Pawnbarian: Brilliant or Blunder?

Time To Beat Five of the Six Characters:

5.1 Hours

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, chess had a moment (maybe it still is). Netflix aired the Queen's Gambit in 2020. Confined at home, people started playing chess on Chess.com, while watching chess on Twitch to improve. I bought a subscription to Chess.com and watched Gotham Chess on YouTube.

I also bought two chess variants on Steam. Both released early during the pandemic. Pawnbarian, developed by solo developer j4nw, features an experience not quite, but very unlike chess.

Set on a five by five board (chess is eight by eight), the player controls a single piece, the Pawnbarian. Every turn the player draws three cards from a deck composed of one king, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and five pawns. The player draws through the entire deck before it reshuffles. The player can see which cards are discarded and which are available. This transparency lets the player strategize.

Each turn, the player plays two cards. Or can end their turn prematurely. The card moves the Pawnbarian exactly as the appropriate chess piece moves in a chess game.

Pawnbarian opens with a tutorial that helpfully explains the basics. The player explores three dungeons; The Goblin Caves, The Golem Fortress, and the Foul Shrine. Each dungeon consists of seven rooms, and each dungeon is tied together with a theme, finished with a final boss. Each room is packed with between three and seven enemies. They move after the player has taken his turn. Each enemy attacks and then moves. The game telegraphs where the enemy attacks, but it doesn't indicate where they will move.

At the conclusion of each room the player earns money. The faster the player finishes a room, the more money they earn. The player also heals one point.After collecting money, the player visits an upgrade room. The player spends their money to purchase additional health (limited to one per upgrade room), or upgrade their cards.

The player can not buy new cards. Instead they upgrade cards with abilities. There are five upgrades. A card with Cantrip does not count as playing a card. Cardinal splash deals damage on all spaces horizontally adjacent to the space the Pawnbarian ends on. Diagonal splash does the same, diagonally. A Shield card prevents the Pawnbarian from taking one damage that turn. And Purify eliminates all Blight on the space the Pawnbarian stops on. Cards can have multiple abilities, including up to all five.

Enemies have abilities too. Nimble lets them dodge the first attack per turn. Units with Blight drop Blight on the ground as they move. Blight deals one damage to the player if they end their turn on it (Blight stacks on spaces). Champions can only be defeated after all other units are eliminated.

The player starts with three hits at the beginning of each dungeon. They heal one per room, and can buy one more between levels. Before the player moves, they can hover the mouse of each space. This informs the player how much damage they will suffer if they end there.

After defeating a dungeon the player has two options; continue with the current deck into an unending gauntlet, or they can enter another dungeon with a clean deck. I only made one attempt at a gauntlet. I preferred to explore new dungeons and new characters. After beating all three dungeons the player can add Chains. Chain I says, “Tougher Floors”. I played it, it was a bit tougher. To unlock Chain II the player has to defeat all dungeons on Chain I. The same for Chain III. I didn't unlock Chain II or Chain III.

It doesn't seem like Pawnbarian has enough content. It doesn't have the versatility of chess. It adds replayability with five other champions.

The Knights Templar has no queen and no pawns, but extra knights. Whenever he makes two knight moves in a turn he activates a bonus Cantrip. Instead of Cantrip upgrades, the Templar buys Purify upgrades.

The Shogun is the one character I couldn't win with. His pieces are all unique, and his ability was too strange.

When the Nomad attacks he remains in his starting space, as if he is firing an arrow. He only moves if moving to an empty space. He replaces the queen and pawns with the Hawk. The Hawk functions like a long range knight jumping two or three squares cardinally or diagonally.

The Capyzerker gains the Cantrip effect every time he is injured. He earns less gold, but bonus health at the end of a mission. And he has a Bear unit which attacks any space two away.

The Mystic can't upgrade with Shield, but with Purify. Her Ghost piece allows her to move to any empty space on the board.Each character requires a unique playstyle. But every playthrough the player should be building their deck of chess cards for the final boss of the appropriate dungeon. On the few dungeons I failed, it was always in the final room. 

The problem is, the player can't strategize more than their card upgrades. Battles are not strategic or tactical. Rooms are too small, a mere five by five. Twenty-five spaces, and six of them occupied by enemies. The player can see the enemy's next move, but they can't predicate more than that. Enemies run at the player, and there isn't any more to think about than how do I slowly whittle them down, while dodging attacks. I felt this way about Into Breach, but the problem is more severe in Pawnbarian.

In Conclusion,

Pawnbarian advertises itself as a Chess variant. I would argue that it is chess in the shallowest manner; visually. The player plays cards marked like chess pieces, to move like chess pieces. While the mechanics are superficially chess, the objective, the game play, and the battlefield are something much simpler. Unlike the intricate game of chess, Pawnbarian doesn't allow planning. The player thinks about their current move and no further. The game doesn't include enough options, information, or space for anything beyond one movers.  The only planning the player needs, don't purchase this game.

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