WizardChess

Developed by: TwoPM Studios
Published by: 2 Left Thumbs

Dec 14, 2024$14.99

What if chess was invented by silly cosmic wizards? WizardChess is a turnbased roguelite where all the pieces have insane abilities that came to us in a shamanic vision. Fight chaotic-yet-tactical encounters with magic powers out of a fever dream! Defeat the FaeQueen and Claim Your Wish!

Consensus

D60.9/100

Steam players75.5% positiveMostly Positive94 reviews

VG Insights estimate ↗≈2.8K copies · ≈$24.9K gross

What creators say

PepperHead

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Part 3 (Apr 2025) · #9 of 17 in that tierWatch the moment (3:38:57)

Tier list Part 3 (2025)

Wizard Chess is a turn-based, board-centric roguelike strategy game loosely inspired by chess, made by a small team and now out of early access. You pick a world, build a squad of minions around a king-like player character, and fight through boards. He loves the huge roster of very different units, the big-band jazz soundtrack and the 2D-sprites-in-3D look. The main drawback is pace: one action at a time makes larger boards and some boss fights slow. He calls it a pretty fun B tier and the last game placed in the video.

Liked

Huge roster of unlockable minions that each play drastically differently, giving strong replayability
Every run feels different because of unit variety
Big-band jazz music is a standout, and characters' idle animations feel like dancing to it
2D sprites in a 3D environment look unique and fitting
Higher difficulty on replayed worlds introduces new mechanics rather than just bigger numbers
Fast team-building mode with limited moves or time is a fun, low-commitment extra that still unlocks things
Elemental traits and stat upgrades on units meaningfully change how they play

Disliked

Strictly one-action-at-a-time turns make the game very slow, especially on big boards
Endgame situations can turn into back-and-forth shuffling with a single enemy
Boss fights can be trivial with the right team, or stall for several turns with nothing to do
Cannot choose which units from the roster are present in a fight or where they spawn; it seems random to him
Roguelike elements and run events (shops, events, side quests) are not very deep

What players say

A turn-based tactical roguelite from Australian studio TwoPM Studios where you recruit, upgrade and sacrifice 50+ odd 'chess-like' units on a grid to beat the FaeQueen.

WizardChess is a small, niche indie with a Mostly Positive Steam rating (about 75% of 94 reviews in the local snapshot; the store page fetched showed a higher, Very Positive figure from a smaller sample). Players who like it enjoy the silly tone, jazzy music and the wide variety of weird units. Critics have not covered it: Metacritic shows 'tbd' for both critic and user scores and no OpenCritic entry was found. It left Early Access on Dec 14, 2024 (1.0), and some recent reviewers believe it is no longer being updated. The most common complaint is hidden information and lopsided balance, plus the name, since it has little to do with real chess. Evidence is limited to the Steam review file, Steam store, forum thread titles, dev site, itch.io and Metacritic; sample sizes are small.

Players love

Charming, silly tone and writing, with a fever-dream wizard theme
Unexpectedly jazzy, lighthearted soundtrack that reviewers singled out
Large roster of 50+ distinct units with their own stats and abilities, so encounters feel varied
Distinct, readable pixel units and an easy-to-control camera
Procedurally generated rooms, enemies and rewards vary each run; runs are fairly short (~30 min sessions per the dev's itch.io page)
Recruit/upgrade/sacrifice/trade loop lets players experiment with odd combinations
Steam Deck and full controller support, Steam Cloud and achievements

Common complaints

Much information is hidden: many piece rules and permanent buffs can't be seen until accepted, and temporary buffs/debuffs are not clearly shown
Balance: stacking every buff on one or two mobile units creates an unstoppable mega-unit, making strategy shallow
Runs can start in apparent no-win situations because you don't choose which units enter a round and can be handed weak units (e.g. 0-attack chickens)
Reports of frequent bugs and crashes, including one just before a first final-boss win
UI is clunky; the in-game selector lags behind the mouse cursor, so clicks can land on the wrong square with no misclick protection
Content feels thin to some (one reviewer noted only 3 bosses)
Rewards cannot be rejected, so weaker forced pieces enter the army
Reviewers say it is not meaningfully chess, so the title feels misleading

Can feel tedious

Writing buffs down externally because the game doesn't track them
Required tutorial parts that players say many never finish (one reviewer cited low tutorial completion stats)
Early encounters some feel unwinnable, making runs feel unfair and swingy
Being unable to save and exit mid-run, and the diagnostics prompt reappearing on every return to the title screen
Too many units in Arcade mode was raised as a forum complaint

What's unique

Chess-flavored grid tactics (moving orthogonally/diagonally) but with bizarre wizard units rather than standard pieces
Cards/units are bought and recruited like a deckbuilder, yet play is pure tactics, not a card game
Unit sacrifice and trading as a core progression mechanic
Three stats (ATK, DEF, SKL) with 50+ unit classes and elemental interactions
Whimsical shamanic-vision framing and a light jazzy score, unlike most grim roguelikes
Arcade (quick run) and Story (exploration) modes

Players want

Let players reject or choose rewards (a Steam thread asks this directly)
Show all rules, buffs and temporary effects in tooltips, and keep a visible log of permanent buffs
Cap or rebalance stacking onto a single unit
Add mid-run save and exit (requested in reviews and a Steam thread)
Add misclick protection and fix cursor/selector lag; fix bugs and crashes
Improve the tutorial and make it skippable; clarify vague achievement descriptions; add more bosses; Linux support was also requested

Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.