Shotgun King: the Final Checkmate (2022)

In my journey to Find more games like Balatro, I came across this (I played it for a few minutes like a year ago but wasn't in the mood.) Great Idea lets just create a chess-themed roguelike. I wanted to love this game, and many things about it are great, but it only goes so far before I find I'm outta shells to chamber!

The game is pretty simple, you fight your way through a dozen or so levels. each level is essentially a 'round' where its made harder with more chess pieces. each round you win a random bonus and random malus pair, and pick from one set or the other. This is the first issue: While there are a lot of bonuses and maluses, it feels really stymying to be only to pick from two (sometimes the bonus or the malus can even be the same for each pair, I've had this happen) A third would have just made more sense, I feel.

Second, some of the bonuses and maluses are WAY OP... anything that gives you more ways to deal free damage (like 'rats' or the 'hop' over an enemy thing) are for sure the best. (If you can shunt pawns down to 2 health and deal rat damage after rat damage you can create a chain reaction of death) So, the game's upgrade system while very creative, varied in cool, is just not really that well balanced.

Then comes some of the actual gameplay annoyances. There are some strange quirks of things you can do and get away with, that you either shouldn't be able to do, or shouldn't be prevented from doing. For example, we all know in chess you don't subject your king to an attack move on the next turn, but the way the pieces move at different rates of 'speeds,' and this can, in some ways be exploited (For example, if you select the blunderbuss/boomstick upgrade that pushes you back when you fire, you can plop yourself on tiles you shouldn't be allowed to, and you're safe if the pieces isn't going to move due to this speed/timing mechanic. This was actually something I exploited in the half dozen or so runs it took me to figure out a way to win the game.)

The second gameplay annoyance is the 'safety/take-backsies thing' for perceived dangerous/wrong moves with little way for the game to tell how dangerous they are. The game tries to help prevent you from checkmating yourself but it only half works, and is really pretty dumb about some moves that would be safe (you do have a chance to miss a target with pellets that could result in them killing you if you're being dumb about it) I'm not sure what the solution here is because the game doesn't know what you know or don't, and it's just nerve racking to force it to perform these moves in case it's something else you might not be seeing.

Then there's the length... I mentioned I managed to win in about half a dozen run attempts. I found that there isn't really a lot of strategy in the gameplay here, or even luck. It's just about figuring out how the upgrade system works and going for the better ones when they drop when they do. This made me go from elation of a cool game idea to 'well i guess i figured it out then' way too early.

I unlocked about half of the modifiers, none of the weapons, and none of the secrets or secret endings. But I can't see myself really grinding this because I will just get rat after rat and increase my damage dealing abilities. Compared to other 'rogue-runner' games going for some similar of turning a traditional game into this sort of thing, it just doesn't feel like there is enough incentive to really continue to explore the game that I feel would be rewarded for it.

In more than a year of very casual playing, I had never made it past the 6th floor. This morning, I played 5 playthroughs and on the 5th, I made it to 12th floor and killed the White King.

A fun turn-based strategy game following a unique idea. Chess but you just play a king with a gun. You play 12 floors or games of chess, each one more difficult than the last. Every floor you gain one advantage and disadvantage that you carry to the next floor. It's definitely challenging but selecting the right advantage/disadvantage combo certainly helps.

Works fine on the Deck.