Playing chess is child’s play these days: Just fire up your browser, go to Lichess or Chess.com, and the world’s your oyster. But even as traditional chess video games have fallen by the wayside, there are many fun variations on the theme to experience.
From roguelites to puzzle games, management titles and even fantasy RPGs, there are many great chess-themed video games to try. Here’s my top five.
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
The Black king is left all alone in their castle, and the entire White army is bearing down on their home. Thankfully, he still has his royal shotgun.
An extremely silly concept that makes for a surprisingly fun puzzle roguelite, where you alternate moving your king and shooting your trusty shotgun. Upgrades and odd alternate rules ramp up the challenge and the enjoyment factor, ensuring that your showdown with your White counterpart will be a duel to remember.
If you’re not sure how well firearms mix with your chess enjoyment, there’s a demo on Steam you can try.
Majestic Chess
I give precisely zero percent odds that you have heard of this game before. It is a shame, because it is such a cute and cool mix of fantasy and chess, and while it is clearly geared at kids in tone, it is a surprisingly fun romp and a great way to tutorialize even intermediate-level concepts of the royal game.
It is definitely of a different era (you have to – gasp! – read a lot of text), and it can be a bit of a bother to get it running on a modern computer, but it is a genuinely charming way to introduce a loved one to chess with a lovely art style and nice music, with fun items like the Pipes of Befuddlement (that forces your opponent to make a random legal move on their next turn) or the Grail of Bishop Renewal (that does exactly what you would expect it to), it is still a jolly good time. And hey, if you are actually good at the game, it is an enjoyable romp for an afternoon’s delight.
Kung-Fu Chess
Real-time chess without turns—it’s a silly concept, but a tremendous amount of fun in multiplayer. That said, there are still some timing and sequencing limitations to keep in mind: you cannot move multiple pieces at the same time, and there is a short delay before you can move again.
There are no checks and there is no stalemate rule – as is the case in most chess variants, your goal is to capture your opponent’s king. The origins of Kung-Fu Chess go back to the early 2000s, and this multimove variant actually has some quite significant depth and a high level of play.
5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel
I am not too proud to admit it: this game broke my brain and therefore I have very little actual commentary to offer on it. The title says it all, really: You play multiple simultaneous chess games across various timelines and boards, and you need to win once to win everywhere.
“The first ever chess variant with spatial, temporal, and parallel dimensions,” 5D Chess With Multiverse Time Travel was a pandemic sensation, and if you really want to rack your brain, it is a great choice – but fair warning, you will need some actual chess knowledge to truly enjoy it.
Master of Chess
There’s Football Manager, there’s Tennis Manager, there are a million different management games – so, why not chess? A solo developer project, Master of Chess lets you help navigate a chess prodigy’s career, deciding on training regimen and tournaments to enter.
While you can play out the games yourself against the computer, what I found the most enjoyable way to engage with Master of Chess was to play the mode where you are only asked to input a move in critical situations. This way, your low-level player will actually make big mistakes against strong opposition, and the puzzle situations that emerge are genuinely compelling because you watched the whole match blossom out in front of you along the way. Once again, there’s a demo for your consideration.
Pawnbarian
One more puzzle roguelite for the road. Pawnbarian is an entirely turn-based affair, with cards and upgrade mechanics making it a much tighter puzzler than Shotgun King, and with much less of the whimsy.
It is a great dungeon crawler experience, nevertheless. It’s a deep and challenging game with great replayability, and a fun way to play something chess-adjacent solo.
