graphical overhaul, I will strongly consider purchasing it. For now, I have requested a refund.

Passant is similar to Balatro, but about chess. The thing is, the chess component is VERY well integrated. This is no lazy Balatro but x game instead. If you like chess, even if you are bad at it, I recommend this game to you, it's very fun and I've only played with two setups for now. The gameplay, in short, is similar to Balatro. You've got three games per round (or however they're called, I forgor), the third game is a boss. Between games, you go to the shop where you can buy pieces, passives and consumables, just like in Balatro. At the start of the game, you pick a starter setup, which includes some pieces, some passives that determine the setup's playstyle, and off you go. The thing is, this is no lazy Balatro but x game instead, the chess component is VERY well integrated, and if you have some history in playing chess, even if you're a casual player like me, you'll notice a lot of things. For example, some setups reference some alternative chess gamemodes like atomic chess...

I literally have been counting down the seconds to chess balatro. Love the concept and cannot wait to play more. The style is unique and the ui is straightforward and too the point. Plus the fact i can skip the tutorial saves me so much of a headache. Hate having to play through 15 minutes of "click here" every time i wanna play a new game. 11/10, dev! Good job!

This game is solid, but could use some work. Overall chess balatro is a great concept and this is a decent implementation, but there could be some improvements. I think the starting conditions could use more "vanilla" options. The only vanilla chess option is the first one and the rest go off the deep end with game altering effects. It would be nice to have some slightly different versions of the vanilla chess game with roguelike elements. The crazy game changing ones are fun, but I often just want a more chill starting experience and have it ramp up to be crazier as I unlock more pieces and badges. Over all I recommend the game, but I hope to see some improvements in the future when it comes to starting conditions and balancing those starting conditions.

If you want to play chess in a novel way, this game is good. If you are looking for synergy and strategy on crafting your perfect board of powerful pieces and passives, I'd take a pass for now. I could only recommend this to the kind of player that likes to do the challenge runs in Balatro or custom runs in Slay the Spire. If that's you, then you could get a lot of mileage out of this game. But I can't recommend it as a roguelike simply because there isn't enough to mix up the game play if you are aiming to win instead of picking relics. All of my builds ended up looking the same with the end goal of getting as many super queens as possible. There were only 3 pieces that were meaningfully different from normal chess (the courtesan, archer, and the cannon) outside of being upgrades like a piece that have the movement of a bishop and a knight, or a piece with a knights movement but it goes 3 forward and 1 over instead of 2 and 1. I'd love to see some more whacky pieces like a piece tha...

imagine chess but with a really annoying ai that drags on every match and plays defensively 24/7. also this is a roguelike and there's a million matches edit: i feel like i need to add more feedback here because after thinking on it for a bit there's a few decisions that confuse me By far the most important thing in this game is your board setup and the moment you choose a match to play you can no longer move your board around. I don't really understand why there's no "planning" phase when you start a match. If you're not squinting your eyes at your screen at the tiny UI showing the enemy's setup then you are effectively just throwing. Please. Just let me move my board around when I go into a match. I don't really understand the three choices given for matches. Why is there an "easier" board and a "harder" board? I guess for risk/reward but it just feels frustrating when you first get into the game. Did I lose the boss because I didn't choose the challenging boards, and thus ruin my...

I wanted to like it, but feels too early access at this stage. Had many runs killed as I encountered a few bugs and items not working as I expected. Getting deep into a run only to have the AI spam check your only legal move until you concede isn't fun.