Part 5 (Jul 2026) · #6 of 10 in that tierWatch the moment (0:19:12)
Below the Crown
- Developed by
- Misfits Attic
- Published by
- Misfits Attic, Shochiku
$14.99
Explore the dungeons Below the Crown, in this love letter to Roguelikes, Dungeon Crawlers, and Chess. Prepare for strategy, game-changing spells, psychological tests, and challenges from your fellow players. From the award-winning creators of Duskers & A Virus Named TOM.
Consensus
B72.1/100
Steam players94.5% positiveVery Positive109 reviews
VG Insights estimate ↗≈4.4K copies · ≈$38.5K gross
What creators say
What players say
A chess-flavoured roguelike puzzle/dungeon crawler from Misfits Attic (Duskers, A Virus Named TOM) where you control a wizard-king, summon and upgrade chess-style pieces, and clear room-sized tactical puzzles.
Players are very positive: Steam shows Very Positive at roughly 94-96 percent across about 110 reviews (103 positive, 6 negative in the local snapshot). It entered Early Access on Nov 10, 2025 and reached 1.0 on Apr 21, 2026 at $14.99, Windows only. The one critic review found (GameGrin, 80/100 or 8/10) calls it creative and fairly balanced but more of a side-activity puzzler than something for long sessions. It is a small, niche title with thin critic coverage, so most of the signal is Steam user reviews. Early Linux crashes and some puzzle-state bugs were reported and at least the Linux crash was later reported fixed.
Players love
- Approachable even for people who are bad at or indifferent to chess: moves are explained, and a danger-tile button shows which squares are threatened
- Fair, well-designed puzzles: failures usually feel like your own mistake rather than cheap unfairness (echoed by reviewers and players)
- Fresh take on chess roguelikes: you start with no pieces, must move the wizard before placing pieces or casting spells, forcing long-term planning instead of just building an overpowered board
- Pieces stay mostly standard with a few restrictive variants, so the game feels 'not too chess but enough chess', with spells, hazard tiles and non-chess pieces adding variety
- Retro neon vector/scanline presentation, hum of old electronics and a tense-but-relaxing atmosphere inherited from Duskers
- Daily challenge leaderboards, shareable replays and community challenges give short-session replayability
- Short runs that can be resumed anytime and multiple win conditions (capture everything or checkmate, board shrinks over time) keep pace brisk
- Interesting meta layer: odd psychological-assessment questionnaires and a mysterious emperor narrative that some compare to Inscryption
Common complaints
- Some players find it shallow or just 'worse than playing chess with generic roguelike mechanics bolted on' (mostly short-playtime negative reviews)
- Technical problems at launch/EA: a Linux crash with heavy memory use, invalid game states, a hopper capture not ending a level, a boss turn that would not end, and achievement tracking glitches
- Board can feel chaotic once more than about five pieces are in play
- Performance issues mentioned in an early negative review
- No mid-puzzle restart: failing means leaving the room without bonuses or upgrades (per GameGrin)
- Minimal animation; the presentation is stylish but sparse
- Narrative is light, especially in the early access build
Can feel tedious
- Losing a room means losing the run's upgrades from that room with no mid-puzzle restart
- Crowded boards with many pieces can become hard to read and calculate
- Some situations are perceived as unfair, particularly at the highest difficulty
- Players who dislike chess-like thinking find the core loop not engaging
- Not a game for long single sittings; better as a second-monitor or between-chores game
What's unique
- You are a wizard who starts each level with zero pieces and summons them within the wizard's line of sight, unlike drop-anywhere chess roguelikes such as The Rookery
- Shrinking board and alternative win conditions remove the need to actually orchestrate a checkmate
- Psychological-test questionnaires interleaved with play that affect the runs
- Undo tokens, a good-move hint and saved/shared replays make it puzzle-forward and forgiving
- Dungeon-crawler framing with RPG-style piece upgrades and spells layered on real chess tactics (forks, pins, skewers)
Players want
- Controller support was requested on Steam discussions
- A campaign mode built around the Hopper King character was suggested
- A way to restart a puzzle mid-room without forfeiting rewards
- Bug fixes for stuck boss turns, level-completion triggers and achievements
- More depth or content so it holds attention beyond short sessions
- Linux stability: early Linux crash with heavy memory use (reported fixed later), although the store page lists Windows only
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
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Tier list Part 5 (2026)
Below the Crown is a small, strategy-focused chess roguelike where you command a wizard who summons pieces onto a board inside dungeons. He feels it is the first chess roguelike that truly captures real chess, since good chess play matters more than wild mechanics. Roguelike elements are tiny per-encounter boosts that never overshadow the core chess thinking. He admits he would not play it a lot himself and it may feel repetitive, but he recommends it to chess fans and places it at high B.
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