Wulin Chess
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About the Game
“Wulin Chess” is an enthralling turn-based strategy game seamlessly blending a captivating plot with engaging gameplay. Craft diverse strategies to emerge victorious in the realms of dark arts and intricate storylines. Every move you make will cast unforeseen ripples across the chessboard and the world beyond. In this unfolding narrative, the stage is set for your strategic prowess – the encounter awaits your mastery!
Unique Art Style
The game exudes a Chinese dark martial arts style, distinct from traditional martial arts genres. Robust, tough, and carrying an air of solemnity, it encapsulates the essence of the game’s interpretation of the martial world. Immerse yourself in the ultimate ink painting style, conveying an ancient yet pristine atmosphere.
Cultivate a Roster of Martial Heroes
In the storyline, gather characters (chess pieces) embodying unique martial hero traits, and flexibly assemble your exclusive lineup. Each hero possesses distinctive movement, attack, and skill attributes. Elevate their cultivation levels, choose powerful equipment and items strategically to enhance each character’s formidable combat capabilities.
Fast-paced Combat Experience
In contrast to conventional strategy games, combat in Wulin Chess unfolds at a brisk pace with an elevated strategic complexity. Swiftly confront enemies, challenging your resource management skills for a victorious outcome. Within battles, a unique “position-based attack effect” mechanic has been introduced. Back attacks, side assaults, and pressure formations can inflict increased damage along with special movement effects.
Diverse Mechanics on the Battlefield
Building upon the traditional chessboard mechanics, the game incorporates various terrain elements, introducing obstacles, collisions, rewards, and traps, thereby escalating the difficulty of each battle. Alternatively, with a strategic approach, these elements might serve as unconventional tactics for you to defeat your opponents.
Seamlessly Woven Narrative
The plot and gameplay seamlessly intertwine, as you navigate these characters through each encounter. Along the way, you’ll enlist new allies, confront formidable adversaries, and crucial plot twists will profoundly impact the game, putting your skills to the test on the battlefield.
Game Discussion
Steam User 16
This is a challenging game with a lot of potential, albeit with some rough edges.
Positives:
- An original and well-implemented take on the rogue-like genre
- Great artstyle and music
- Several layers of gameplay depth, ensuring replayability
- Even on "Mild" difficulty seriously challenging and complex
Negatives:
- English translation is severely lacking. Some mechanics will have to be understood through experimentation or trial and error, because the translation simply falls short.
- While the music is great, the sound design leaves much to be desired.
- UI features some imperfections, for example large enemies blocking the view of the squares behind them, making them difficult to target.
The ingredients for a great game are all there, and while the game has some issues, none of them are game-breaking and well within the scope of what can be fixed during Early Access. I think they are already working on a better English translation.
Assuming you are willing to put in a bit of effort to understand the game's UI and functions, I can fully recommend this game. I've been having lots of fun with it.
Steam User 6
I love this game! The art direction is gorgeous, the mechanics are fun, the story ... I usually skip stories in games, but I have been reading every line in this game, though that may be in part due to my love of sketchy translations. I do think new units are a bit costly, but that may be due to my not usually playing this sort of game. Things in the second dungeon went south really fast due to the boss of the first dungeon randomly oneshotting both my hypercarries. But in general, I love this game. I was looking for a roguelike deckbuilder, and this game tricked me into playing a turnbased rpg. And I am not even mad about it. Well, gonna go get rekt again, though hopefully further into the story. Point is, this game is pogged. Try it. Can't hurt.
Steam User 0
Basic mechanics that work very complex together, kind of like chess. Really good so far, I wish I could read the update notes, but there are major updates pretty often. Would recommend as long as you don't mind some english translation issues, and a good amount of difficulty.
Steam User 0
This is a very fun game for anyone looking for a good strategy game. The learning curve is a little steep but once past that this game supplies a good story line with great combat.
Steam User 6
A very stylish turn based strategy game. Interesting heroes, an unusual combat system, this game delighted me and drew me in.
Steam User 0
Really good game.
Turnbased strategy. REally enjoyable. units level up. Lots of tactics.
But its tough: High cost for units that die to come back.
And the lightning monster far too OP.
Still worth it for such a decent price.
Steam User 0
Overall it's a good game:
interesting, deep gameplay
nice, atmospheric music
absolutely awesome graphics
Buuut it has its flaws:
The UI is a mess... it shouldn't be this much of a hassle to make your pieces do what you want them to do...
Most battlefield elements, mainly units in the same row, are standing so close to each other that it sometimes takes some moments more than necessary to precisely point at the one you want to. It slows down the process, and yes I know it's a chess variant and therefore it's expected to be slow... but being slow should only apply to the part where you think/strategize, not the part where you carry out orders.
There's a button for an alternative top-down view on the battlefield where you can see the individual units much better, tell them apart, and tell which is which... but you can't play in that view; it's just for overview and nothing else... You have to play in the standard view where units obscure the units behind them, especially if the units in front are large and/or towering like e.g. bosses.
Also, I don't really understand why it's not possible to click on a unit and then click either on an empty space in range to make it move there without selecting the move action from a drop-down menu, or click on a target in range to make an attack without selecting the attack action from the drop-down menu. You have to click more often than necessary and that feels clunky.
Again, regarding the bad UI: Some essential information (about units or items, that veterans might know, but newcomers certainly don't) are hidden deep in context menus which is fine outside of combat... but you can't access certain menus during combat. So, newbies and/or people who can't read kanji have no idea what certain items and other elements do and also have no way to look it up in-game during combat.
Also, aside from getting hit in the face by them or memorizing them from earlier battles, I had a hard time finding out how enemy units move and what their skills are. If there is a way, I didn't find it, because it's somewhere buried in the lackluster UI.
The tutorial does a poor job of explaining anything but the basics, so you have to figure out the strategic and tactical nuances on your own... which is essential for realizing that this game is actually really good.
Can't say it often enough: This is a good game. It has flaws, but those can be coped with.
It's important to remind yourself that Chinese players most probably won't have the problems I had, because what are only pretty pictures to me are meaningful signs to them, signs that probably explain most or even everything I thought was missing.
The language barrier is mostly the only reason for the game's drawbacks. Due to the mediocre translation the dialogue is weird and the tutorial is partially hard to make sense of, but knowing that doesn't affect the game's quality. In essence, it's a good game.