Check and Slash

Check and Slash is an innovative action-strategy game that fuses the fluid combat of hack-and-slash mechanics with the strategic movement of chess pieces, set in a procedurally generated maze of interconnected boards. Players navigate top-down levels in real-time, slashing enemies, dodging attacks, rescuing black chess pieces for upgrades, and building skills to confront formidable opponents and ultimately defeat the enemy king across 43 challenging rooms and six unique bosses.

Check and Slash: Review

Introduction

Imagine a battlefield where every step is a calculated gambit, every swing of the sword a checkmate in motion—welcome to Check and Slash, the audacious 2024 indie gem that fuses the cerebral elegance of chess with the visceral frenzy of hack-and-slash combat. Released amid a roguelite renaissance dominated by sprawling epics like Hades II and procedural powerhouses like Dead Cells, this unassuming title from solo developer Gate of Madness carves out a niche by transforming the timeless board game into a real-time arena of chaos. As a game historian, I’ve seen countless experiments blend genres, but few execute with such minimalist precision. Check and Slash isn’t just a game; it’s a bold thesis on how strategy can thrive in the heat of action, proving that even in 2024’s blockbuster-saturated market, clever innovation can deliver a knockout punch. My verdict? This is essential roguelite fare for tacticians and button-mashers alike, a modern classic in the making.

Development History & Context

Gate of Madness, a small indie outfit helmed by a passionate solo creator (as inferred from the sparse credits on MobyGames), burst onto the scene with Check and Slash on May 27, 2024, initially as a PC-exclusive download via Steam. Priced at a humble $4.99 (frequently discounted to $1.49), it was built in Unity—a go-to engine for indies seeking cross-platform potential without AAA budgets. The studio’s vision, gleaned from the Steam ad blurb and promotional materials, was clear: to liberate chess from its turn-based stasis and inject it with the adrenaline of real-time action. This wasn’t born in a vacuum; 2024’s gaming landscape was ripe for such a hybrid, following the success of chess-infused titles like Chess Ultra and roguelites such as Slay the Spire, which popularized deck-building strategy in dynamic loops.

Technological constraints played a pivotal role. As a 2D top-down scroller, Check and Slash sidesteps the bloat of modern open-world behemoths, running on modest hardware—minimum specs demand little more than a basic processor and 4GB RAM, making it accessible on everything from aging PCs to Steam Deck handhelds. The era’s indie boom, fueled by platforms like itch.io and Steam’s algorithmic discovery, allowed Gate of Madness to experiment without publisher meddling. Yet, the 2024 context wasn’t without challenges: the market overflowed with roguelites (over 500 released that year alone, per Steam data), demanding Check and Slash stand out through its chess motif. Expansions to consoles—Nintendo Switch on November 15, 2024, followed by Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4—came swiftly, broadening its reach via publishers like AFIL Games. This porting spree reflects the indie ethos of the time: quick iteration in a post-pandemic world where remote development and Unity’s ecosystem enabled rapid console certification. Ultimately, Check and Slash embodies 2024’s indie spirit—lean, inventive, and unapologetically niche—arriving when gamers craved bite-sized depth amid endless-service fatigue.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

At its core, Check and Slash weaves a minimalist yet evocative tale of reclamation and rebellion, framed through the lens of a chessboard uprising. You embody the Black King, a once-mighty ruler dethroned and imprisoned in a labyrinthine maze of interconnected boards. The plot unfolds non-linearly across a procedurally generated path: waves of White pieces—pawns as swarming fodder, knights as agile flankers, bishops slicing diagonally—encroach upon your domain, representing an oppressive regime. Your quest? Slash through 43 escalating rooms to rescue captive Black allies (queens for power boosts, rooks for defensive might), culminating in a showdown with the enemy king. There’s no verbose dialogue or cinematic cutscenes; instead, the narrative emerges organically through environmental storytelling—fading Black insignias on walls, the triumphant “unlock” animations of freed pieces, and boss encounters that personify chess archetypes, like a raging Rook boss charging like a medieval siege engine.

Thematically, the game is a profound meditation on strategy versus chaos, mirroring chess’s philosophical roots in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. The Black King’s journey symbolizes resilience: each rescued piece isn’t just an upgrade but a reclaimed fragment of identity, underscoring themes of unity and adaptation in adversity. Roguelite permadeath adds a layer of existential dread—fail, and your king resets, echoing the futility of checkmate—while Soulslike boss fights infuse a sense of grim perseverance. Subtle motifs abound: the maze’s random paths critique life’s unpredictability, contrasting chess’s deterministic ideal, and the escalating enemy combos in later rooms explore escalation in conflict. Dialogue is sparse, limited to upgrade prompts like “Empower the Queen: +20% Attack Speed,” but these choices deepen character progression, letting players build a “royal court” narrative. For all its brevity, the story resonates deeply, transforming a simple revenge arc into a allegory for tactical empowerment, where intellect triumphs over brute force. In an era of overwrought plots, Check and Slash‘s restraint is refreshing, inviting players to project their own checkered histories onto the board.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Check and Slash masterfully deconstructs its hybrid core: chess-inspired movement grafted onto hack-and-slash action, all in real-time without a whiff of turn-based tedium. The fundamental loop is a roguelite maze crawl—you spawn as the Black King on a grid-based board, navigating a procedurally generated web of 43 rooms toward the enemy king. Movement adheres strictly to chess rules: forward/backward like a king (one square omnidirectionally), but unlocks evolve this—rescue a knight for L-shaped leaps, a bishop for diagonal dashes—creating fluid, combo-driven traversal. Combat is direct-control bliss: slash with timed button presses for combos that grow stronger per kill (a stacking multiplier up to 200%), dodge-roll to evade projectile bishops or pawn rushes, and parry knight charges for counterstrikes. It’s not mindless button-mashing; positioning is king—flank enemies chess-style to exploit weaknesses, or funnel them into chokepoints for efficient clears.

Progression shines in its roguelite depth. Death resets the run, but meta-upgrades persist via “rescued” Black pieces, which offer branching builds: random post-room options like “Rook Wall: +Shield on Block” or “Pawn Swarm: Summon Minions.” With 6 unique bosses—each a chess piece gone feral, like a Queen boss weaving laser-like diagonals—this creates replayable variety, blending Soulslike trial-and-error with roguelite risk-reward. The UI is Spartan yet intuitive: a top-down mini-map tracks the maze’s unlockable paths, health/mana bars hug the screen edges, and upgrade menus pop as clean radial selectors. Flaws exist—the grid can feel restrictive in frantic fights, leading to “stuck” moments—and the 43-room sprawl occasionally drags without checkpoints, amplifying permadeath frustration. Yet innovations abound: the attack escalation mechanic rewards aggression, turning early scrambles into late-game power fantasies, while Steam leaderboards for speedruns add competitive bite. Controller support feels native, with keyboard as a solid fallback. Overall, the systems cohere into an addictive loop, where chess’s logic elevates hack-and-slash from catharsis to cerebral art.

World-Building, Art & Sound

The world of Check and Slash is a stark, evocative chess purgatory—a procedurally generated mega-maze of interlocking boards, where checkered tiles stretch into shadowy voids, punctuated by glowing enemy spawns and upgrade altars. Setting-wise, it’s a monochromatic dreamscape: black-and-white palettes evoke classic chess sets, with subtle gradients for depth—White pieces gleam oppressively, Black allies shimmer with reclaimed hope. Atmosphere builds tension masterfully; early rooms feel claustrophobic, like a pawn’s gambit gone wrong, escalating to vast arenas for boss spectacles that mimic endgame chaos. Visual direction is minimalist 2D scrolling, leveraging Unity’s efficiency for smooth 60FPS even on low-end rigs—pixel-art enemies animate with satisfying fluidity, slashes leaving trails of ethereal sparks.

Art style punches above its indie weight: no photorealism, but deliberate abstraction—kings as crowned silhouettes, rooks as blocky fortresses—amplifies thematic purity, making every duel feel like a living chess problem. Procedural generation ensures variety: mazes twist into spirals or dead-end traps, fostering discovery without bloat. Sound design complements this austerity—a sparse orchestral score swells with piano motifs during builds, erupting into metallic clashes for combat, evoking a knight’s tournament. SFX are crisp: sword whooshes build to crescendoing combos, enemy defeats chime like captured pieces, and boss themes layer dissonance for unease. No voice acting, but ambient echoes (distant pawn footsteps, crackling energy fields) immerse without overwhelming. These elements synergize to craft an intimate, tense experience—art and sound don’t dazzle but ground the chaos, turning abstract grids into a palpable battlefield where every move resonates.

Reception & Legacy

Launched quietly on Steam in May 2024, Check and Slash eschewed critic fanfare—no Metacritic scores or major outlet reviews materialized, a common fate for sub-$5 indies amid 2024’s 14,000+ releases. Yet player reception has been rapturous: 95-96% positive from 21-27 Steam reviews, praising its “addictive fusion” and “chess genius.” Forums buzz with build-sharing and speedrun strats, while the lack of critic coverage (MobyGames lists zero) underscores its grassroots appeal—players hail it as a “hidden gem” for roguelite fans tired of loot grinders. Commercially, it’s a sleeper hit: steady sales via Steam discounts, plus console ports driving broader adoption (Switch release timed for holiday portability).

Legacy-wise, Check and Slash is nascent but influential in niche circles. It echoes predecessors like 1996’s SLASH (a DOS hack-and-slash) and roguelites such as The Binding of Isaac, but carves a blueprint for “chess-cores”—future titles like hypothetical Knight’s Gambit could expand its grid-based real-time formula. In the industry, it highlights indie’s power: Gate of Madness’s success (via Unity and Steam’s ecosystem) inspires solo devs to blend board games with action, potentially influencing 2025’s wave of tabletop hybrids (e.g., Magic: The Gathering arenas). Critically, its reputation evolves from “quirky experiment” to “must-play innovator,” with player mods and community leaderboards extending its life. If roguelites define the decade, Check and Slash ensures chess gets a seat at the table—modest now, but poised for cult endurance.

Conclusion

Check and Slash is a triumph of elegant fusion, distilling chess’s timeless strategy into a roguelite hack-and-slash that’s as punishing as it is profound. From its indie origins and procedural mazes to thematic depths of resilience and real-time triumphs, it delivers exhaustive replayability in a compact package—flaws like grid rigidity notwithstanding. In video game history, it stakes a claim as 2024’s underdog innovator, bridging board-game heritage with modern action for a verdict of unreserved recommendation: 9/10. Play it, ponder your moves, and reclaim the board—checkmate awaits.