Simulchess Prototype
Who is the enemy that will move next? Try to predict your opponent's movements and counter with your own in Simulchess, the chess game where moves are resolved simultaneously!
This is a two-player game. Grab a friend!
HOW TO PLAY:
- Use the mouse to click and select your unit, then click where you would like them to move.
- Pass control over to your opponent, and don't look at the screen while they make their move!
- Watch how the pieces move simultaneously and resolve.
- Defeat your opponent's King to win.
- Press R to restart the game. On Windows, Escape closes the game and F11 toggles fullscreen.
JAM THEME
Who is the enemy?
This prototype was made in 3 hours for TriJam 51. While in normal chess moves are resolved turn-by-turn, so you can analyze exactly what your opponent did before you make your move, in Simulchess both players choose their next move before either is made, so that they resolve at the same time.
You must use your intuition to determine your opponent's next move and react accordingly. Think they're about to take your bishop? Move them out of the way so they swipe at nothing! Think they're going to reposition their queen near your troops to threaten your king? Move your pawn to that same location so they both destroy each other!
All assets (art, music, and sound effects) were made by me in the 3 hours using GameMaker Studio 2, FL Studio, and sfxr.
MISSING FEATURES
As this game was made in under 3 hours, it is very basic and merely a prototype. It is missing the ability to en passant, castle, and there is no feature to check or properly checkmate your opponent. Instead, you simply take your opponent's king.
I also feel like while this idea of simultaneously-resolved chess has intriguing potential (it's been on my mind for years), this version needs work. Perhaps being able to "attack" your own troops that you expect to be taken, so that when your opponent takes the troop, your troop immediately takes that attacking troop in response.
Or perhaps this game, while sharing the overall rules and movesets of chess, is so fundamentally different from chess in its basic strategy, and I'm just not conceiving the game strategy correctly. This game is truly about predicting your opponent's immediate next move almost exactly, so that you can take the troop in mutual destruction.
Download
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Comments
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I have to laugh. I managed to move the white King and a black Rook into the same space, leading to a win for Black! I didn't expect to be able to move a King into Check.
Yeah haha... It's a very rough, dumb 3 hour prototype without any real checks beyond basic movement, there's a lot about the design that should be changed and iterated on.
I also think I should change it so when two pieces move to take each other, they both die. I tried having pieces take each other when they collide at any point during their movements, and there's still potential there, but I think this might be a better way to push the design forward.
Now that I've had a few days away from it... I think a big improvement to the game design might be made if I changed it so when you put your opponent into check, they then get a "free turn" to stop the check (under normal check rules). This would avoid the king-queen chasing and endless ties I keep having in my own tests, or the queen mopping up your pieces while you move your king as you would lose otherwise. Essentially making checks resolve like normal turn-based chess for a round. If a check-feature was implemented in this game without that change, the game would be much worse, as you'd have to block your king, move your king, or attempt to take the threatening piece, while the other piece safely killed everything else on your field.
It would be a fair more work of course, but I think that change could really improve the game, actually...
As soon as the game started, I tried to get my "mouse over blips" to match with the tempo of the background music.