Every piece you catch is a checkmate you solved.
A chess game where you collect the pieces. Walk across a continent called Casteria, and every wild chess piece you meet sets you a checkmate puzzle — solve it and the piece joins your team. Train them up, beat the chess clubs, and take the World Championship.
Single-player · Windows PC · Ten languages
A wild Queen blocks the road.Deep Sapphire — one of the 272. She will only join you if you can find this:White to move. Mate in one.
That is a checkmate. You found it yourself.
In the game, she would now be on your team. All 272 pieces are caught exactly like this — you either see the checkmate or you do not. There is no luck and no catch rate anywhere in it.
the trailer
Watch the trailer — how catching works.
There is a second one. The World shows the nine towns, the lessons, the boards and the six Sigils.
the free demo
The free demo is the first part of the full game.
The demo is the real beginning of the game, not a cut-down sample. You start at home, learn the basics in the first town, Openfield, then travel to the second town, Frostford, beat its Chess Club, and earn your first Sigil — one of the six badges you need to enter the World Championship. The demo ends when you reach the gate of the third town.
- 2of the 9 towns
- 4piece families to catch
- 1of the 6 Sigils
- 60of the 202 chess lessons
Your progress carries into the full game. Every piece you catch, every board you win and every lesson you finish transfers automatically — the demo and the full game share one save file.
What’s not in the demo: the other seven towns, the Chessino (the in-game casino), and the three 3D areas. Those are in the full game only.
beside the game
Four things you can open before you even start the game.
The title screen has an Extras tab, and none of it is locked behind progress — a course for people who have never played chess, a full companion book, the soundtrack with the art beside it, and every puzzle in the game to practice on.
never played?
How to Play Chess
The whole game from nothing — the board, every piece, castling, en passant, promotion and what a piece is worth.
Five chapters, eighteen steps, played on a real board with the moves drawn on the squares. Nothing in it can be failed: a wrong move settles back with a nudge.
in the demo
companion
The Field Guide
The Complete Casteria Companion — every system, every ledger, and the full playthrough, readable in game.
A whole searchable strategy guide bound into the game: twenty-one chapters, among them a piece compendium, a board compendium, a register of everyone you can talk to, and a walkthrough of the road and the side stories.
in the demo — its own seven-chapter edition
76 tracks
Gallery & Music
The whole soundtrack, with the art of Casteria beside it. Play the music, browse the art, or both at once.
Every track in the game, played from the build. Board art and pieces drift past while it plays — a new one every few seconds, never the same way twice — or stop the slideshow and browse the art yourself without the music stopping.
full game only
5,890 puzzles
Puzzle Explorer
Every mate in the game, sorted and playable — at your own pace or against the clock. Practice only; nothing is spent and nothing is paid.
The entire bank, sorted by how deep the mate runs and by the name of the pattern, so you can play every single example of one shape back to back. It never affects your save.
in the demo — 50 of the 5,890
The chess course and the short lesson the game opens with use the same curriculum, so they always teach exactly the same material.
the map
The whole of Casteria, on one map.
Nine towns, six Chess Clubs, a casino burning out at sea, and one gate at the top that only opens when you hold all six Sigils.Click any town to read about it.
Nine towns stand between you and that gate.
