Did you know that the last major update to chess rules was in 1889? The change was something that feels fundamental now: white moves first. Gambonanza, while not introducing anything new to the real chess world, uproots the concept of one of the oldest games in the world completely.
Chess for people who don’t play chess
Gambonanza is themed around chess, but it doesn’t require any prior experience or knowledge of how the game works.
The very basics you need to play are part of the onboarding experience, and you’ll need tactical thinking much more than knowing what Sicilian Defence is.
Game-changing gambits
This is where your tactical prowess comes, quite literally, into play. Gambits introduce extra rules to your game. You can buy them in the shop after every round. Do you want your opponent to skip a turn? Or do you fancy the idea of your pawns suddenly becoming rooks? Or maybe you want three kings? Golden pieces that earn money? Tiles that trap pieces? There are more than 150 gambits to unlock, you can have five at a time and all of them drastically alter the gameplay, strategy and sometimes the entire board.
Turn(s)tiles
Talking about the board, it’s much smaller than the regular chess one, and actually the only thing that the two have in common is that they’re chequered when you start the game. The tiles will evolve, giving you money and protecting or blessing your pieces (meaning that if they get captured, they reappear in your stock)... at least that’s what the nice ones do.
There are also naughty tiles that usually appear on harder levels and during boss fights: they trap you, make your pieces vanish or simply crumble if you put your pieces on them.
Do you have a reservation?
What makes Gambonanza unique (as if all of the above wasn’t enough) is the reserve system. You start your game with a set amount of pieces, but as you progress and start getting into gambits, you’ll accumulate extra pieces that are sitting off board but can be deployed into play at any point. Put them on a golden tile just before you win, for example, and it’s essentially free money.
In Gambonanza, the fun lies in experiments. Try out different gambit combinations, have an army of infinite knights, change tiles, never let your opponent take a single turn... at least that’s the idea. You won’t always get lucky as the shop is random, but when everything clicks, it feels like you really do know what Sicilian Defence is.