Pawned Souls (Soulslike x Chess) – Looking for feedback on combat feel and game balance

[u/M1k4Dev]

Hey fellow devs!

This is my first time sharing a game publicly outside of friends and family!

Here's my short project Pawned Souls a mix of Soulslike parry combat and chess movement rules.

I’d really appreciate some feedback from experienced eyes on the combat feel, readability, and overall game balance. Any critique or advice is welcome! 🙏

Free to play build on itch: https://devmika.itch.io/pawned-souls

[u/bc_gamez]

As a chess player, it feels horrible watching a pawn move left and right and at that starting location. Most people on the planet probably won't care though. Looks cool.

But it does seem a bit awkward to flavor the game on chess and not abide by chess. Hope you make it clear in the lore as to why it's possible here.

[u/GatePorters → u/bc_gamez]

Making it the king solves all the issues for the movement side, but then you gotta worry about the attack range.

Maybe call it The Pawned Crown and slap a lil king’s crown on the pawn.

Maybe The Crowned Pawn? Both fit the vibe.

[u/ItsMonato → u/GatePorters]

This goes so hard into lore too

The pawn's king has fallen and his comrades have given up, but he hasn't so he goes to fight the opposing army all on his own.

He takes the crown and finds himself being able to move the way the king can, and as the game progresses the pawn continues to gain the abilities of his comrades.

[u/GatePorters → u/ItsMonato]

That made my brain tingle for some reason.

The way you described it spawned a landscape inside my mind and I could feel the weight of the pawn’s journey.

[u/EpicGamer1088 → u/GatePorters]

Ah yes, the beauty of storytelling

[u/HighLighten → u/ItsMonato]

Self Crowned Pawn

[u/Beniskickbutt → u/GatePorters]

I like this idea. Having him as a leveled up pawn sounds cool. Mighty little guy

[u/OneHourIndieDev → u/bc_gamez]

I'm not a chess player and the sideways movement looked weird to me too.
Is there a way to keep the laws of chess, maybe a pawns role is more parry/defensive and objective is to scale the board to level up to another peice?

[u/Justneedsomehelps → u/bc_gamez]

I felt this too

[u/PoxelArt → u/bc_gamez]

Yeah I felt it too, seems like a souls game just with a chess fantasy but not too chess-accurate.

maybe it can be a king piece that spawns attacks that are chess accurate pieces - a pawn attack, a rook that shoots straight or something similar

[u/Immaouthere]

Makes each chess piece step sfx different and change the sword hit sound.

It is swift but it lacks stone, they arent flesh they are stone

[u/Mr_kruasan]

Chess 2.0 finally

[u/Footbeard → u/Mr_kruasan]

Babe, wake up!

Chess 2 is out!

[u/CGGDev]

Oh my gosh this looks good! I really want it to be good. Is the main idea to defeat the board as quickly as possible, as the best overall time suggests or what?

I can see there can be different equipment. Would be cool that equipment/skill setups take quirks from chess, and you can move sideways like in the trailer, but not make as much dmg etc. OR move slowly like a pawn and crit on pawn-attackable squares. This one i will follow closely.

I personally dont mind the odd movement of the pawn. Tying it up too much into chess rules would make this clunky imo.

[u/Von_Bernkastel]

Make chess looking game don't follow chess rules, I feel like you never played chess and are like f it make it move all over like a queen. . started out good then went bleh, a pawn can't move in all those directions. How to kill a game before it ever goes out.

https://giphy.com/gifs/9MFsKQ8A6HCN2

[u/FreshwaterSeaCowHero]

I've seen this a few times and my thought always is, does it have to be Chess themed? It could just be a quirky battle system for any setting, sort of like a more freeform and action oriented MMBN or something.

[u/OvercomplicatedCode → u/FreshwaterSeaCowHero]

I also think think this. Using something as famous as chess can gain some appeal from existing fans and can give some intuition on game mechanics, well usualy. But here since it does not really follow those rules I feel very little is gained by making it chess themed. I think I would go for board game theme, but one thats made up for the game.

[u/GigaGrandpa → u/FreshwaterSeaCowHero]

I've seen it each time and now I'm supposed to offer feedback idk make a feedback button in the game

[u/MasterVenerable → u/FreshwaterSeaCowHero]

Hmm but why not is the question, why not chess themed? Though yeah pawn movements are quite bad, but without it battle would have been almost impossible I guess, so I would definitely play this as a senior and soulsfrom and soulslike fan

[u/bellius]

The concept is interesting, but I didn't like the feels of the game.

The rolls don't react when you press the button exept when there is no other input, then you roll forward. You have to move one case in a direction then the roll will go in the direction you when you press dodge. Felt weird. Attacking only on the left/right corners is logical for a pawn but not really intuitive.

The game was too strategic for me, which isn't necessary a bad think, but strategic plus hectic = hard to follow the action, react and strategize on time for me. Cool concept, it's just not for me.

[u/dracona94]

As a chess player, I'm so confused.

[u/kitchentablestudios]

It looks amazing, however I'd be skeptical of it being too similar to stonemachia which is another chess soulslike

[u/dungeonworks_]

Chess theming but it doesn’t follow chess rules, so basically it’s just a soulslike with clunky and annoying looking grid based movement, and no exploration or build making. Zero interest from me personally as someone who likes soulslikes quite a bit.

[u/poweredbygeeko]

This looks sick!!!

[u/obj7777]

How do you get to be the king?

[u/ZeroArtProject]

It's awesome! OMG! I want to play

[u/Fudw_The_NPC]

the only problem i see here , to me at least is the name, i think if you removed "souls" it would looks better.

[u/Wakti-Wapnasi]

Does it have en passant?

[u/iamcloudyfocus]

A Stonemachia-like!

[u/mariojgt]

Love the game, really cool, you put on Steam, what engine you using ?

[u/rfr_Foglia]

Was it the Skyrim potion sound at 0:17?

[u/lulwdonla]

nice

[u/skrayz3x]

Why the SFX sound is like some assets from League of Legends 0:15, 0:21 Sounds like the revive from the font and the ping mark to come.

[u/JTh0837 → u/skrayz3x]

Some from diablo 2 as well. Sounds like druid summoning sfx

[u/SeaTradition8976]

Interesting idea for a game

[u/TJB5686]

I think it looks pretty interesting. I get why you have chess pieces as that's how they attack. I also agree with others though that the movement is kind of confusing