We’re building Arcane Gambit, a turn-based tactical game that merges chess strategy with deck-building card game mechanics — with a small roamable hub between battles.

The Core Concept

The idea is simple: play cards to summon chess pieces onto a grid battlefield. Pieces keep their familiar movement rules (pawns advance, knights leap, rooks slide, etc.), but captures aren’t instant — everything has HP and attack, so fights play out over a few turns.

Combat is adjacency-based: when enemies are next to each other, they can attack. That turns “classic chess positioning” into a real resource puzzle: when do you commit, when do you hold energy, and when do you trade?

And because we can’t help ourselves, the board isn’t always perfectly clean: tiles can generate with elevation and obstacles, and we’re already testing terrain cards that can reshape the battlefield mid-match.

What We’ve Built So Far

The prototype is already playable end-to-end: you enter a match, place pieces via cards, spend energy to act, and try to take the enemy King.

Right now we’ve got:

  • Turn-based match flow (player vs AI) with king placement, card play, movement, and adjacent attacks
  • Per-turn energy (in-match) (currently 3) used for card plays and movement
  • Creature cards for classic pieces (Pawn/Knight/Bishop/Rook/Queen/King) using chess movement rules
  • Spell cards (Magic Missile, Reinforce, Draw Two, Blink)
  • Terrain cards (Rise/Sink today; hooks exist for fire/clearing obstacles)
  • A heuristic AI that plays a card, then chooses a scored move, then chooses a scored attack
  • Summoning sickness so new pieces can’t immediately act

What a match looks like right now

If you want the current “rules as implemented” view:

  • Matches generate a 5×5 board (small for now). Tiles can roll random elevation (risen/sunken) and obstacles.
  • The first hand is King-only: you place yours first, then the AI places theirs.
  • Creature placement is restricted to spawn zones: your first two rows vs the AI’s last two rows.
  • After you successfully play a card (or hit Skip Phase), you can select a piece to move and/or attack.
  • Movement costs energy, and pieces have different movement costs (pawns are cheap, kings are expensive).
  • Attacks are adjacent. If a King dies, the match ends immediately.

One important “prototype reality” note: Kings currently have very low HP (set to 1 in deck initialization) so matches resolve fast while we iterate.

The Three-Person Team

It’s a three-person project, with each of us covering a different lane:

  • Alex (Core Systems): match rules/flow, architecture, gameplay mechanics
  • Amanda (UI/UX): screens, card presentation, HUD, feedback
  • Mike (3D Art): modeling, animation, VFX

What’s Next

We’re deep into the gameplay loop from start to win/loss. The foundation is solid, but there’s a lot to flesh out and wire together:

  • Wire rewards into the end-of-match flow (we already have a currency + difficulty system scaffolded; it just needs to be connected)
  • Make the shop “real”: inventory generation exists, but purchases still need currency deductions + actually adding cards/upgrades to your deck
  • More cards and deeper deckbuilding: additional spells, terrain interactions, and upgrades
  • More enemies: elites/bosses and more varied AI behaviors
  • Overworld pressure: the day timer, fragment fees, and world transitions (light/dark) are in progress and will define the roguelike pacing

There’s more we want to do, but we’re deliberately keeping scope tight until the core loop feels great.

Why This Game?

We love games that combine deep strategy with quick, iterative gameplay. Chess is timeless but can feel rigid. Deck-builders offer creativity and adaptation. By merging these genres, we’re aiming for something that’s:

  • Tactically deep but approachable
  • Endlessly replayable through roguelike structure
  • Satisfying in both short bursts and longer sessions

This blog will chronicle our journey from prototype to polished game. We’ll share technical insights, design decisions, stumbling blocks, and victories along the way.