Gambonanza Game Reviews

Fun Concept, Mixed Execution. Having loved playing both chess and Balatro, I was excited to give this a try; however, my opinions on several of the game’s mechanics are mixed. To start, gambits, which are equivalent to jokers or run items, feel uninspired overall. While many synergize well, a great number of them are simply chance-based. While RNG is not an issue by itself, being a staple of the roguelike genre, it feels out of place in a game as strategic as chess. Furthermore, there are a few areas where the RNG feels completely redundant. For instance, starting with three random pieces is avoidable by simply reloading. This matters because the game’s core balance is heavily skewed toward queens, and some pieces are simply not worth using unless you get a specific gambit early on. For me, its aspiration to be “Balatro but chess” holds it back. The experience would be more enjoyable if the game were simply a chess roguelike. Even the aesthetic clashes, as the trippy casino style does not really match chess. With that being said, the game overall is not bad. There is certainly fun to be had, especially if you enjoy these types of games. The music is fitting, and the gameplay is crisp. The bosses are actually more interesting than Balatro’s, but they are difficult to prepare for. All in all, the game is definitely worth a try; just don’t expect the long-lasting experience Balatro provides.

Would-be 5⭐️. Great game, needs a few things fixed. Primarily battery, this thing guzzles, like bad, it really needs some power optimization. Only other thing is the tooth gambit says something else after you buy it. Not sure if it functions bc I didn’t buy it again after the second time it glitched. Feels like strains are a bit stacked against you at first, if that improves this will be top tier, if not I’d get tired of grinding. Solid game overall tho, just beat my first run after a day. Was hella satisfying😎

Great game, some ideas however. I love the game, it’s fun and definitely helps you think outside the box. I can see how someone who is into chess can love this game and I as someone who isn’t that into chess does love it too! My biggest issues are the following however, minor but stand out to me. - No speed multiplier; I think if there was a multiplier it could help with games going quicker especially at work! (Sorry boss) - Pauses outside audio/plays over outside audio; I like to listen to music or podcasts and play games, it’s kind of a bother when these things get paused due to how the game runs - optimization; my phone gets very hot when playing this game, never an issue either other games other than cloverpit which I can pass off as graphically more complex, but I don’t know why that is the case with this game. - the game restarts when out of it for five seconds (exaggeration). I don’t like that if I’m out of the game for a bit too long the app force restarts itself Other than that, solid game but a 4/5 until these are addressed or fixed!

Not chess, bad roguelite. I really wanted to like this but it’s just not for me. It has nothing to do with chess aside from the movement of the pieces. It’s a tactical roguelite that smells vaguely of chess. It’s not great as a roguelite either. The gambits aren’t all that fun. The piece economy feels overly punishing. The RNG feels too prevalent. Gameplay can get very dumb depending on how the AI RNG goes. It makes very poor moves sometimes. It’s an effective strategy to just skip turns until the computer sacrifices its last piece. Or skip turns and let the board crumble underneath an AI that’s happy to jump onto a crumbling square. You might like this game more if you don’t like chess. I dunno. I can’t recommend it. I gave it the second star because I had some moments of fun in between a lot of irritation.

Chesslatro. I’ve only been playing for a few hours but much like Balatro once the pieces fall into place it becomes so much fun to see how far you can go. Games like this really make me appreciate the indie scene.

Clever mashup of chess and rogue lights. Really enjoy all the different gambits in this game, and the way it can combine into completely absurd games of chess. And I use the term chess lightly. Well worth the price, would recommend.

Not optimized for mobile. Really disappointed for the game to be so stuttery after taking heavy inspiration from a game that's incredibly optimized. Game is slow and groggy

Very fun! One or two things. This game is very like balatro, except it is also chess, which is very fun! I really enjoy the gambits, and the way the whole game balances out. However, as someone who also enjoys chess, there are a couple things that threw me for a loop. In chess, pawns can move two squares on their first turn. This isn’t present in the game, which is alright. But I would love if there was a reason for it, or a way that I could know, rather than having to find out when I die from placing the piece under the wrong expectations. The same problem is present with the king piece. In chess, the king MUST move out of check if he possibly can. He also cannot move into check. In this game, the king moves like a pawn with all directions unlocked. This is also fine, and I am sure there were good reasons for it, but could there maybe be a little pop or something, so that if I tap on a piece I am facing, I can get information about it? Or even just a compendium of “ways this game is like and unlike chess” in the main menu, so people don’t get too confused. The other thing which I have seen mentioned is battery life. I lost five percent from a 30-45 minute session, with a fairly powerful phone and a new battery. This isn’t really a problem, but I am including it in here for data purposes, as I buy mobile games for long road trips and other activities where I might not have access to a charger. Edit: the game has been updated and optimized since this review. My battery experience is currently old data. :3 All in all, this is a very good game! I would give it an 7.7-to-8.3 [Edit: solid 9, now, for the devs. You guys are awesome!] out of 10, especially if you like Balatro. Congratulations to the developer, as well, for making the top charts list! You have made a very quality game. It would be wonderful to see a resolution of some sort for the thing with the kings and pawns that I mentioned earlier, but I will keep playing the game either way. Definitely worth the purchase. Final Edit: Overall, this is a truly great game, but as mentioned by the (awesome!) developers in their reply, it isn’t a 1:1 chess simulator. Expect a few differences getting into the game, and slight shifts in chess-brain strategy to account for that. However, these guys have demonstrated great talent in conceptual and practical game design, so I would expect any minor kinks to continue being worked out going forward. Thanks again for the response, Stray Faun Studio! I will continue forward in anticipation and enjoyment!

A bug (I think?). Love the game, just wanted to write a review to check that “Hidden Queen’s Gambit” isn’t working when I meet the condition. My pawn will still move like a pawn… I even checked to see if it would move like a queen in the next game, but no dice :(

Has potential. This game has potential, but is bogged down by the game being unbalanced. The game feels like it was made by the fun police, and rarely gives you any meaningful gambits, or modifiers to your game. I want to like this game as someone who is at least decent at chess, but I just find this game to be frustrating and unfun.

Great game, would love to see more from this studio. This game has only been out for a day but it’s amazing. It’s easy to pick up, and it’s an interesting take on rougelikes. This studio is really good at unique rougelikes. Great game PS: I’d like to see this studio do a rougelike minesweeper, just a thought

Balatro Meets Chess. Go ahead and cheat your way to the top. Balatro let’s you destroy with massive amounts of points, Gambonanza lets you wreck the board with phantom queens that become real queens. You will see what I mean. Just buy this game and you won’t be seen for again for weeks.

Fun enough. Could use more music. Seems to lack depth and strategy, more about certain op items and tricking the basic ai Fun for a few hours though!

Strong battery drain. I like the game but the current battery drain is strong. Nearly every 1-2 minutes 1% battery is gone (= device get warm realy fast). If this could be fix, this would the best game to enjoy in long train rides or any other waiting sitation.

A fun rougelike. A bit like Balatro, if you’ve played and liked that before. Despite what is says, it does help to know a bit of chess. The gambits are fun, and so is the idea of using slot, plink and gashapon machines. The bosses being physical things instead of just showing a small seal like Balatro does is pretty nice, too.

Not Balatro. Great game, not as good as Balatro. If you haven’t played Balatro, get hooked on that first, once you can’t play Balatro anymore, come here again. Still a 5* game.

Needs a lot of work…. After playing for sometime this game suffers from a lot of issues. It has WAY too many ideas going on that aren’t syncing. The entire game lacks direction both in gameplay, power ups and design. A mini boss every match is unnecessary and makes the big bosses feel less intimidating. Pieces get destroyed ALOT which is a fair set back but the price for more in shop is insane. 5-10 coins for one piece that’s likely to be destroyed is absurd. Everything in the shop is very over priced which makes it hard to really experiment with strategies and items. Especially when a LOT of items exist. A majority of the gambits are overly complicated. It feels like every gambit has a “chance” of working involved and/or a piece requirement which doesn’t work since pieces are already expensive to get. None of these are bad gameplay choices but they don’t work together well. The art style is just as overwhelming with an animation playing behind the board making it hard to look at for long periods of time. The main bosses are very confusing. A robot, a geisha and a wendigo as a boss feels way to random. A lot of the items feel this way too. It would be nice if they followed a theme. They would feel more connected... TLDR; overwhelming, over priced shops, lack of ways to get more pieces or experiment gameplay, art style hard to look at for long, shop looks cluttered, bosses feel random and unintimidating. No hate intended i do love this game!!

Wow what a fun and refreshing take on chess!!!. As an avid chess player and gamer it is rare to get surprised by a games inventiveness and uniqueness when it comes to reimagining chess but Gambonanza does it well. I got this game as a preorder because I love chess and enjoy rogue like games and I am so happy I did… I would 10/10 by this game again!!!

Great Game - needs better optimization. Game is addicting, incredibly fun and easy to dump hours into this game. However, I just wish this game was optimized a bit better - makes my device run hot after 15 minutes of play time, despite having an IPhone 16… hopefully this can be fixed soon!

Make game modes!!. One play and I’m hooked I just wish I can play traditional here rather then somewhere else, multiplayer would be crazy fun and if you can find a way to add modifiers to a traditional game watch this get competitive and shoot in sales

Very fun. Very close to Balatro but it’s chess which are some of my favorites. The gameplay is unique and you need many strategies. I’m excited to see what they add next.

Great concept, needs tweaks. This game randomly started playing sound in the middle of my first run at stage 3 game 3, even though my phone volume was at 0. I also think 3:3 in the first run needs tweaking unless it’s meant to be a run ender, it’s almost impossible compared to the game right before it.

Great game. I find it so hard to describe how well this game filled a desire I had, I have really been wanting a chess rougelike. While yes, shotgun king came before this, and don’t get me wrong that game is great, this game just feels like what I was hoping for from shotgun king. Overall, this game is good, I haven’t encountered any game-breaking bugs yet, and I hope it stays that way.

Great entry into Roguelikes. I played the demo a lot and found this to be a great parallel to the style similar to Balatro. I’m excited for the full game and really think they captured enough of what makes that game great while doing their own thing. Rogueslikes were a bit confusing to me at first but wait till you start making pawns the most powerful piece on the board.

Great Game!. Great game! Obviously like Balatro but with chess puzzles instead of poker. I like Balatro but I like this more since it is more based on skill than chance. My only nitpick is that the music audio quality is not the best (I was using Apple AirPods Pro 2). Other than that, good job!

Game fun. Pretty fun game and interesting game play loop. It’s lwk HARD tho and rng is at a minimum. I’d say it’s pretty comparable to Slay the Spire in difficulty and similar to Balatro in gameplay loop/progression. Overall I give it abt a 9/10 but I havent gotten super far yet so that might change as you play more.

its like chess mixed with tcg & slots. this game is actually a masterpiece. BUT its stressful because you cant keep your strategy if you lose. i build a solid strategy around knights, and never was able to get the same knight gambits for the rest of the day. i'd say i dont like how rng it is but i understand that may be what makes dying more risky when u finally do have a good deck.

Best Roguelike since Balatro. Seriously, this is my favorite of the genre since balatro, I love chess so kk a bit bias but the game has so much to explore and different combos to try. Easily worth it.

👍👍AN ABSOLUTE BLAST….. A familiar-ish game with a completely new and exciting twist. If you’re thinking of passing on this game because it looks “familiar” DONT. So far it’s an absolute blast. Well done can’t wait to see how far this one goes.

Balatro chess. We all know where this game got its inspiration and it shows, in a great way. If youre a fan of balatro like games, this game is for you. Im still not that great at this game but its fun trying to get gambits with synergys. I have already bought this game on mobile and steam and it was worth both purchases because i love supporting game developers like this.

Great game - major imbalance. Great casual thinking game. However there is a major imbalance with boss levels having immune pieces until you clear the board. Its very off-putting and shuts down progress immediately like a frustrating wall - makes me not want to play it.

It’s okay, needs tuning. There’s a lot going on in Gambonanza and it has potential, but feels as if the game released without tuning. Going on a deep run is incredibly difficult due to the variance of gambits that rarely if ever share synergies with each other. The economy is very stingy. Losing any game pieces in a sacrifice maneuver is near catastrophic considering how little currency you earn. Recommendations for adjustments - make the first shop re-roll free each round. Start the game with a gambit token so you can pick after game pieces are rolled. Consider expanding gambits from 5 to 7. Add conditions that reward the player for winning - flawless victory, capturing all pieces with the same piece, capturing with only pawns… etc.

Well-done Balatro-like. This entire genre benefits from having this game, particularly for turn based tactics fans like myself. The loop of progression is just as addicting as any other roguelite, but I really dig the mechanics here. Well done!

Pretty great! Needs two fixes.. Awesome entry! This game is starting off strong with fun gameplay and strong visual identity. Two issues hold it back: 1) It’s very poorly optimized on iOS. There is no reason why a 2D game like this should be overheating and draining my device to this extent. WORKAROUND: lower resolution in settings, crank up CRT filter to make that low res tolerable. 2) Cross-progression, I don’t mind buying the game twice if it means I can share gambits between platforms, à la kingdom two crowns.

Absolute battery drain 🧛‍♂️. Maybe try the desktop version if you can. This game heats my phone up like a stove top and slows to a crawl every time I make a move, the particle effects bringing my phone to its knees. The game is good, I’ve been playing the demo on Steam so it’s nice to see the full version but I probably wouldn’t have bought it if I knew how terrible it would perform.

Chess 2.0. TL;DR: Amazing game that’s for anyone that plays chess AND for those that don’t. A basic Rogue-like with RNG elements and some skill expression that really puts the cherry on top of this game. From what I can tell, this game has been created by people who LOVE chess! From the references to the implementation of Chess into a rogue style game. If you’re a chess fan, you’ll love it; it has many of the elements needed to play chess like understanding sequencing, and a good knowledge of mental visualization; however, these are not necessary to enjoy the game. You could be a wood pusher and still enjoy this. If you’ve never even played chess, this can still be an enjoyable experience as not only does the game have an info page which names all the pieces in case you don’t know the Horsey’s name, it also gives informative moves like what piece can be taken (need that on normal chess ngl) plus the AI you play against can be very forgiving. Which brings me to the one thing I’m not the biggest fan of in this game: The AI difficulty. While I haven’t reached the last difficulty level, in the later levels I can still leave a piece hanging and not be punished for it. The strains (modifiers) definitely guarantee a challenge, it’s just I’d hope for more of a skill requirement in terms of game play rather than the skill gap being based on one’s resource management / luck with the shop. I do realize that this is probably more of a personal preference rather than an actual complaint and allows the inclusion of non-chess players to be able to still win the game. Overall, I have been having a blast playing this game and I feel that I’m close to finishing most of the content, if not all, which makes me sad. I really hope to see more to come. Plus I could so see this kind of game becoming a multiplayer experience

Fun. Great. Feedback: Would like to skip through animations. Also, placement of buttons makes it too easy to erase existing run and start a new one.

Awesome game! Just some QoL things. Love the concept and the creativity poured into this game (and the references are a great cherry on top). I’m not sure if the developers are already planning on doing so, but I just wish there was a way to speed up the overall gameplay. The animations are amazing, but given that this game is dependent on replayability, I would love a speed setting as an option just like Balatro. Would also love the opportunity to customize our game as well like different boards, pieces, etc.

Disappointing. Unfortunately shallow. The abilities you can gain throughout your run are all fairly meaningless, leaving the best strategy to just develop as many queens as possible with very little variance. The boards are the same every run and there’s not a whole lot of strategic depth with such small boards and so few pieces, which is the case for the majority of each run. It looks good, but that’s about it.

I bought the game.. I saw a demo of this game and bought it. I love the art style and rogue dynamic. I love all the different upgrades you can get liken”gambits.” I love that it’s about chess. I want to believe in this game. I love everything about. Here’s some things I’d like to see in an update or sequel: 1) More real chess dynamics’s . If I move the king piece into check from another piece, check with the movement of the king should matter more. 2) slightly strong chess mechanics from the opponent enemy AI 3) more real chess positions. I want to learn how to learn both bishops or both knights, or the king, or the pawns, in a position of you know what I mean. Frame the puzzles after more realistic chess situations, teaching how to use the pieces as a whole 4) a mode where you ca just play real chess against opponents, preferably celebrities to the sport 5) a multiplayer option where you can play opponents with the unique deck build that you have earned and against opponents with similar skill levels 6) just a little more art work on the upgrades / gambits. Make it like other card games cough cough a little blizzard in there, if you know what i mean. You’ve done a great thing by innovating chess into a modern game play format. Keep updating, this could be big. I haven’t bought a game in years. But I bought this one. Please keep updating. Thanks for starting a great new game concept by combining chess with rogue and rpg qualities .

Great game, just want a few more things.. This game is great, I haven’t played anything similar before but as someone who loves playing chess I think this is cool. I’m crazy about customization, so being able to get rewards for successful runs like different pieces, boards, themes, etc would make this game absolutely perfect for me, and also I’d love to be able to just play a game of chess on this, I like the style of the pieces. Overall though, I’ve really like playing so far and I hope the devs take something out of this review!

The game doesn’t shut up…. I gave up during the intro. It just talks and talks and talks and talks. It’s trying to copy Balatro, but with chess - which is cool (both fun games), but it didn’t pick up that Balatro let you just play the game instead of never, ever, shutting up. I don’t know how much longer it would have been before I was allowed to actually play the game, but I just gave up almost 10minutes of my life and I’m not betting anymore. Bodes poorly.

Great idea, meh execution. I really want to like this game. I love the idea, but there are some things about the execution that I found middling. To begin, I really don’t love the combination of chess with randomness. Many of the game elements rely on luck, which in my opinion play against some of the best parts of a strategic game like chess- just it my cup of tea. Second, many of the gambits/play elements are either poorly described or they don’t work as you’d expect (ex: adjacent doesn’t count diagonals). Play mechanics of the gambits feel a bit half baked, few really great synergies, and about 80% feel useless or not worth the money. Lastly, for a single loop soundtrack I’d love something a little catchier. Great idea though.

Here to stay. If your wondering if this is on the level of balatro in terms of depth, I think so and this will be a App Store essential no doubt

This one is gonna be huge!!. I was waiting for weeks after I saw this upcoming release. Im only an hour or so in and Im floored. Presentation is 10/10, gameplay mechanics 10/10. I love chess, I love balatro, I LOVE GAMBONANZA!!!

Very good. It’s a very good game. it definitely got inspiration from Balatro but it still is it’s own game. Just one idea I think would be cool is along with it having its main mode of it had some sort of online game which I think would be cool but over all its a very good game

Great game for people who liked Balatro. If you like Balatro or something on the line of that this game for you. I’ve been playing for a day and it awesome because I got overpowered build with the pawns and was able to move like knights and skip enemies turns not to mentioned the other difficulties in the game that makes it a lot more harder. Definitely worth the six dollars and would recommend to anyone who likes a game like this.

Fantastic game but no macOS optimizations. Firstly, I will not buy this game anywhere else but the App Store. The developer should upload the $+eam version as the macOS version from the Mac App Store. However, playing the iPad version on Mac is just fine. You just don’t get any descriptions when hovering the mouse and the aspect ratio is cruddy. Otherwise, fantastic game.

Is there a sync option?. This game is really great! Everything I wanted from a chess roguelike. My only issue is that you can’t sync your phone to your steam. Maybe I just haven’t seen it. This game is beautiful

The greatest roguelite since Balatro. Hands down this game is near perfect and absolute crack. I haven’t even played chess since 30 years ago which makes this more difficult for me but I’m still having fun and getting better.

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Fun roguelike chess. A well crafted fun roguelike chess game.

Excellent unusual chess game. This game is worth the money, love just popping in to have a quick game, purchased on both apple and google I enjoyed it that much. Great idea and looking forward to further updates and new games from this team…

5/5. Top tier. Really really good

Fun but. The ai is very bad, even if this were just normal chess it regularly makes blunders, which simply makes the game easy.

Great game. This is a very good game and everybody should play it, it is the best and maybe only chess roguelike

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So good. Waited for this since March last year. So worth it! Amazing game!

Best chess roguelike yet.. See title. ‘Nuff said.

Fun game!!. Game is a lot of fun loved collecting gambits. I am enjoying the game immensely! Great game for chess lovers that want a new game!

Fun Game If You Like Chess. If you enjoy playing chess you will enjoy playing this game its balatro but chess really fun

Super jeu mais attention à la batterie. C’est une très bonne idée de revisiter le jeu d’échecs. Gambonanza vient rafraîchir tout ça en surfant sur l’engouement autour des échecs. La boucle de gameplay est plaisante et on a envie d’y revenir rapidement. Cependant le jeu consomme une quantité importante de batterie et fais chauffer le téléphone au bout d’une dizaine de minutes

Incredible. Excellent game, great design and too much fun

Great game. Great mechanics and excellent idea!

Okay. Wish there was some sort of progression to the game. It’s kinda the same old same old. Nothing to achieve. Plus this game overheats the iPhone to extreme temperatures

This game needs optimization badly. The game its self is amazing but this game shouldn’t be draining the battery of a 17 pro max like it’s nothing and it hits the processor way to hard for what it is it make my phone and partners phone a billion degrees also I would love if it supported portrait mode otherwise as I said this game is amazing super addictive and just so much fun please keep making stuff like this

Chess but sort of not?. I like that there are meme gambits, the fact that the bosses have lore ( look at them in collection), and I recently beat balatro so I was looking for a new rougelike then I found this a little before its release so nice timing:) (also I think there should be special chess pieces, because the title is a little misleading)

Great game. Game is cool but STOP asking me to review the app after every damn run jesus christ. I already paid for the app isn’t it enough?

amazing but... the game is absolutely amazing! good graphics and good gameplay. however, i noticed some stuff. it is fine as this is the second day since launch but i have noticed that after you unlock rook difficulty, the other difficulties say they are locked like they should, as you have to progress to unlock them, but when you actually click on the locked button it puts you in the level and you work with strains you dont know about because they still dont say what they are in the info bar. second, in custom mode, which is unlocked after beating pawn difficulty, the other strains which you have not unlocked are auto selected in custom mode and cannot be unselected, so i cannot actually properly play custom mode. and third, this one is minor and probably a typo but the strain i dont know the name of for rook difficulty says the rack only has 5 spots out of 8 usable, when the rack ACTUALLY has 4 spots available out of 7 total. this is an amazing game and i look forward to 100%-ing it!those are just bugs i noticed!

pretty cool. like

Really fun and challenging. I bought the game a day ago and I gotta say I’m having a lot a fun. Its really challenging too in a way that make chess really fun to play. A lot of build option too with all the gabits that’s in! Great game recommend if you like roguelike!!

Insert Title. Please add a rewind/ undo button for the love of god, for a game where one mistake means losing the entire run, it is really hard for a new player to enjoy playing when they don’t realize a variety of things that completely destroy your chances of winning even exists yet, let alone know how to effectively avoid it. Hey what does this red outline do WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T CAPTURE IT

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Just mad. I went for a trap build and the bear trap gambit didn’t work where it’s supposed to trap another random piece when a piece got trapped but it didn’t trap anything

Blessed?. Is blessed bugged? Whenever I bless a unit and it’s captured it doesn’t go back in my stock. Otherwise I’m really liking the game

Balatro Chess. so fire. if you like balatro and/or chess then this is a no brainer

We Have Balatro At Home™️. .

Great game, worth $. Not a huge chess fan but loved this!

Nice. Great game

Great game. Worth the money for sure

Amazing game. Super fun take on chess!

Huge sound issue. Why does this game bypass my silent mode on my iPhone? I am forced to turn down all music and sound effects in settings in order to play silently.

Too random. Too random to be tactically fun.

Temu Balatro.. This game sucks. The animation is nauseating. Stalemate isn’t even a thing here. No real warning of the boss level coming up. Too much text that is easy to ignore.

Broken Settings. there’s a setting to switch touch controls from “On Drag” to “On Touch”, so you just have to tap pieces and their destinations to play. This option doesn’t work, which sucks because I can’t drag my finger on my phone very well due to a disability. I can’t play this game even though I bought it because of this bug. I will change my review if it’s fixed

Wow. Everything I was looking for!!! Like balatro, but chess!!! I love chess and will probably play this a lot :)

Content. I like chess. I like roguelikes. This seemed like a cool concept, two things I like rolled into one. The graphics look very nice. Love the arcade style. The gameplay has roses and thorns. I love how the rounds and stages progress. The piece attrition is also interesting. There’s a big problem though: option bloat. I see this with a lot of roguelikes. Too many options are placed too often. What makes the genre fun in general is how it pushes me outside my comfort zone and forces me to adapt to new play styles. It’s the novelty that makes it exciting, each run feeling distinct from the others. When a run is diluted with choices, I feel like they matter less. It’s like trimming a hedge that grows at a perceivable speed. This is where Gambonanza fails. The issues is that the core challenge (piece attrition) remains starkly consistent across rounds. The shop always felt like it had the same choices, the similar only slightly different options for the same problems. That is, the need to accumulate money and buy resources (pieces, tiles, and gambits). If one plays recklessly, they starve. If they purchase recklessly, they also starve. This type of challenge is great. It just felt dull after a few runs. Tying into this, the gameplay felt rushed. It felt like playing bullet chess. The ai was very weak and prioritized taking pieces, which made sense in relation to the core challenge of attrition, but it didn’t encourage the mindfulness that I love about classic chess. The shopping felt repetitive. The gambits all too often were differentiated by subtle differences (i.e., landing a knight on a black square skips the opponents turn - capturing an opponents piece with a knight has a 1/3 chance to grant the corresponding piece). Basically, it’s mix and matched traits with lots of repetition. It feels balanced and consistent, but also uninteresting. Now, it’s important to note that I don’t think having multiple similar gambits is inherently bad. But in junction with the high octane rapid fire rounds, I never felt the opportunity to experience novel builds. The challenge felt too similar each time. Make sure I have enough pieces, get money, get tiles, upgrade board. It was hard to feel suprised, invested, or excited. It felt like doom scrolling. Ok, I was pretty harsh. But this is what I feel about the game. I think the concept of a chess roguelike is awesome. Despite my complaints, the game it very polished. It’s also possible some might enjoy the experience more than I. I hate dislike bullet chess, preferring 10+ minute games, so maybe that colored my opinion somewhat.

So peak. I love this game just please add it to Xbox I’m begging

Chess but better. FUN Game!

I’m learning. I love this game. It feels like Balatro but chess

Nice. I had the demo on my laptop but the hardware was so fried that it just shut off playing it happy I can play it on mobile

I love this game. I love this game because it’s so fun and I have been playing it ever since I got it.

Meh…. You tried. This is like if someone liked Balatro and used AI to copy to the premise. It just lacks the same amount of depth. You’ll get bored quick.

Good game. Games pretty good

Yay. This game is like Balatro and chess which is why I love it

Unique Balatro Inspired Must-Have. After seeing the advertisements from the developer on YouTube describing the game it instantly grabbed my interest. I am not one to spend money on mobile games but seeing a game this polished and fun to play at a low price and developed by one person made me instantly want to get it. I knew that even if I didn’t enjoy it I would still feel good supporting an indie dev, and luckily I got that plus an amazing game! This game is worth it if you like roguelikes or roguelites

It will be the best game of this year. I've been waiting for this

Remember the name. When Balatro dropped we were like, how do we say the name? Well, buckle up and let’s start learning how to pronounce this thing cause damn it’s got legs. Unless you want your significant other to get mad at you for locking in one your phone, this game is not for you.

Good game. Wahoo!

Good game. I like it. It’s a cool world like chess game.

Phenomenal balatro vibes for chess fans (even if you don’t play chess. Loving this game

Fun. Balatro but for chess fans

Exquisite. Love the game it’s like balatro but you have to think alot harder

游玩评价. 感觉还不错就是价格稍微有点贵steam比ios价格便宜点看了下整体蛮好玩的

Great but very very hard!. Seems like a really fun game, only issue is, either I suck, or it’s just stupid hard. Maybe the tutorial needs more expanding, or maybe the levels need to get more difficult a little slower. To be honest, I don’t know. I can’t really say anything bad about this within the first 24 hours of it being released through. Great job!

New and already loving it. I’ve been eyeing this one for a while it’s amazing how it’s like chess and Balatro COMBINED 10/10 👍

Please fix. Cant see the right side of the board once you get to stage 4. Its covered by the gambits

Really good.. This is the best game of this type since balatro and slay 1 and 2. So worth it.

Cool. Cool

Super Fun. Balatro but with chess. Being a chess player this game is as fun as Balatro, if not more so. Well done!

THE GOAT OF MOBILE ROUGELITES. Yes i know this is on steam as well but this is peak. if you love balatro and chess you HAVE to play this

Awesome. Cool balatro clone

Good. Good

Incredible. 5/5!

sounds like Balatro. Plays like balatro too, anyway it’s a good chess game

INSANE GAME!. Love it. I love roguelikes, I love chess, I love this game

Bueno pero calienta mi iphone 15 pro. deben optimizarlo y colocar una opción x2 para que sea más rápido

Garbage rip off. Rip off of Balatro but no skill at all entirely luck based

Addictive. As a chess lover myself. Best 6$ I've spent in years

Balatro but chess!. It’s great

Really fun, but huge bug. I love the game! However, the audio quality is not good on iPadOS 26.

Bad!. They’re trying to become successful using the exact same formula as Balatro—literally copying it. But it doesn’t work like that. It’s really stupid and disappointing.

MUST PLAY. IT IS SO FUN AND THE MECHANICS ARE SO FOOD QND WHEN YOU GET TO THE END IT IS SO OP(I’m not in caps lock it is just that good)