Chess Survivors

Released: Aug 31, 2023
Platforms
Last updated: 13 Sep 2026, 03:03 GMT

Updates & announcements

20 posts

09 Sep 2025Developer post
Build 1.6 Hotfix #1
Attempted to fix a bug where the inputs would fail after getting attacked. This bug was more prevalent on faster speeds, and I am hoping I was able to fix it.
Attempted to fix a bug where the inputs would fail after getting attacked. This bug was more prevalent on faster speeds, and I am hoping I was able to fix it.
Original post
26 Aug 2025Developer post
Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese (Patch 1.6)
I'm excited to announce that Chess Survivors now officially supports Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese! To celebrate I'll be running a 50% discount from August 26th - September 10th. Chess Survivors が日本語、韓国語、中国語（簡体字）に正式に対応しました！これを記念して、8月26日から9月10日まで50%割引を実施します。 체스 서바이버가 이제
05 Dec 2024Developer post
Bullet Heaven Festival
Happy Bullet Heaven Festival! 🎉 Hey everyone! I hope you're having a wonderful December—yes, I can't believe 2024 is almost over either! I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the Bullet Heaven Festival and reflect on Chess Survivors. Being my first game, it will always have a s
24 Sep 2024Developer post
1.5.2 Hotfixes
Some small changes based on recent feedback from players. Fixed a bug where the min health could show as negative on the game over screen Slightly increased the enemy and elite damage scaling values for endless mode Fixed a typo on the credits screen
Some small changes based on recent feedback from players.

Fixed a bug where the min health could show as negative on the game over screen
Slightly increased the enemy and elite damage scaling values for endless mode
Fixed a typo on the credits screen
Original post
24 Aug 2024Developer post
Hot Fix Patch (1.5.1)
Just a small patch to fix an issue reported by a player. Patch Notes: The YoYo ability will now show when playing without the turn timer. This was previously removed as the YoYo used to have a turn duration, but this ability was reworked to do one full rotation instead of a turn
Just a small patch to fix an issue reported by a player.
Patch Notes:

The YoYo ability will now show when playing without the turn timer.
This was previously removed as the YoYo used to have a turn duration, but this ability was reworked to do one full rotation instead of a turn duration.
This will fix the issue where the Smol Wizard didn't have an ability when the turn timer was disabled.
Original post
05 Jun 2024Developer post
YoYo and Firewall Rework - Patch 1.5 Live Now!
Hey there, This patch it directly based on feedback from you players and I think the changed to YoYo and Firewall make the game far more fun to play. Keep the feedback coming and I'll keep making changes. So If you do have feedback, please leave it over on the Steam discussions o
Hey there,
This patch it directly based on feedback from you players and I think the changed to YoYo and Firewall make the game far more fun to play. Keep the feedback coming and I'll keep making changes. So If you do have feedback, please leave it over on the Steam discussions or over in my discord.
Thanks for playing my little game,
Aarimous
1.5 Patch Notes
tl;dr; YoYo Ability and Firewall Reworks, QOL changes, random balance stuff, and bugs
Yo-Yo Ability Rework:

Removed the duration and will now only spin around the character once during the ability phase of the turn.
Remove upgrades for turn duration
Changed upgrades for cooldown from 8, 7, 6, 4→ 4, 3, 2, 1
Increased the damage from 30,55, 90, 150 → 50, 70, 110, 175
Increased the scale upgrades, but I can’t remember what the old values were
Adjusted the logic so that scale increase only increase the distance way from the player at 60% of their value. This is to prevent the yoyo from missing adjacent tiles as the scale increases
Increasing the scale no long increases the radius as well. The was how it previously worked, but after the AOE update it seems to have made it feel fairly bad.
Previously the Yo-Yo would spin at a set rate for a set duration of turns, while this made it a fairly unique ability it realistically was just fundamentally flawed with the idea of quick turns and how the other abilities work.
As such I’ve gone a head and changed it, as it’s no fun when one ability is just clearly better than the rest.
Plus to get the most power out of the Yo-Yo you needed to sit still and wait, which again is not fun. And I want to make this a fun game.
Please let me know if it feel bad or weak and I can add more power to it.
Firewall Hazard Rework:

Removed the rotation effect so now the fire balls will simply spawn on a tile and remain there until their turn durations is over (or they explode due to the player hitting it).
Previously the firewalls would spawn in and then the line of fireballs would rotate clockwise during the players movement turn.
My goal was to push the player to think quick, but hearing some feedback from players this goal was not met, and these firewall hazard just feel bad. So I changed them.
Misc:

Increased the XP per level growth from 4-5 and lowered the base XP amount from 5 to 4. This should have a small impact to the “end game” level you can reach but I don’t think it will be all that noticeable
Added a new text popup when a movement power up is consumed that will show the type of movement and the amount of turns added
I have changed the arrow for the pawns movement direction to be a bit clearer
Added the ability description to the ability tooltip
Minion with turn durations will now respawn at the start of the players movement phase instead of at the start of the ability phase. Functionally this gives them one more turn to act and should just make it easily to plan your movement around them.
Changed the Smol Wizard to now start with the YoYo ability instead of Pai Sho
When using a mouse you can now hover over the ability icons and relic icons to see their tooltips

Bugs:

Fixed an issue for keyboard and mouse where you can’t hover over the relics/abilities on level up
Fixed Matin’s names so is not all caps
Fixed the text for Gambit Level 1 to not have “enabled” twice
Fixed the art for the Fish Bowl character to have a non-outline version when in the character select screen
Fixed a bug where starting a new run could crash the game
Fixed another bug where the game over screen could cause the game to crash if you didn’t win the game.
Endless Mode:

Endless mode new act modifiers will now increase far more as you go deeper into endless acts. Previously each act would scale the act mods by 33% more and now that is 200%. Let’s see if it’s hard now. 🙂
You no long gain XP again after finishing endless mode
Long standing oversight that I finally fixed
Original post
01 Jun 2024Developer post
Beta Build 1.5.0
Hey there, This is actually a fairly large patch with a lot of little changes here and there. Because of that, I want to do a week or so of testing to see if there needs to be any further changes. You can play this build over on the beta branch . Please let me know either in this
03 May 2024Developer post
Hot Fix 1.4.1
Fixed a bug where the player upgrades (Ability Damage, Melee Damage, and Max Health) were all being calculated way too high. Now they should scale with each act, but then get clamped during endless mode. Cheers!
28 Apr 2024Developer post
AOE Changes - Patch 1.4 Live Now!
Hey there, This patch is a bunch of random changes based on suggestions for you the players. The big one here is a change to how area of effect increases work. I go into more details below, but this is a pretty big nerf to the end game scaling for AOE based abilities. I tried to
Hey there,
This patch is a bunch of random changes based on suggestions for you the players. The big one here is a change to how area of effect increases work. I go into more details below, but this is a pretty big nerf to the end game scaling for AOE based abilities. I tried to buff the base stats for impacted abilities/relics, but I likely got it wrong. So if needed, I will do a hot fix patch to fix any balance issues.
This is as much your game as it is mine, and my goal is for it to be a fun game that you enjoy playing that respects your time and the money you spent. If that is not the case, please let me know. I will change it to make it better. If you do have feedback, please leave it over on the Steam discussions or over in my discord.
Thanks for playing my little game,
Aarimous
1.4 Patch Notes
tl;dr; AOE Changes, Endless Balances Changes, Bug Fixes
Area of Effect Changes

Area of Effect increased will now increase the total size of the effect instead of the radius
Previously AOE increases would scale the whole size (i.e increase the radius) which if you recall math class impacts the area of a circle by pi * r^2.
So the more AOE increase you had the more impactful it actually became.
While this is fun, it does make many of the AOE scaling abilities fundamentally way more powerful than non-aoe abilities.
So this is a huge nerf to AOE in the game, but I have also gone through and buffed the upgrade abilities for AOE so hopefully they will still be powerful.
I will buff stuff as needed, so please let me know if things need to be adjusted
Abilities:
All the below abilities were impacted by the AOE changes. As such the upgrade values for AOE have been adjusted. Generally the values were doubled.

Cribbage
Playing Card
Tic Tac Toe
Dice
Yo-Yo
Bullseye
Bubbles
Snow day
Ping Pong

Adjusted the range values for the Bubbles as it was causing them to shoot to far. This is kinda a bug, but I'll put it here since it is only a numerical change.
Relics:

Buffed all AOE values for relics that impacted the AOE. This is to compensate for the AOE changes mentioned above. This included the character specific relics.
Thorny Boots:
Damage from extra movement changed from 10 → 5, but the value now scales with act number
Dwarven Pickaxe:
Damage from your ending turn on a wall tile changed form 20 → 10, but the value now scales with the act number
Act 3:
Slightly increased the percent health increased for enemies from +33% to +40%
Endless Mode:
Increased the the rate at which endless act modifiers get increased
Added a cap on the value increases for player upgrades like base ability damage, base melee damage, and max health increase
The increase to XP needed each level will now start to increase as you get further into the endless mode acts.
Bugs:

Fixed an unintended behavior, where the Spitball Minion and Snowman minion would shoot at the same speed when getting more projectiles. This became clunky at high number of projectiles so now the speed will scale with the number they have.
Fixed the way AOE values were shown so they show a percent increase instead of just a flat value
Attempted to fix a bug where changing the song could cause some lag
Original post
18 Mar 2024Developer post
1.3.2 Hot Fixes
A quick bug fix and some small balance changes for endless mode. Fixed a bug where you could kill yourself with a reroll when upon leveling up or opening a chest your health was less than the re-roll cost. Adjusted the "Endless Mode" act modifiers to grant more life to enemies an
A quick bug fix and some small balance changes for endless mode.

Fixed a bug where you could kill yourself with a reroll when upon leveling up or opening a chest your health was less than the re-roll cost.
Adjusted the "Endless Mode" act modifiers to grant more life to enemies and less damage. The goal here is to keep combat interesting as the acts scale, but lower the odds you get one-shot.
Original post
29 Feb 2024Developer post
What I'm Working On Next
Hey there, Thank you for checking out my little indie game. At this point my development on Chess Survivors is basically complete. But I would like to add one last feature to the game. An actual BOSS FIGHT! I have some ideas but I don’t have any timeline for when this will be rea
28 Dec 2023Developer post
Patch 1.3.1
Small patch aimed at adjusting the balance of Endless Mode. Please keep the feedback coming, I'm hoping I can get Endless Mode to be fun and challenging. If you do have feedback, please leave it over on the Steam discussions or over in my discord . Cheers, Aarimous General Change
Small patch aimed at adjusting the balance of Endless Mode. Please keep the feedback coming, I'm hoping I can get Endless Mode to be fun and challenging. If you do have feedback, please leave it over on the Steam discussions or over in my discord.
Cheers,
Aarimous
General Changes:

Player upgrades (Health, Ability Damage, Melee Damage, and Pickup Range) will now all have some randomness in the values. On average there isn’t much of a change, but it should add some additional texture to each run.
Lowered the value of the “Basic Relics” which you can start getting once you already get all the relics.
Changed the Discord link to be my Aarimous Discord as I will be retiring the Chess Survivors discord.
Endless Mode Balance:

In endless mode I removed chest elites for the spawning pool
XP needed per level will now scale by 10% more per level, previously it was following the same amount increase as the core game where it increased by 5 each level.
Endless act difficulty modifiers will now scale each act increasing roughly 10% per additional act
Player upgrades will no longer be an option for level ups in endless mode
Act rewards for endless mode are now not always full of rare relics
Bugs

Fixed a bug where ability properties with endless upgrades would not respect the limits on act upgrades.
Fixed a bug where some of the text on the game over screen would show incorrectly
Fixed a bug where after rerolling the relics/level up rewards a scroll bar would appear when it wasn’t there before the reroll.
Fixed some issues with the Portuguese Translations
Fixed a bug where the stats and info during level up rewards would not correctly display the current base value of the ability
Original post
26 Dec 2023Developer post
1.3 Hotfix #1
Small little update to adjust Endless Mode difficulty. If it still sucks, please let me know and I will change it. :) Dramatically increased the enemy modifiers your can get for endless acts. In general the values are doubled. Updated the Portuguese translations. Huge thank you t
Small little update to adjust Endless Mode difficulty. If it still sucks, please let me know and I will change it. :)

Dramatically increased the enemy modifiers your can get for endless acts. In general the values are doubled.
Updated the Portuguese translations. Huge thank you to Joel Gomes from Muriki Studio who provided me with better Portuguese translations.
Please reach out if you would like to translate chess Survivors into your own language.
Original post
21 Dec 2023Developer post
Endless Mode - Patch 1.3 Live Now!
Happy Holidays! Endless Mode is finally here!! This was a fun feature to add and was been one of the most requested features. I'm happy with where the game is at and I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm making Endless Mode a BETA for now, so please let me know if you think the
Happy Holidays! Endless Mode is finally here!! This was a fun feature to add and was been one of the most requested features. I'm happy with where the game is at and I would love to hear your thoughts.
I'm making Endless Mode a BETA for now, so please let me know if you think the balance needs to change or if there needs to be structural changes (or if you find any bugs). I read all of your feedback, and basically always make the change.
This is as much your game as it is mine, and my goal is for it to be a fun game that you enjoy playing that respects your time and the money you spent. If that is not the case, please let me know. I will change it to make it better. If you do have feedback, please leave it over on the Steam discussions or over in my discord.
Here's a devlog showing how I added Endless Mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7lGc23x_mc
Thanks for playing my little game,
Aarimous
1.3 Patch Notes
tl;dr; New Endless Mode, Quality of Life, Balance Changes, and Bug Fixes
Endless Mode:

New Game mod you can optional stat once you win a run.
After winning a run (beating act 3), you will now have the option to start “Endless Mode”. In this mode you will complete an endless amount of acts. Each act will be 100 turns.
You will get a normal act reward for completing the act (rare relic and a heal)
Each act will have a semi random amount of additional difficulty modifiers to enemy health, damage, and what not
Most abilities will have some properties with Endless Upgrades. You can see these and the ability stats and info panel. Generally these are increases to damage or the number of projectiles.
In Endless Mode, you will no longer receive the new abilities as level up rewards. My goal with Endless Mode is to give you a way to lean into your current build and take it as far as you can. To do this, I disabled new abilities as a loot option because then endless mode would jus turn into collecting and upgrading as many options as you can. This is just a theory, so if it’s dumb please let me know.
The difficulty curve of each endless act will be generally the same, but with different spawning events, map layouts, and as the act continue more enemies will spawn in the given wave.
Balance Changes:

Lowered the base Reroll Relic health cost from 100 to 80
Lowered the base Reroll level up rewards damage from 80 to 65
Two of Diamonds relic: now instead increases the reroll cost now +15 to Level Reroll cost and +20 to Relic Reroll costs. I think this makes more sense as a trade off since the relics also disabled the “doubling” effect when you reroll.
Ace of Hearts Relic: Increased the reduction amounts. Level Up Reroll Cost -20 to -30, Relic Reroll Cost -30 to -40. This is to reflect the changes the two of diamonds relic. Now the player will want to get both relics to make rerolling really strong.
Added another Cooldown upgrade for to the Alien Minion. Previously [15, 13, 10] now [15, 13, 10, 8]
Added another Cooldown upgrade for to the Spitball Minion. Previously [8, 7, 6, 5] now [8, 7, 6, 5, 4]
Added another Cooldown upgrade for to the Boomerang. Previously [7, 6, 4] now [7, 6, 4, 3]
Adjusted upgrade values for Card Shield. Cooldown from [8, 6, 5, 4, 3] to [10, 8, 6]. Max number of [1, 2 , 3, 4] to [1, 2, 3]. This is a nerf as I personally found I would always take this option as it would block a lot of damage. Let me know if this makes the game trash, but I’m hoping this won’t be too big of a nerf.

Misc

Lowered the max size of floating text values
Adding a bit of horizontal randomness to damage texts so if damage comes in quickly it won’t all stack up.
Changed the ability Stats and Info page to now show the upgrades as the amount changed. Previously, this showed the new value and I thought it was just worse. Let me know if you want something different.
Change the color of the inactive upgrade values, I just like the new color better since it’s easier to see
Bugs

Fixed a bug where the procedural map would generate the same as Act 1 if it was randomly chosen for Act 2 or Act 3
Fixed a bug where the XP granted for normal speed runs was dramatically too low
Fixed a bug where sometimes the “amount of” achievements would get stuck.
Fix a bug where the animation for the Ping Pong ability was ending early
Fixed a bug where the ability tool tips would not update properly.
Fixed a bug where the animation for the Ping Pong paddle would not function correctly
Fixed a bug where the ping pong paddle was dealing damage more than once, I guess this fix is a nerf, but it is still a very powerful ability
Fixed a bug where the current health could sometimes show the decimals
Original post
07 Nov 2023Developer post
1.2 Hotfix #1
Fixed a bug where the tooltip for certain relics would appear off screen or the tooltip would be too wide The total damage dealt will now be rounded to the nearest integer on the game over screen
Fixed a bug where the tooltip for certain relics would appear off screen or the tooltip would be too wide
The total damage dealt will now be rounded to the nearest integer on the game over screen
Original post
06 Nov 2023Developer post
1.2 Patch Live Now!
Hi all, In celebration of the Bullet Heaven festival I have created 6 new relics. Specifically, I think the new rare relics will add some interesting new builds. I have begun working on my next game as my work on Chess Survivors is largely completed, but if you have ideas I'd lov
Hi all,
In celebration of the Bullet Heaven festival I have created 6 new relics. Specifically, I think the new rare relics will add some interesting new builds.
I have begun working on my next game as my work on Chess Survivors is largely completed, but if you have ideas I'd love to hear them either in the Steam discussions or over on discord. I always love hearing from player's (I sincerely mean this, your feedback has helped me make this game way better than it otherwise would be, so thank you).
From time to time, I will likely keep doing small updates like this to add relics, abilities, or new characters. I hope you enjoy my little game and thank you for playing.
Cheers,
Aarimous
P.S. Please consider subscribing to My YouTube Channel where I share my game development as an solo indie dev.
1.2 Patch Notes
tl;dr; 6 New Relics and a few bug fixes
New Relics:

Bullet Heaven: (Rare) After taking damage shoot a volley of lasers dealing damage equal to the damage dealt to you. The number of projectiles is equal to half your level rounded up (works once per turn and ability damage modifiers increase damage.)
The Game Developer: (Rare) Spawn Aarimous, this game’s developer, who will attach to a random nearby enemies. When you kill the enemy it will now explode dealing damage to nearby enemies equal to 50% of the enemy’s max health. Will find a new enemy at the start of your next turn.
Immunity Idol: (Rare) When you would die, heal to 50% of your Max HP instead (works once).
Mega Magic Mushrooms: (Rare) Level up this many times : 4
Mini Magic Mushroom: (Common) Level up this many times : 2
A Shield: (Common) 20% Reduce Damage Multiplier and +50 Max Health
Bug Fixes:

Fixed the Sneezy Ghost's starting relic to reduce incoming damage by 10% instead of a flat 10. This was missed when I made changes to remove flat damage in a previous patch.
Fixes the text for Gambit Level 20
Fixed a bug where when you win a run, if you immediately start another run as another character and lose you still see a +1 to that second character's win stats
Original post
05 Nov 2023Developer post
New Beta Build for 1.2 Patch
tl;dr; 6 New Relics and Bug Fixes You can play it over on the beta branch . This will be moved to the live branch tomorrow for the bullet heaven fest. Please let me know if you find any bugs or if you want me to add any other quality of life changes. Thanks, -Aarimous New Relics:
tl;dr; 6 New Relics and Bug Fixes
You can play it over on the beta branch. This will be moved to the live branch tomorrow for the bullet heaven fest.
Please let me know if you find any bugs or if you want me to add any other quality of life changes.
Thanks,
-Aarimous
New Relics:

Bullet Heaven: (Rare) After taking damage shoot a volley of lasers dealing damage equal to the damage dealt to you. The number of projectiles is equal to half your level rounded up (works once per turn and ability damage modifiers increase damage.)
The Game Developer: (Rare) Spawn Aarimous, this game’s developer, who will attach to a random nearby enemies. When you kill the enemy it will now explode dealing damage to nearby enemies equal to 50% of the enemy’s max health. Will find a new enemy at the start of your next turn.
Immunity Idol: (Rare) When you would die, heal to 50% of your Max HP instead (works once).
Mega Magic Mushrooms: (Rare) Level up this many times : 4
Mini Magic Mushroom: (Common) Level up this many times : 2
A Shield: (Common) 20% Reduce Damage Multiplier and +50 Max Health
Bug Fixes:

Fixed the Sneezy Ghost's starting relic to reduce incoming damage by 10% instead of a flat 10. This was missed when I made changes to remove flat damage in a previous patch.
Fixes the text for Gambit Level 20
Fixed a bug where when you win a run, if you immediately start another run as another character and lose you still see a +1 to that second character's win stats
Original post
22 Oct 2023Developer post
1.1.1 Bug Fix
Fixed a bug where you could still progress Gambit levels when the gambit levels are disabled
Fixed a bug where you could still progress Gambit levels when the gambit levels are disabled
Original post
28 Sep 2023Developer post
1.1 Hotfix Patch #5
Fixed a bug where the progression XP was incorrectly calculated on high gambit and high game speeds
Fixed a bug where the progression XP was incorrectly calculated on high gambit and high game speeds
Original post
26 Sep 2023Developer post
1.1 Hotfix Patch #4
Add a new FPS Limit option of 240 to settings screen Fixed a rare bug where the Minion Instability relics could be offered twice. This was caused by the relic being a reward for both progression level 4 & 5. As such level 4 now instead grants the Spawning Ritual Relic Empty H
Add a new FPS Limit option of 240 to settings screen
Fixed a rare bug where the Minion Instability relics could be offered twice. This was caused by the relic being a reward for both progression level 4 & 5. As such level 4 now instead grants the Spawning Ritual Relic
Empty Heart relic: changed -50 damage taken to -20% damage taken. I missed this relic when adjusting how damage reduction should work in a previous patch.
Original post

Updates & announcements

1.5 Patch Notes

Yo-Yo Ability Rework:

Firewall Hazard Rework:

Misc:

Bugs:

Endless Mode:

Beta Notes (These are subject to change):

1.4 Patch Notes

Area of Effect Changes

Abilities:

Relics:

Act 3:

Endless Mode:

Bugs:

General Changes:

Endless Mode Balance:

Bugs

1.3 Patch Notes

Endless Mode:

Balance Changes:

Misc

Bugs

1.2 Patch Notes

New Relics:

Bug Fixes:

New Relics:

Bug Fixes: