‘Shotgun King’ Answers the Question: What If Chess Had a Shotgun?
Shotgun King answers this age old question that has plagued mankind for the last 6000 years. Finally, we have our answer.
Chess has a long-standing tradition of being a game of calculated patience. But Shotgun King is a game of calculating patients.
What started as an entry in Ludum Dare 50 (which it won, by the way) has very quickly turned around and become a fully fledged game in record time. The game was created in its entirety within 72 hours. Bravo, Punkcake.
Shotgun King is basically a rouge-like puzzle game. Rather than a full army of pieces, you control a single King… but with a shotgun. At the start of the game, the AI opponent has only a few pieces. Rather than moving one piece at a time, each piece will move after a certain number of turns. Even if this means multiple pieces will move on the same turn.
After each level in Shotgun King, you have the choice between two new abilities. However, each new ability also grants the opponent new pieces, or new abilities as well. You can gain things like additional ammo, a sniper rifle, create a moat, and tons more. The opponent can gain bonuses like more health, more pieces, faster pieces, or allowing certain pieces additional move options. For example, letting the Bishop move (but not attack) orthogonality.
What seems like an incredibly easy task (since you have a shotgun and all), very quickly gets out of hand. Soon, you’re facing down rows and rows of enemy pieces. But the real difficulty comes from the dangers of the discovered check. Killing a piece which is blocking the path of another enemy piece, will result in a checkmate, and your defeat.
For only $6, Shotgun King is well worth the price. It’s a supremely entertaining spin on the ancient game.
