…Chess with cards?!?

     I mean, this game is like Chess, at its core, but with a little more chaos. With territory based strategies, two ways to Castle, two ways to Checkmate, and matches where you can stop the Queen from moving by having a Pawn “sit” on her… Tyranny will have you thinking twice about your next move. To think that Chess, with its learning curbs, I’m actually adding more stuff. Its different, but like Chess, it will be fun once you get hang of it.

     At the start of each game, both Players must have 8 of their cards on the board on their territory. With 4 cards on the “Front Line” facing up, consisting of pawns and or Knights, and 4 cards on the “Royal Line” behind them. “Royal Line” cards may be whatever the player chooses and may all be face down in whatever order. Except for the King, who must remain face up at all times while on the board. Players will have their remaining cards in their hand, using them in diabolic ways as the game progresses.

     With Tyranny having a face down mechanic, matches are bound to get very technical as well as frantic. You will need the right starting formations, the right strategies, and maybe a little bit of luck to overcome your opponent.

    But how did I decide to come up with all this? I’ll tell you. It started some time in 2021 when I was online looking to purchase a card-based chess game, if any. Because Chess and the portability of cards… Why not? To my surprise, at the time, there were none. So, I started thinking about how it would be cool if I could come up with something, combining the two. Down the line, I figured, if I’m doing this, I could probably put my own little spin on it too… Spins like, how big the play area will be and what the cards could do.  Gathering inspirations from other card games, recent fighting games, Chess960, and a little Chess Checkmate app, I started on the path to make a card-based Chess game that, to me, turned into much more than that.

     After months of just thinking about the game, I finally put pen to paper and wrote rules, plans and other complicated stuff. It felt like it was taking forever, until I finally started cutting card prototypes, got some technical insight from my brother, and convincing myself to “just get it done”, Tyranny was born!!! Kinda

     After long months of bending and breaking the rules of my own game and trying not to overcook the steak… as my brother would put it, I could only hope that Tyranny can eventually be enjoyed by the masses in the coming future.