ROOKSPELL

Chess, but every capture is a spell.

Underneath is a complete, rules-accurate game of chess. On top is a deck of 41 spells that break it — pawns that leap three squares, fog only you can see through, a piece pulled back from the dead. Take a piece, draw a card, change the rules.

Wishlist on Steam Browse the spellbook

Full chess engine
41 spells, 5 rarities
AI from 400 to 2400
Online & hot-seat

Pixel art key art: three glowing spell cards hovering over a stone pedestal

Scroll

One turn, three beats

Capture. Draw. Cast.

There is no mana, no shop, and no deck to build before you sit down. The only way to earn a spell is to win a piece the honest way.

Beat 1 · Capture

Take a piece

Win any enemy piece through ordinary chess. No card is needed to get started, and no card can be cast before you have earned one.

Beat 2 · Draw

A spell comes off the deck

The game rolls a rarity first, then a card inside it. Commons turn up half the time; a Legendary is a one-in-forty moment you will remember.

Beat 3 · Cast

Spend it at the right moment

Hold the card as long as you like. Petrify the piece about to fork you, or bank it and let your opponent wonder what you are sitting on.

The spellbook

41 spells.
Every one bends the board.

No filler and no stat boosts — each card changes what is legal. Hover a card to feel it; filter by rarity to see how deep each tier runs.

Standard draw odds

A rarity tier is rolled first, then a card inside it — so adding more Commons never makes Commons likelier.

The interactive spellbook needs JavaScript. Here is the full deck:

Double Step (Common) — A pawn may advance two squares again, even after it has moved.
Time Bank (Common) — Add 30 seconds to your clock in a 5-minute game; scales with the starting clock.
Pawn Rush (Common) — A pawn on its home rank may advance three squares this turn.
Mulligan (Common) — Discard the rest of your hand and draw a fresh card for each one.
Sidewind (Common) — Choose a pawn. This turn it may move diagonally forward into an empty square.
Recastle (Uncommon) — Restore your right to castle, even if the king has moved.
Veil (Uncommon) — Hide your next move's origin and destination until after your opponent replies.
Royal Decree (Uncommon) — Your king may step one extra square this turn (not into check).
Bulwark (Uncommon) — A chosen pawn cannot be captured until your next turn.
Gambit (Uncommon) — Sacrifice one of your pawns, then draw two cards.
Militia March (Uncommon) — All of your pawns may advance two squares this turn.
Quarry Mark (Uncommon) — Mark an enemy piece; capture it with your next move to draw one additional spell.
Transmutation (Uncommon) — Discard another spell and draw one exactly one rarity higher.
Knight's Charge (Rare) — Your next knight may make a second move this turn.
Sidestep (Rare) — Swap the files of two of your own adjacent pieces.
Reinforcements (Rare) — Draw two cards immediately, with no sacrifice required.
Fortify (Rare) — Choose two pawns; neither can be captured until your next turn.
Feint (Rare) — Hide your next move and show a plausible decoy move in its place.
Tempo (Rare) — Gain 15 seconds and take 5 from your opponent; scales with the starting clock.
Castling Gate (Rare) — Swap your king with either of your rooks, ignoring the usual castling rules.
Diagonal Dash (Rare) — Your next bishop may leap over the first piece blocking its diagonal.
Conscript (Rare) — Place a new pawn on any empty square of your second rank.
Knighthood (Rare) — Dub one of your pawns on the opponent's half of the board: it becomes a knight.
Spyglass (Rare) — Peek at every card in your opponent's hand.
Echo Sigil (Rare) — Return your most recently played Common, Uncommon, or Rare spell to your hand.
Masquerade (Rare) — A bishop or knight uses the other piece's movement for its next move.
Runic Mine (Rare) — Mark an empty square; the first enemy piece to land there becomes petrified.
Royal Recall (Rare) — Move one of your bishops, knights, or rooks beside your king.
Smoked Out (Epic) — Cover a 3×3 area in fog for three half-moves. Only the caster can see inside.
Slime (Epic) — Cover a plus-shaped patch that slows everything crossing it for three half-moves.
Field Mend (Epic) — Return one captured bishop or knight to its vacant original starting square.
Tremor (Epic) — Every piece on the outer ring is jolted one square toward the centre.
Firewall (Epic) — Ignite one entire file; no piece may land there or pass through for four half-moves.
Petrify (Epic) — Turn an enemy piece to stone: it cannot move until your next turn.
Arcane Draft (Epic) — Choose any built-in spell you have discovered and add it to your hand.
Claim Jumper (Epic) — The first capture reward your opponent earns goes to your hand instead.
Clockwork Square (Epic) — Rotate the contents of a king-free 2×2 area clockwise.
Time Stop (Legendary) — Take two moves in a row before your opponent may reply.
Resurrection (Legendary) — Return any captured piece type to any empty square on your home rank.
Turncoat (Legendary) — Place an enemy piece you captured onto your home rank, fighting for you.
Mistaken Identity (Legendary) — Mark a piece as a false king for one round; it must escape check.

Your table, your rules

Three ways to sit down

Solo

Against the AI

One slider sets the opponent from 400 to 2400. It searches on its own thread, so the board never locks up while it thinks — and you can queue a pre-move while it does.

Same screen

Local hot-seat

Pass and play against someone next to you, spells included. Each player's hand stays hidden until it is their turn.

Online

Steam multiplayer

Host a room and invite a friend through Steam, or browse open lobbies. The host picks the rules and the clock; everyone in the room sees the settings before the first move.

Single-player AI strength

1200

Club player

A steady opponent that punishes loose play. Solid footing for an improving player.

400 · Learning2400 · Sharp

Four ways to weight the rules

Pick a variant before the match. Online, the host's choice applies to the whole room.

Default

Standard

Full chess plus the spell deck at its authored odds. The way the game is meant to be learned.

Purist

Classic Chess

The deck is switched off entirely. Just the engine, the clock, and the board.

Turned up

Arcane

The rarity curve is flattened, so Epics and Legendaries land several times more often.

Upside down

Chaos

The rarity table is mirrored. Legendaries become the common draw and Commons become the prize.

Beyond a single match

The parts that keep you
coming back

The Collection

Every spell you cast for the first time is recorded. Undiscovered cards sit in the codex as blanks until you finally draw one — and the game nudges a fresh card your way if you have been unlucky for too long.

Build a spellbook

For offline matches, narrow the draw pool to a chosen twelve. Only cards you have discovered are eligible, and per-rarity limits stop a hand-picked pool from stacking nothing but Legendaries.

Steam Workshop

Subscribe to packs that reskin the pieces, board and table, or add new cards written in plain data. There is an in-game pack builder and uploader, so you never need to leave the game to publish one.

15 achievements

From your first win to collecting every card at a given rarity. One is hidden — you will find it by doing something you probably should not.

The trophy shelf

At a glance

Everything in the box

Complete chess engine — castling, en passant, promotion, every standard draw
41 spell cards across five rarities
Solo play against a tunable 400–2400 AI on its own thread
Local hot-seat and online Steam multiplayer with lobbies and invites
Four rules variants — Standard, Classic Chess, Arcane and Chaos
Optional chess clock, with clock spells that scale to the time control
Pre-moves while the AI is thinking
Card Collection, constructed spellbooks, and 15 Steam achievements
Steam Workshop packs — skins, boards and data-driven custom cards
Full controller support and rebindable keys
Animation levels (Full / Reduced / Off) for motion sensitivity
Hand-drawn pixel art on a warm wooden table

Minimum
OS	Windows 10 (64-bit), macOS 11, or a modern 64-bit Linux
Processor	Dual-core 2.0 GHz
Memory	2 GB RAM
Graphics	Integrated, OpenGL 3.3 / Vulkan capable
Storage	250 MB available

Recommended
OS	Windows 11 (64-bit), macOS 13, or a modern 64-bit Linux
Processor	Quad-core 3.0 GHz
Memory	4 GB RAM
Graphics	Any dedicated GPU
Storage	500 MB available

Windows is the lead platform and the one the build is verified on daily. macOS and Linux exports are configured and are being tested ahead of launch — the requirements above are estimates until they are confirmed on real low-end hardware.

Questions

Good to know

Is the chess underneath actually complete?

Yes. Castling, en passant, promotion, check, checkmate and stalemate, plus the fifty-move rule, threefold repetition and insufficient-material draws are all implemented and enforced. Play the Classic Chess variant and you get exactly that, with the deck switched off.

Is there online multiplayer?

Yes. Rookspell has peer-to-peer online play through Steam. You can host a room and invite a friend from your Steam friends list, or browse and join open lobbies. The host sets the rules variant and the clock, and the room shows those settings to everyone before the game starts.

Local hot-seat on one screen is still there too.

How does the AI difficulty work?

A single slider sets strength from roughly 400 to 2400 Elo. It scales search depth, thinking time, and how often the engine deliberately plays a weaker move. The search runs on a background thread, so the interface stays responsive and you can queue a pre-move while it thinks.

Does the AI really play blind against fog and veils?

It does. Veil hides your move's origin and destination until your opponent has replied, so the AI plans from the position as it was before you moved. Smoked Out covers a 3×3 area in fog that only the caster can see into. The engine reasons over the information it is allowed to have rather than peeking and pretending.

Can I play without the cards?

Yes — that is the Classic Chess variant. You can also go the other way with Arcane, which makes the rarest spells far more common, or Chaos, which mirrors the whole rarity table so Legendaries become your everyday draw.

Do Workshop cards work in multiplayer?

Workshop cards are for single-player and local hot-seat only. Two players online may have different packs subscribed, and a card one side does not have would desynchronise the match — so online games always deal from the built-in deck. Cosmetic packs like piece and board skins work everywhere, since they only change what you see.

What platforms will it launch on?

Windows is the lead platform. macOS and Linux exports are configured and in testing, and will be listed on the Steam page once they are verified.

What is the Collection?

A codex that tracks how much of the deck you have seen. Casting a spell for the first time adds it; everything else waits as a blank. If you go a long stretch without discovering anything new, the next reward is pulled from the cards you are still missing.

Rookspell is in development. A wishlist tells Steam to let you know the moment it is out — nothing else.

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