The paragon of tactics has arrived.
Collect units, build custom armies, and ascend to rank ‘Grandmaster’ to find the true power of a King.
Chess Evolved Online is an online Chess Variant CCG created by the developer Joseph Lormand, also known as The Grandestine.
It differs from normal Chess in several ways, including:
- Many new pieces to collect.
- A Morale Mechanic, where you lose if your Morale is reduced to 0.
- The ability to customize your own army.
- A ranking system.
- A global economy based on player activity.
Originally released on Facebook
, it can also be played here on Kongregate.
Chess Evolved Online contains examples of:
- Action Bomb: The Bomber Minion, which destroys pieces that attack it, but destroys itself on kill.
- Action Girl: The Queen Champion is the most powerful piece in the game.
- A.I. Breaker: The AI cannot deal with many things properly.
- It believes that most attacks are normal melee attacks.
- It ignores abilities, including passive abilities, armor, and triggers.
- It doesn't take into account abilities that threaten without indicating so on the board.
- A Kind of One: Medusa.
- Alchemy Is Magic: The Alchemist Champion can use poison and cure other abilities.
- Animated Armor: The Hauntedarmor Champion, which can block regular attacks from adjacent squares once.
- Animate Dead: The Skeleton Minion, which can also be summoned by the Lich Champion or the Tombstone Minion.
- Anti-Magic: The Antimage Champion is immune to both magic and ranged attacks and status effects.
- Arc Symbol: A 5 pointed Star is a recurring image in the game.
- Area of Effect: The Comet Champion and the Aquarius Champion can destroy themselves to freeze pieces in an area.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: Unblockable attacks ignore block abilities.
- Artificial Stupidity: The computer opponent only thinks 1 move ahead.
- The AI cannot use swap or transport effects properly. It frequently performs suicidal moves with them.
- Asteroids Monster: The Giantslime Champion splits into two Slimes on death.
- Played with, as Slimes can kill pieces to transform back into Giantslimes.
- Attack Reflector: The Wisp Champion cannot attack, but it reflects attacks.
- The Berserker: A Champion with long range orthogonal melee attacks.
- Auto-Revive: The Moonfox Champion does this on melee death.
- Blow You Away: The Airelemental Champion, Windmage Champion, Harpy Champion, and Sylph Minion all have the ability to move pieces away from themselves.
- Body Armor as Hit Points: Armor allows you to ignore a single attack from certain locations.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Numerous pieces are overpowered upon release, and balance changes occur only every few months.
- Cast from Hit Points: Many abilities require you to pay morale.
- The Airelemental loses Value on kill, and must regain it by using its wind Magic.
- The Waterelemental loses Value when it uses its Magic.
- Can't Drop the Hero: You may not remove your King from your army during army construction.
- Charm Person: The Lilith and the Soulflare can both convert minions over to your side.
- Chromatic Arrangement: The Faction boxes (Clan, Arcane, and Forest) are Red, Blue, and Green, respectively.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The Mercenary Minion, which switches sides upon Champion kill.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Piece upgrades are sorted by colors. Additionally, the moves denoted by squares each have their own unique color or symbol.
- Color-Coded Item Tiers: Piece upgrades are White, Purple, Orange, and Red, for base, +, ++, and +++, respectively.
- Additionally, rarities have corresponding colors: White, Blue, Purple, and Orange for Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary respectively.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The Infernal and Hell Mode AI, which have 3 and 4 rows of pieces, respectively.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Various pieces
- Critical Existence Failure: You only lose when you go below 0 Morale.
- Damage Over Time: Poison status effects kill pieces after a few turns.
- Dem Bones: The Skeleton Minion, which has varying degrees of Status resistance and has short range orthogonical attacks.
- Denial of Diagonal Attack: Various pieces, most notably the Rook.
- Diagonal Speed Boost: Various pieces have better diagonal mobility than orthogonal mobility.
- Dispel Magic: The Alchemist has the ability to negate status effects.
- Enemy Summoner: The Lich Champion can summon Skeletons with reduced Value.
- Exposition Fairy: The Princess Minion acts as this during the Tutorial.
- Fiery Salamander: The Salamander Minion, which has (Magic) Destroy Target in the square directly in front of it.
- Fireballs: Long Ranged Minions that destroy themselves on kill.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Various mages control individual elements.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Several, involving pieces such as samurai and portal.
- Harmless Freezing: Freeze abilities have no lasting effect on most pieces.
- Hostage Spirit-Link: Killing a Hostage Minion instead of rescuing it (by trapping it between two Champions) causes you to lose Morale.
- An Ice Person: The Frostmage, which can Freeze pieces for 3 turns, preventing them from doing anything.
- "Instant Death" Radius: Some pieces can destroy units without moving, making it pointless to move pieces into those spots.
- Joke Character: The Shieldsman Minion, which is widely considered a joke because of how terrible it is.
- Luckily it got a massive redesign as is actually usable now.
- Just Add Water: Upgraded pieces are made by combining several pieces of the previous tier.
- Keystone Army: An army without a King loses 3 morale per turn.
- Knight in Shining Armor: The classic Knight piece.
- Lethal Joke Character: The Summoner Champion, which can teleport your opponent's King to your Minions if it gets in the right position.
- Life Drain: When the vampire kills a piece your opponent loses morale and your king gets morale.
- Magikarp Power: Many pieces can promote into more powerful pieces, but the most notable examples are Princess and Bat, which cannot do anything other than move or promote.
- Money Multiplier: The various Dragon's Blessings, which are purchased for Rubies and increase your Dragon Coin income.
- Mook Promotion: Various minions can promote into their Champion counterparts.
- Mook Chivalry: A lot of beginners, especially magic users, especially poisonmage users, repeatedly move the same piece again and again until it dies, then the next, and so on.
- Morale Mechanic: Your Morale is equal to the Value of your units minus any penalties you have accumulated. When it reaches 0, you lose.
- Nature Spirit: The Dryad Champion, which makes Trees, which block units and contain Value.
- Necromancer: A Champion that can destroy minions or upgrade Skeletons.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Units enchanted by the Enchantress can't by harmed by normal attacks, but magic kills them normally.
- Ninja: A Champion possessing one of the only 3 range (Unblockable) attacks in the game.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Most pieces are killed by a single attack.
- One-Man Army: Several pieces can win you the game by themselves.
- The Paladin: A Champion that has unblockable horizontal attacks and swaps.
- Perpetual Beta: It's been in development for years.
- The Phoenix: The Phoenix Champion, which destroys units that attack it while leaving an egg behind, which eventually turns into another Phoenix.
- Playing with Fire: The Pyromancer Champion, which can destroy adjacent units with Magic.
- The Fireelemental Champion can do the same, but to further away units.
- Prestigious Player Title: Beginner, Novice, Advanced, Expert, Master, Grandmaster.
- Ranger: A Champion that can destroy units without moving from 2 squares away.
- Sacrificial Revival Spell: The Lifestone Minion can destroy itself and [Pay 4 Morale] to revive the most recently dead ally Champion.
- Seven Deadly Sins: They have pieces in game. Currently, there are 4 implemented: Lust, Envy, Pride, and Greed.
- Signature Move: Several pieces, typically Legendary Champions, have moves unique to them.
- Slash Command: Typing /surrender in the ingame chat during a match wins you the game.
- Status Effects: Poison, Freeze, and Petrify. Freeze and Petrify prevent units from performing actions for a certain number of turns, and Poison kills units in a certain number of turns.
- Starter Equipment: You are given a classic Chess set during the tutorial.
- Suicide Attack: The Aquarius Champion and Comet Champion can destroy themselves to Freeze targets.
- Additionally, the Bomber destroys itself when it kills a unit.
- Summon Magic: The Magic of the Dryad and Lich Champions summon Saplings and Skeletons respectively.
- Take Up My Sword: The Prince can transform into another King if it kills a unit while you have no King.
- Taking You with Me: Any piece that kills a Bomber or a Phoenix in melee also dies. The wisp reflects every effect used on it back on the user, so a piece that kills it will die itself.
- Teleport Spam: Many units can only move by Teleporting.
- Too Awesome to Use: Many high-cost pieces do not see play in most armies because they cost too much, weakening the rest of your army.
- Took a Level in Badass: Many weak minions can suddenly become much more fearsome when they promote. This is especially true for the bat and the princess, which can quickly go from minions without any attacks to some of the strongest pieces in the game
- Unstable Equilibrium: Since captured pieces are removed from play permanently, it is very difficult to stage a comeback once you're outnumbered.
- Unblockable Attack: Some pieces have moves that are (Unblockable), meaning that they can't be blocked by interceding units.
- Exaggerated with the (Unstoppable) modifier, which means that a move is (Unblockable), and that the move can be used independently of status effects. However, only the Vampire has this ability with its transformation into a bat.
- Western Zodiac: As pieces. Currently, only the Aquarius, Taurus, and Gemini Champions have been implemented.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: The Soulkeeper can convert enemies into ghosts you control.
- Zerg Rush: The Lifestone is a Minion that destroys itself to resurrect a Champion unit, creating more units to trade off, allowing a win through sheer piece advantage.
- Liches can also pull this off through spawning an excessive amount of skeletons.
