Pawnbarian (tuxdb.com)

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Pawnbarian is a minimalist puzzle roguelike. It's built around the core mechanic of using chess moves to control your adventurer on a tiny dungeon board.

Use a deck of chess pieces to hack and slash through hordes of monsters.
Pick up the basics instantly if you're familiar with chess, or learn in minutes if you aren't.
Carefully plan your moves to navigate tricky, emergent tactical situations.
Spend treasure to upgrade your cards with additional powers.
Blitz through quick 15-30 minute runs - or die trying.
Take on the infinite post-run Gauntlet to see how long you can survive.
Pick from 3 characters with unique rules to conquer 3 dungeons full of varied monsters.
Progress through Chains, a series of extra difficulty settings.

What Pawnbarian is not

Pawnbarian is not a full-fledged roguelike with deep and varied builds to explore. There is a bit of progression over the course of a run, but the core of the game is dealing with a variety of enemies, and figuring out what to do each turn.
Think of it as a highly replayable puzzle game with a roguelike card battler feel.

1.2.10

Yo!

The demo version is available again. It didn't sit right with me that the game's mobile version has a free demo available and the Steam one doesn't, so I spent some time tweaking the game to create an updated demo without any of the mobile-specific stuff.

Other than that, there are two minor gameplay changes in this version. One is a small tweak that removes pointless randomness, and the other is there for those of you who enjoy digging deep into the Gauntlet, especially as the Capyzerker.

change: The Golem Fortress boss now alternates between the two different spawns, instead of picking at random
change; there's now a full heal after each Gauntlet floor, instead of single heart heal

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Cheers,
Jan

[ 2022-11-16 13:31:18 CET ] [Original Post]