Chogue is a little bit Chess (for movement) and a little bit Rogue (for combat and dungeon layouts). Which can make for some nasty surprises for your vulnerable King.
Chogue sends you down into some checkerboard labyrinths, with danger lying just out of your line of sight. Maybe you could send your Rook down a corridor to see what’s all the way down the end of that hallway? Or just have a Pawn slowly creep its way into the room so you don’t lose anyone valuable to the Bishop that could be waiting just out of sight (and at an angle to your entry). The pieces all move exactly as they do in Chess, except you have the added problem of not being able to see where your opponents might be lurking.
This makes for a huge change to how Chess plays, resulting in a tense, stressful roguelike where you might put yourself in danger without knowing it. Not that I don’t do that to myself constantly when playing Chess, but I can at least see where the pieces are in that game. Here, you might blunder into a bunch of Knights all conveniently in an L-shape away from you. And every piece you lose brings you that much closer to doom.
Chogue makes for a clever mingling of the two games and their play styles, resulting in a puzzle game both stressful and satisfying. They seem to build on each other in oddly natural ways that you should definitely experience for yourself.
Chogue is available now on the App Store, Google Play, and the developer’s site.
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