Pixel Gambit

Pixel Gambit is a mobile chess game in pixel art, with a tagline that sums it up: 64 squares, 1 monster at a time. Instead of a plain board against a faceless engine, you climb a tower of chess monsters, one a day. It’s planned with Expo for the app and NestJS for the server.

For now it’s a design: I worked it out with Claude in Claude Design, and these screens come from that prototype, which already plays real chess against a simple AI.

How it plays

• The daily gauntlet. Five rungs a day: warm-up puzzles, a short story beat, a skirmish, then the beast at the top. Clear all five to keep your streak alive; miss a day and the tower resets.
• The bestiary. Six bosses, each tied to a piece and a rating: the Slime Pawn (“Blorp. I brought eight friends.”), the Gravel Golem, the Will-o’-Knight, the Cyclops Bishop, the Hydra Queen and, at the top, the Void King.
• Quick play. A ranked quick match, a daily puzzle, free play against any beast, or pass-and-play on the same phone.
• Online. Quick matches in 1+0, 3+2 or 10+0, a friend code to play someone you know, hourly “Midnight Blitz” arenas, and slow correspondence games.
• Progress. Coins, XP, a rating chart, trophies, and one account across devices: games played as a guest carry over when you sign up.

The look

Every piece and monster is an 8×8 pixel sprite, drawn in code, on a dark indigo palette with a violet accent, the Press Start 2P font and optional scanlines.

What’s next

Turning the prototype into the real thing: the Expo app, matchmaking and accounts on a NestJS server, and a stronger engine behind the beasts.