Chess of Mana

I'm a fan of chess, even though I'm not very good at it. When I first saw this game in the demo, it reminded me of Battle Chess, which I used to play when I was young. So, I'm really excited to play this game, hoping things will be better on release. Sadly, it didn’t meet my expectations. - The AI isn’t very smart. Even on hard difficulty, it often makes mistakes, like letting me capture a piece for no reason. Maybe the game focuses too much on the “resurrection” mechanic, so the AI doesn’t value pieces properly? On hard difficulty, it feels like easy/normal in most other chess games. - The battle animations aren’t very interesting. Each piece seems to have only one animation that repeats every time. In Battle Chess, every piece had unique fight animations depending on the matchup. Sometimes I would even try to capture a specific piece just to see the animation. - The mana mechanic doesn’t add much depth. It feels more like a softer version of an “undo” button rather than a feature that changes the strategy. I think it needs something more unique to stand out from regular chess. For example, maybe a magic attack that allows a piece to capture without moving onto the destination…

Yes, the AI sucks a little. In fact, I'm still pissed off at the fact that the very first match that I played, the AI stopped responding after I checkmate it. So, the game got stuck and nothing was working (because the AI wasn't admiting defeat) and eventually, I had to leave the game which counted as MY LOSS... *smh* Well, other than the fact that it legit will try to ragebait you. The game for what it's worth, IS FUN TO PLAY. Especially, the mana version. PS: I don't know why but the achivements aren't in english. So, that's an issue for me as well.

When they say this isn't grandma's chess they mean it. It has a lot of exciting stuff to it think of it as battle chess, but with more unique sides. You get to pick 2 modes. The free mode allows you to start from scratch and make move-by-move decisions, the other mode allows you to basically join an already in progress game. In single player you have 3 difficulty levels, easy, normal and hard. But there's 2 different modes of chess to choose from too. You can choose a mana mode which allows you to revive pieces that fell in battle, or you can choose classic mode, which is normal chess mode. You can pick the celtics (white) or the orcs (black) speaking as a chess player, I found it to be fun and engaging. It unlocks achievements and I'd recommend this for chess players because besides the unique modes there is the option to play with friends, and you have a multiplayer option as well. There's certain points where the game will zoom in on the take down of a piece. Giving you a clearer look at the action.

I really love the game. Chess o Mana respects the foundations of classic chess while adding meaningful innovation. It’s visually polished, strategically deep, and surprisingly addictive!

Decent rendition of chess, feels inspired by Battle Chess from the DOS days. Pawns (at least for Celts) have an animation that indicate if they are being pressured. Pixel art is pretty good. Game seems to run smoothly. However, there are some pretty glaring bugs that we've ran into: -Multiplayer mode and Timed Chess are currently non-functioning in game. -Mana mode doesn't really supply a huge change to the game. It might be fun to see a few more options as far as spells go, currently it seems like you can only revive a captured piece. -Inviting friends to a game is finicky, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't do anything. Once dropped both of us into a game that didn't connect to the other player. -We ran into one synchronization error where opponent promoted pawn to Queen, but on my end, the pawn was promoted to a rook. Opponents following move was impossible to make for a rook, and never registered on my end. -AI seems a little simplistic and easy to beat. -If you aren't playing white (Celts), pieces are not on your side of the board. -No way to rotate board. -There doesn't seem to be a log of the notation anywhere. Would love to see the following improvements (in ad…

Yes and no. Sprites are nice but completely lacking in other areas. https://youtu.be/Yhp1JZpyF-o