Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate

I learned to play chess thanks to this game. I got really good at it too !
For some reason whenever I play with friends they keep screaming at me that they'll "call the police" and that "you're not supposed to shoot your opponent in the face with a 12 gauge to win !".
Idiots. I know the rules.

It's weird, but plays so well, as if chess and guns were made for each other. It's one of those games, where you play hundrets of rounds and still find something new or unexpected. One of this titles that made you think "Only one more try... oh it is 3am already?" for more than just a few evenings.

Chess-themed roguelite. Good fun as is, but the higher difficulties show the roughness of its edges.
The game's main appeal is the variety of different upgrades you and the AI can get, in the form of cards that you get to choose after each floor. Different combinations of cards will unlock even more cards you can randomly get, and maybe even lead to special secret floors and encounters. Plenty of achievements to hunt for, even if a lot of them are very situational. The gameplay has many RNG elements to it: the cards you get to choose from are RNG, whether you'll get a good shot or not is RNG, and whether a pawn will promote to a good or bad piece is RNG. On single-digit difficulties, this isn't a problem, because you can plan and work around all the RNG with some good strategic thinking, and if you die, it always feels like there's something you could have done better.
As you go up the difficulties, this eventually stops being the case. For me, rank 15 is where the game stopped being fun. It becomes very obvious that some cards are so much better than others, and all that variety and the prospect of interesting different combinations go out the window, because you either get good cards, or you lose. You can't really expect a game that focuses on variety to be balanced, but some cards are just straight up run-enders, i.e. Sokoban. A common suggestion to the developer is to increase your upgrade choices to 3, but that's just a workaround that doesn't address the fundamental problem. I also hate the fact that you can no longer reliably kill a 4-hp piece diagonally adjacent to you if you have 4 power: you'll get the kill only about 80% of the time, and you'll often have no choice but to go for it. Some re-balancing is required. Thankfully, there's word of a content update coming later this year, which might hopefully fix some of the issues.
There's also Chase Mode, a separate gameplay score-attack survival mode that I particularly enjoy, with pieces coming at you from all four directions. Chase mode only takes a short while to play, and it's fun to try to beat your own high score, so it's a good way to kill some quick time.

Thanks to this game I realized that chess really needed a shotgun. Perfect game for Steam Deck – fun, short, replayable and only 100 Mb in size

This is the most beautiful chesslike game I ever played. Balanced enough, regularly updated. I still wait for diagonal shield`s trigger bugfix :)

If you like chess, this game is for you. A fresh take on the game to the point of not being chess, but still has some of the bones. It was a truly addicting game. I highly recommend. Works great on Steam Deck and 64 bit Intel MacOS as well.

Unlike so-called "Auto Chess" games, this game can actually teach you proper chess. The white said plays normal chess, and the black side has a shotgun. Roguelike elements add variety, but don't detract from the sheer joy of meatshotting the king.