Balatro proved that with enough thought, anything can become a roguelike. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a deck of cards, mahjong tiles, or just some dice, because all of them can be turned into an endlessly replayable loop of utter perfection. While I love the combat-focused Hades, Enter the Gungeon, and Dead Cells, these aren’t the only forms a roguelike can take. In fact, it turns out you can take something as ubiquitous as chess, and put it right in the middle of the genre. This is exactly what Passant does, and its brand-new demo already has me hooked.
Much like Balatro does with poker, Passant takes the fundamental rules of chess and turns them upside down. You still need to know the basic rules of the game, like how a bishop moves and what it takes to get a checkmate, but everything else about Passant is different. Instead of starting with 16 pieces, you’ve got a little less. This invites more challenge, and forces you to work with what you have while considering fewer pieces on the board. The win condition isn’t just checkmate either, as you have an array of paths to victory that can get you through a game.
Once you’ve won your first round of Passant, this is where the roguelike game gets really interesting. Just like with Balatro, you need to make it through the round and eventually fight a boss. To get there, however, you’ll earn money between games that you can spend in the shop. You can then pick up badges, which either change the rules or give you completely original pieces to work with. Perhaps every piece you take from your opponent causes an explosion, adds a rook and knight hybrid, or turns any pawn you want into a queen with a click of your mouse.
You can also buy coins with your cash between rounds, which offer special items with unique effects for your turn. Between badges and coins, you can start to create builds for each run made up of myriad bonuses and chess pieces, some of which definitely aren’t in line with the normal rules.
Just like Balatro, Passant twists a game you’re used to into something completely different. As someone who knows how to play chess but frankly sucks at it, this roguelike is the perfect way to bend the rules until they work in my favor. If you like using a collection of random jokers in Balatro to completely break a poker hand, and love chess, Passant is easily worth a try.
Developer Marc Makes Games has released the Passant demo on Steam right now for free, while the full game is still “coming soon.” Just head here.
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