Checkmage!

Battles play out on a chessboard, but this is not the chess you learned in school. Each opponent has their own strategy and their own way of bending the rules, and every fight is a puzzle: figure out what they are doing, then build a deck that beats it. Normal chess pieces exist too, if you would rather keep things classic. Losing has almost no cost, you just restart the match and edit your deck, and if chess is not your strong suit, the game can warn you before you make a blunder.

There are more than 100 unique pieces, tiles and spells to collect, and mixing them is where the fun lives. A sniper piece that hits across the board and teleports back. A deck that pulls the board apart and lets you fly across the gaps. Combos like these emerge from experimenting, and finding a new way to take down a tough opponent is the best part of a run.

You start small and grow: trade cards with characters, win pieces from them, and keep shaping a deck that fits how you like to play. Rematch opponents later in the game and their strategies and loadouts improve with you, so old rivals stay interesting. If you want a specific piece, there is a pit of trials near the start of the game where you can farm for it. And for something harsher, an optional dungeon gauntlet pits you against randomly generated opponents, so no two runs through it play out the same.