Pawngarden

This project started as a way for me to practise pixel art but grew in scope and is now something I’m trying to turn into a full game. As the name suggests, it’s a game based on chess but with a different twist.

The pieces must be grown and cultivated from seeds, but like a garden, they can become invasive and start to attack themselves. The player must not only manage their own garden, but restore the land to how to it once was by playing against the environment.

I’m also experimenting with having very minimal GUI and text shown, which is a trend with the previous games I’ve made. I think it works particularly well in this case because it allows me to teach the player based on the already known rules of chess, a game that has been played for over a thousand years. I also want the environment itself to mimic the starting positions of chess, with the pawn’s river in the front, rook’s mountains in the corners, king and queen’s temples in the top middle, etc. This is to further try and teach the player new things by using what is already familiar to them.