SokoChess Review

Game: SokoChess
Genre: Chess, Strategy, Puzzle
System: Steam (Windows, macOS & Linux)
Developer|Publisher: Daisy Games
Controller Support: None
Price: US $4.49 | UK £3.59 | EU € 3,59
Release Date: August 12th, 2022

Review code provided with many thanks to Daisy Games.

SokoChess is a chess-based puzzle game that pits players against specific tile sets, chess pieces, and setups. It’s a challenging little game, and it’s even more difficult for those who don’t have a background in chess.

Gameplay in SokoChess

The gameplay of SokoChess is very simple. You can click your chess pieces to move them, restart the level, skips levels, or go back a step. That’s about all there is to the GUI of this game. Its simplistic, minimalist setup adds to its charm, however, as all the focus is on each chess piece and what it can do.

Each puzzle consists of a player’s pieces, the opponent’s pieces, and a trimmed-down chess board. Players have to use the given pieces to push an opponent to place their pieces in the marked spots. For the puzzle above, players have to use just one Rook in order to get those two pawns into the squares marked with a tiny red pawn.

You have infinite moves, but each of those moves can only be within the limitations of how that piece is allowed to move in a real game of chess. Opponents don’t move unless they can capture one of your pieces, which is something that players can use to their advantage. Puzzles get progressively more difficult in higher levels, which throw in more pieces and larger boards with more mechanics.

Playing SokoChess

Playing this game was an absolute treat. It was very well polished with surprising amounts of settings to make it comfortable to play. For me personally, any game that allows me to turn off the screen shake gets high marks almost automatically; there’s nothing more annoying in a video game than the screen freaking out every time you make a mistake.

The game is challenging in a good way, really pushing your brain to come up with solutions to chess-specific puzzles. In the later levels, SokoChess even adds things like breakable tiles, keys and locks, and more. It’s amazing how many combinations this opens up for the devs to make more and more challenging levels.

Even For Chess Beginners?

To be completely frank, I have little love for the game of chess. No matter how a piece is moved, players have to be 1 million moves ahead. Every possible placement of every single chess piece has a long history and probably a long-standing move name. This very old game requires a lot of study and practice to be even half playable, and I find this kind of already-figured-outidness to be extremely off-putting.

So when I loaded up this game and realized it was chess-based, I was ready to hate it. But SokoChess does something that real chess cannot: it makes the game accessible.

It teaches players how the pieces move. It gives you the ability to make as many moves as you have to without worrying about what an opponent is doing. And it allows you to skip levels that are just beyond you to come back to later. You have the option to have the controls on the screen. It’s like a bunch of giant math puzzles that are solved in a beautiful, minimalist environment.

More Thoughts on SokoChess

In spite of the complexity of the SokoChess, there is a lot to love about it. I’m not usually a huge fan of these types of games because they require chess-specific knowledge, force you to play against people who are way better than you could ever be, or just aren’t fun. But SokoChess makes its puzzles ramp up in a slow way that makes it accessible.

Conclusion

That begin said, this game isn’t for everyone. It’s a very thinky game, and you really have to be on your toes to get through some of these levels. There are very few that can be brute forced. For some, this will make the game less appealing, but for many, I feel like this will be positive.

There are not a whole lot of levels so far, but this seems like a game that could be easily added to if the devs have the time. SokoChess is an excellent puzzle game for anyone who digs this kind of niche title.

Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot.