From Endless Check to an Endless Climb: Crown Tactics

A few months ago I thought I was working on the next version of Endless Check.

Instead, after a whiteboard session with some friends, I accidentally ended up making an entirely different game.

Today, I'm excited to share Crown Tactics.

What is Crown Tactics?

If you've ever looked at a game of Chess and thought, "This is great, but what if the board never ended and I was being chased by a clock?" this game might be for you. (Just kidding, no one thinks that [yet])

Crown Tactics is a fast-paced chess-inspired roguelike where your goal is simple: keep moving north.

Every row you advance increases your score. Every second counts. Every enemy piece is both an obstacle and an opportunity. The board stretches endlessly ahead of you, and the only thing standing between you and a new high score is your ability to make good decisions under pressure.

Or panic slightly faster than the game expects.

How did this happen?

Crown Tactics actually started life as a conversation about Endless Check.

After a terribly unsuccessful board games afternoon against them, my friends and I were discussing Endless Check and ways to expand it, but the more modifiers we talked about adding, the more it felt like we were pushing against the limits of what a 5x5 tactical chess game wanted to be. So we did what any good devs do in their free time, we grabbed a whiteboard.

A few sketches later, we had the rough framework for what would eventually become Crown Tactics: an endless scrolling board, Frogger-style movement, and a system that allowed players to swap between different chess pieces during a run.

The idea immediately felt bigger.

That same evening I began working on a prototype. By the time one of my friends had driven home, he had a demo waiting for him. After a quick run, he told me it felt like a real game.

That was the first moment where I thought "Oh damn. This might actually be something."

Why play Chess on an endless board?

At first glance, most players think the objective is simply to move upwards as fast as possible.

And to be fair, that's a decent strategy for about five minutes.

Then the game starts asking more interesting questions.

• Do you spend your money on more time, or upgrade your sub-ins?
• Do you take the shortest route to increase your score, or detour through a cluster of enemy pieces to fill your wallet?
• Do you save your Queen for an emergency, or use it now to push further ahead?

The deeper you get into Crown Tactics, the less it becomes about moving north and the more it becomes about optimising a run. The goal was never to create a single dominant strategy. I wanted players to adapt.

The part I'm most proud of

Oddly enough, my favourite feature isn't the sub-in system or modifiers - it's the boards themselves.

Different board layouts reward completely different approaches. A modifier combination that feels incredible on one board can be far less useful on another. Some layouts make time management the priority. Others encourage investing heavily into your special pieces and extending their active turns.

Outside of buying more time (which is always useful), there really isn't one build that solves everything. Seeing my friends discover that has been incredibly satisfying.

I'm also disproportionately proud of the screen shake and transition shaders. (They took far longer than I'd like to admit.)

A memorable discovery

One of my favourite development moments came from accidentally breaking the game during an early test build. I found a modifier combination that generated coins whenever I moved and generated time whenever I captured pieces.

What followed was a run that lasted for nearly twenty minutes. Not because I was particularly skilled, not because the game was balanced, but because I'd accidentally built an economy that sustained itself forever.

The run only ended because I decided I wanted to go hang out with my parrots.

That particular combination has been toned down slightly since then.

Key Features

• Rapid-fire runs designed to be completed in just a few minutes.
• Endless score chasing across multiple unique board layouts.
• The Sub-In System, allowing you to swap between powerful chess pieces mid-run.
• Shops, modifiers and upgrades that shape every attempt differently.
• Increasing difficulty levels featuring active enemy movement and new tactical challenges.
• Steam Leaderboards for players who want to compete for the highest score.

This is Just the Beginning

As always, I'm eager to hear what people think. More specifically, once the demo releases (Coming Soon!) I'm interested in how you approach the game.

• Which modifiers jumped out as useful first?
• Which board became your favourite?
• Did you focus on survival, speed, optimisation, or pure greed?

And perhaps most importantly:

• Do you find yourself wanting to climb the leaderboard and chase a higher score?

Check out the game page, take a run at the climb, and let me know - How far can you make it before the clock finally catches up?