Sidekick Publishing and Stray Fawn have rolled out Gambonanza worldwide today. The solo-developed roguelike chess project from Blukulélé is now available on Android, along with Steam and iOS.
Each run in Gambonanza offers modifiers called Gambits. There are over 150 of these in the game, and they draw inspiration from real-life and fictional chess players. Examples include the ROOOOOOK’s Gambit from GothamChess and Beth’s Gambit, inspired by The Queen’s Gambit Netflix series.
There’s also Hyper Bullet’s Gambit from Andrew Tang aka PenguinGM1. In this one, players have around 30–15 seconds for an entire game. Anna’s Family Gambit is also part of the features, referencing Anna Cramling.
Gambonanza doesn’t have the usual 64-square board
Matches often unfold on boards that are roughly half that size or even smaller. The objective also shifts away from the traditional checkmate goal. Here, your goal is to capture every opposing piece. Gambonanza doesn’t expect players to come in as chess experts.
Gambits can supercharge specific pieces or force enemies to skip turns. Meanwhile, you can modify the board with elements like golden squares, blessing tiles and protective surfaces that alter positioning strategies.
There’s also a reserve system that sits outside the board. It lets you store extra pieces and deploy them at key moments to swing the outcome of a match. There are boss fights which punish sloppy planning and reward builds that make full use of the available systems.
Gambonanza also offers mini-games inspired by pachinko, slot machines and Gachapon to offer boosts. Visually, it goes for a bright pixel art style layered with a CRT filter, giving everything a retro feel. Take a look at it below.
Check out Gambonanza on the Google Play Store.
And be sure to read our scoop on another new release, The Rhymatory, a Whimsical Rhyming Word Game.
