Reviews for Tomb Chess

[MalTheDestroyer]

Not bad!

This game is actually a whole heck of a lot closer to Stratego than it is to chess, but who am I to say anything? I really like the concept of this game, and to some extent, the execution as well (the music, in particular, is perfect). There's just one thing that bothers me. Well, two things, actually.

1) On a continuum of luck and skill, chess is a game of 100% skill. It's good to take a solid concept like that and throw in some luck, but I think you've thrown in far too much here. Think of luck in games as ketchup on a burger; it adds some flavor, but if you glob on too much, it just ruins the whole thing.

The fact that my King might appear on the second turn and the enemy might choose the square next to him and pull up a Ghost when there's nowhere for my King to run...well, that's really no fun. What's even worse is that if you lose your king and queen and your opponent still has his queen, you're completely screwed. There is no way to survive at that point. It might be a good idea to let ghosts take out the queen, just to keep things interesting in situations like that.

Other suggestions: you should consider leaving some spaces free of tombstones, setting in advance the number of units of each kind, and other things to make gameplay a little more predictable.

2) Every piece moves exactly one space. I'm sorry, but that's kind of dull. It turns every match into an elaborate game of rock paper scissors, essentially. Giving some pieces different types of movement would add another layer of tactics to things. To do this well, you might need to increase the size of the board. I'm sure you can figure it out.

Anyway, good work on the whole. I look forward to seeing if you can improve on this!

[plavacek]

More like Stratego than chess

Good game overall. I'm generally not too big on games where your strategy has to be helped out by your luck, and this is definitely one of those - with a run of bad reveals (the computer getting king and queen out early, for instance) you can very quickly wind up low on pieces. I guess that's why it's best 2 out of 3, though.
There's also basically no advantage to being the one doing the revealing - it wastes a turn, and doesn't influence the piece selected, so I found that moving around, even meaninglessly, and letting the computer do the revealing worked best.
I think the stalemate rule should only kick in once there are fewer than 4 pieces left on a side. Until then, there's always a way to trap down.
Again, good stuff - simple to learn and fun to play.

[Scotchy]

interesting

Honestly, I like the idea of 50/50 chance, but to often I found when I clicked a tomb it turned green, and then computer makes a green one, I actually had one game where I only had 1 ghoul, that wasn't very fair, I lost every game I played, because there was 1/4th as many guys as they had, and all my guys were ghouls or the wheelchair things, I suggest presetting the amounts of each team, like half board is red/green and then randomly picking one each time you click a tomb. That way there really IS a 50/50 on the game.

freeworldgroup responds:

That's strange - there should be exactly the same numbers of pieces for each side. Of course you could have a run of bad luck and the computer gets most of it's ghouls out first, but then you can come back at the end of the game, as all remaining tombs will have your ghouls.

[Geht]

Barely any strategy at all...

Nice idea and such, but the main difference between this and real chess is that chess involves equal strategy. This is essentially a game of chance. Not very fun to play, monotonous, and a game eventually leans in favor of either the computer or the person, and frankly, I found this uninteresting. The concept is nice and such, but the execution is irritating.

There's barely any reason to replay this, so although I thought it had the potential, it's really not very fun. More like some odd chore, where I get irritated at the opponent for winning in such an odd, lack-of -strategy way, or I feel slightly appeased by winning. I'd much rather play real chess, and that's saying a lot for me.

freeworldgroup responds:

The game actually follows Chinese chess - there is a lot of strategy involved in deciding which tomb to open - you have to consider the possible outcomes of a friend or foe, and then also consider the strength of the pieces. Sorry you missed the point of the game.