Passant: When Chess Decides It’s Had Enough of Your Nonsense
Hello everyone. It seems someone’s taken the noble, ancient game of chess – the one game where you could smugly predict your demise six moves ahead – and decided, “You know what this needs? Items. Boss fights. And something called a Dragon Knight.” Because apparently, the four-hundred-year-old ruleset wasn’t spicy enough, now we’re loading the chessboard with gimmicks like it’s a mobile gacha game on its fourth anniversary event. Welcome to Passant.
So… a Chess Roguelike?
Yes, you heard right. A chess roguelike. For those unfamiliar with the concept, that’s basically “what if chess, but randomized, unpredictable, and specifically designed to make you restart over and over while muttering curses at the monitor.” You’ll be working your way through matches of “increasing difficulty” – which in roguelike speak means, “all your progress can be obliterated in one boneheaded move.” It’s like playing Dark Souls, except there’s no dodge roll, just a pawn standing in the wrong square ruining your afternoon.
Rule-Breaking Pieces
This isn’t your grandfather’s chess. This is chess after a midlife crisis. We’ve got unfamiliar characters like the Archbishop (half Bishop, half rook, probably full nightmare) and the Dragon Knight. Oh yes, the Dragon Knight, which to my knowledge was never part of any official FIDE documentation but here it is, breathing fire – metaphorically or otherwise. That’s alongside the Dragon King, because clearly one scaly monarch wasn’t enough.
- Atomic Chess – if you think chess should involve the occasional piece exploding, welcome aboard.
- Reflecting Bishops – when a laser puzzle breaks into your board game.
- Zombie Pawns – because the chess community looked at the dead and thought, “They should still move diagonally.”
These mechanics are exactly what happens when a design meeting spirals out of control. Someone says “what if bishops could reflect attacks” and before you know it, we’ve got necrotic infantry and nuclear detonations where pawns used to be.
Items, Because Why Not?
Beyond the mutant zoo of pieces, you’ve got usable items. Things like freezing enemy pieces (which in medical terms we call cryostasis) or demoting a unit to a pawn (diagnosis: acute career regression). You can also promote your own assets to a queen – otherwise known as a good Tuesday for anyone who understands classic endgame tactics.
It’s all sounding delightfully chaotic until you realize you can lose your top-tier piece to some AI algorithm on crank and a very bad coin flip. And yes, that’s not a bug, that’s “roguelike features.”
Gameplay Progression & Modes
Matches ramp up in difficulty the deeper you go, which means in practice you will be demolished repeatedly until you develop the foresight of Cassandra and the paranoia of someone who reads too many chess conspiracy threads. The so-called final boss awaits at the top – presumably some eldritch queen who can make five moves per turn and summon pawns like reinforcements in an RTS.
There are challenge modes too, for that precise breed of masochist who looks at regular roguelike chess and thinks, “Not enough pain.” And yes, they’re promising AI difficulty scaling for both beginners and grandmasters, because nothing says “fair matchmaking” like an opponent named Stockfish on a power trip.
Technical Specs: You Probably Have This in Your Kitchen
Running on Windows 10 with a GT1030 and 2GB of RAM? That’s not just lightweight; by today’s standards, this game could run on your cousin’s office laptop or that dusty PC in your garage. Storage? 200MB. That’s literally smaller than some trailer video files. Sound card? Not even required. You could play this silently while contemplating the cosmic absurdity of a Dragon Knight charging a reanimated pawn.
Final Diagnosis
Passant is a boldly chaotic take on chess. It’s innovation dipped in the kind of madness that makes purists choke on their Earl Grey. Some of these rule changes are entertaining, others feel like patch notes from an alternate timeline. I’m cautiously intrigued – like a doctor examining a patient who insists the cure is licking uranium. If you enjoy the idea of endlessly re-learning your favorite game while battling a procedurally generated fever dream, this might just be your brand of poison. If not, well, stick to the safe confines of 64 squares, eight pawns, and zero undead.
Verdict: Uncertain, but leaning towards “glorious nonsense.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
Passant is a game like no other. Dive in if you dare – but remember, in this chess variant, the rules you knew are gone, replaced by chaos, surprises, and absolutely no mercy.
Article Source: Passant: A Chess Roguelike, https://store.steampowered.com/app/3353100/Passant_A_Chess_Roguelike/
