Game: Gambit Shifter
Genre: Puzzle, Indie
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Volcanite Games
Controller Support: No
Price: US $7.99 | UK £6.99| EU €7.99
Release Date: March 22nd, 2024
A review code was used with many thanks to Volcanite Games.
Gambit Shifter, from Volcanite Games, introduces itself as a “minimalist cozy puzzle game” based on chess that doesn’t require a deep tactical understanding of the game, or anything beyond the basics of the classic tactics, really. That’s good, because chess can be tough to play beyond the beginner games most of us have at least tried once. But can it match its goals while still putting your brain cells into temporary check? Let’s check it out!
Know Your Roles With Gambit Shifter
Gambit Shifter’s reliance on its chess metaphor extends primarily to how the pieces on the board will move, and it’s useful to know the basic rules up front. Here’s a quick primer, with quirks specific to Gambit Shifter highlighted within parenthesis.
Pawns, which you’ll begin the game with, move only forward unless they can ‘capture’ a piece sitting diagonally and forward from it. (Gambit Shifter allows your pawn to move two spaces, which is ‘legal’ in chess in the opening play.) The castle-shaped rook can move in a straight line, forward and back, left and right. (In chess, this can cross the full board. This game, for purposes of its puzzles, shortens the rook’s route.) The towering bishop moves diagonally in all directions. (I didn’t notice if the game cuts its route as well; most puzzle boards were too small to find out.) The horse-like knight moves in an L-shape and in all directions.
If any of that is confusing, the game is happy to help by showing you your potential moves and any enemy puzzle moves by hovering over the piece!
How Gambit Shifter Plays
Each round of the game takes place on a game board arranged to make you think your way through its puzzles with ever-increasing but fair difficulty. Each set of twelve puzzles opens with an easy-to-follow tutorial-style board that introduces you to the basics of the game, and any new gimmicks the next section of puzzles may add. The first set is straightforward, showing how your pieces can move, how to transform your pawn into other pieces, and then how enemy pieces can also move during each turn taken. Unlike real chess, enemy pieces will move on a clearly marked route unless they can capture you!
The second batch, for an example of how the game begins to escalate its thoughtful trickery, adds portals. All of these gimmicks are neat and not overly frustrating, and the long pauses you might take to try and puzzle out your next several moves are a nice introduction to the thoughtful, calculated vibe of standard chess. But while some real-life chess games between players can go on for years, Gambit Shifter expects you to eventually try out a tricky move well before your patience fails. If it fails and your piece is captured, oh well! No harm in starting over and trying again.
A Tight Aesthetic Adds Class to Gambit Shifter
Blue-hued grey boards with clean marks, bright but not intrusive backgrounds, and chill-out beats let you vibe peaceably while figuring out what the game is trying to ask you to do next, and each puzzle board is rarely so big as to get unwieldy. I’m still working to get to the final pages of the game. There are eighty puzzles total, and I have raging ADHD that needs a break between new gimmicks, but at no point have I felt overwhelmed by what’s been laid out before me.
Navigating the game is a breeze. It’s a simple cursor and click set-up, which also works smoothly out of the box on a Steam Deck via its touchpad and buttons. Options in the corner of the screen allow moves to be rewound, or the board restarted. At the puzzle selection screen, options at the bottom allow levels to be replayed for a higher score. That’s the only thing pushing a player to better themselves on a level they had trouble with.
There’s an optimum path for each level based on how many turns you take to solve the board. Each completion rewards you with one of three grades depending on how efficient you were, presenting you with a golden king at your best or a gilded warrior pawn at the worst. Gambit Shifter is not here to punish you for taking a few extra moves to figure its riddles out. It’s simply saying Good job! Want to take another crack at that later, now that you know what the goal is?
Gambit Shifter Offers Bite-Sized Fun and No Drama
Probably that’s the nicest feature of Gambit Shifter. The stereotypical feature of high-ranking chess masters is an intellectual sense of superiority and ego; it’s not always true, but the trope continues to exist, and this game’s insistence on its cool-hued lack of consequence and unobtrusive urge for you to try again makes chess itself feel less intimidating.
That’s great for a classic board game that goes through periods of a niche following and unusually high-spirited dramas — see the 2022 Carlsen-Niemann mess and know that most unbiased write-ups delicately avoid the wildest parts of the speculation around the allegations. Chess is a game that, at its heart, should be accessible to everyone, simply for the ways it can teach us to think and plan ahead. This unassuming puzzler is doing its part to show you the basic pieces of a game that’s centuries old and let you play with how each token can work in strategic environments.
Conclusion
Gambit Shifter is not a game with lofty ambitions despite its regal cast of chess pieces. It’s a pleasant, low-stress, low-stakes puzzler that wants you to succeed and get you to think outside the board to figure out its riddles. Although its blue-steel aesthetic seems forgettably low-key, it actually allows you to put your thinky cap on and focus on the puzzle, without a lot of additional doodads to confuse its goal. No matter what, a glint of gold is your reward, and that makes it easier to push forward into the harder puzzles.
The result is a sleek game that’s perfect for someone who wants something more spatial than the Piczle franchise and less punishing than Braid. At a budget price and a full slate of carefully designed puzzles, it’s a fine side game for someone who wants to shift — har — their brain into a different gear after a long day. Currently available on PC and via the Steam storefront, it’s a pleasant slice of quiet time, with no Bobby Fischer wannabes yelling in your ear about zwischenzugs or wing pawn decoy tactics. Try Gambit Shifter out. Then, maybe, try a casual game of chess at the park or the library.
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot
