Checkmate Showdown, the latest offering from Montreal’s independent video game scene, is an ingenious mix of chess and deadly combat, challenging both the brain and the joystick. And if it takes a few matches to get to grips with the numerous controls and understand the concept, we are quickly seduced by the creativity that the developers have injected into it.
In preparation for several years, after preliminary versions completed this summer and a Kickstarter campaign last June which did not have the expected success, Checkmate Showdown is finally entitled to its big launch this Wednesday.
Its creation alone is a fine example of collaboration between independent Montreal studios, the initial idea of BadRez Games benefiting along the way from the expertise of ManaVoid (Rainbow Billy, Roots of Yggdrasil). A total of 12 artisans contributed to it. For publishing, we also rely on Indie Asylum, a collective bringing together around ten studios.
No more presentations, let’s move on to the game itself, available to the general public on Steam this Wednesday. We have before us a blue and gray chess board in titanic settings with its 32 animated pieces. The pawns look like little guardians from Squid Game, each major piece has its own futuristic design with gestures.
As in a classic chess game, we start the game with the strategy that suits us, the pawns as well as the knights, bishops, rooks, kings and queens having their own movement. The game is designed for multiplayer, ideally via Steam Remote Play Together in local mode, but a computer can take over for single-player play.
When a pawn is eaten or eats an opponent, nothing happens. “If the pawns could fight, the games would last too long,” explained Antoine Bordeleau, general manager of Purple is Royal, in an interview this summer, responsible for marketing. When one of the major pieces is involved, the big fun begins and an arena appears.
The attacker has the advantage with his ability to deploy his Ultimate move from the start. Each player has 1000 life points, divided into five large segments. Each piece has its own way of fighting and special techniques, with the knight having an unpredictable ghost, the Queen deploying her scepter like a deadly weapon, the Rook rushing in feet first to stun you. You must block, launch special attacks, can call for assistance from another piece in certain circumstances. The Queen is fast, the King powerful but slow, the Bishop has special diagonal movements. No part is overpowered, the developers having wanted to maintain a balance.
The animations are magnificent, agile and inventive. A game can be completed in less than half an hour, with the remaining pieces invited to a Final Showdown to the death if the timer is exceeded.
The goal, as in real chess, is to beat the King. Chess skill is useful – especially for taking advantage of the offensive advantage – but is not decisive, each hold must then be confirmed by a real fight. The ideal team, explains Antoine Bordeleau, would be made up of a good chess player supported by a “great combat player”. The concept refined by Checkmate Showdown is not completely new, he explains, “very old games on the Amiga” in the 80s having already used this mechanic of pieces on a chessboard meeting in combat. For those in the know, 2004’s Mortal Kombat: Deception added a Chess Kombat mode, “but they weren’t chess pieces, they were based on Mortal Kombat characters.”
With Checkmate Showdown, BadRez and ManaVoid clearly have in their hands a work that can far exceed the success of modest esteem to which independent studios are accustomed. The production is careful and solid, the details have been thought through, and, above all, the developers’ pleasure is contagious. This is not a concept put together on the sly to release a click machine, but a beautiful video game.
A very well spent US$19.99, no doubt.