A piece-collecting chess RPG
Catch wild
chess pieces.
Travel Casteria and catch wild pieces by solving their checkmate puzzles. Build your team, beat six Chess Clubs, and take on the World Championship.
Try a catch right here.
One move is all you need.
Your pieces have gold rings. Select one, then its destination.
A wild Knight blocks the road.Frostmane, one of 272 collectible pieces.White to move. Checkmate in one move.
Checkmate.
In the game, solving the puzzle adds this piece to your team.
272 pieces to collect
Meet the Ice family.
Knight · Ice family
Frostmane
Six pieces in this family. Twenty-three families to find.
Browse all 272 piecesthe trailer
The Catch
Audio description and transcript
The Catch with audio description
This version describes the action and on-screen text with a computer voice. The original music plays quietly underneath.
Transcript
00:00.000–00:02.533. Title: ‘Pocket Pawns.’
00:02.533–00:10.533. A patterned chessboard appears beside The Molten King, a fiery crowned piece. Captions explain that a wild piece sets a checkmate puzzle instead of a fight. Pieces move across the board, followed by ‘Solve it and they join you’ and ‘Caught.’
00:10.533–00:13.933. Card: ‘Find the checkmate.’ ‘Solve the puzzle to catch the wild piece.’
00:13.933–00:16.533. The player walks along a grassy route with patterned chessboard paths, lamps and a sign toward Frostford.
00:16.533–00:20.533. A chess battle against The Prepared Stranger fills the screen. Team rosters flank a board in its starting position. Caption: ‘Every fight is real chess,’ with opponent strengths from 1 to 2,700.
00:20.533–00:24.533. Card: ‘Powered by Stockfish 18,’ with ‘the strongest free chess program in the world.’
00:24.533–00:26.533. The player walks through snowy Frostford, past lamps, bridges and patterned chessboard paths.
00:26.533–00:31.533. A row of different chessboards moves past, labelled with checkmates of different depths. Caption: ‘5,890 checkmate puzzles,’ with ‘every one of them checked by machine.’
00:31.533–00:36.533. Six illustrated team cards appear, one for each rank: The Sheriff, Deep Sapphire, The Garden Fork, The Quiet Geode, The Dapple and The Sharp Line. Their levels and the displayed team power rise to 70. Caption: ‘You play six pieces at a time,’ with ‘level them up to 70.’
00:36.533–00:37.833. The player passes the Chess University on Gearhaven’s stone streets.
00:37.833–00:41.800. The Ledger of Pieces shows discovered pieces with their names and illustrations. Caption: ‘272 pieces to collect.’ ‘Catch wild pieces. Earn others along the way.’
00:41.800–00:47.533. Large collectible illustrations appear individually: a queen crowned with flames, a white-bearded icy king holding a blue-tipped staff, and an armoured rider on a fire-breathing dragon.
00:47.533–00:52.533. Rows of collectible pieces fill a dark gallery. Caption: ‘39 of them do something extra,’ with ‘just by being on your team.’
00:52.533–00:57.533. After a brief street scene, the player approaches a waiting character across an outdoor chessboard beside an Openfield sign. His speech bubble reads: ‘I set the board an hour ago. I KNEW somebody would come.’ Caption: ‘Someone is always one step ahead.’
00:57.533–01:02.533. An illustrated map of Casteria shows towns, roads, mountains, forests, desert, coast and a volcano. Caption: ‘Nine towns. One championship.’ The image fades to black.
01:02.533–01:09.100. The crowned-pawn crest appears above ‘Pocket Pawns’ and ‘A piece-collecting chess RPG.’ Closing credits identify development footage subject to change, Stockfish 18 under the GNU General Public License v3, the original Pocket Pawns soundtrack, USK 12 and ClassInd 12 ratings, and © 2026 Pocket Pawn Games.
The second trailer, The World, shows the nine towns, the lessons, the boards and the six Sigils.
the free demo
The first two towns, free
The demo is the first two towns of the full game: Openfield, where you learn the basics, and Frostford, where you beat your first Chess Club and win your first Sigil, one of the six badges you need to enter the World Championship. The demo ends at the gate of the third town.
- 2of the 9 towns
- 4piece families to catch
- 1of the 6 Sigils
- 60of the 202 chess lessons
Your demo save carries straight into the full game: every piece, board and lesson.
What’s not in the demo: the other seven towns, the Chessino (the in-game casino), and the three 3D areas.
extras
Four extras on the title screen
The Extras tab on the title screen holds a chess course for beginners, a companion book, the soundtrack with the art beside it, and every puzzle in the game to practise on.
never played?
How to Play Chess
Learn chess from the beginning: the board, every piece, castling, en passant, promotion and what each piece is worth. Five chapters and eighteen steps on a live board, and a wrong move just slides back.
in the demo
companion
The Field Guide
The Complete Casteria Companion, readable in game: twenty-one chapters covering every system, a piece compendium, a board compendium, everyone you can talk to, and a walkthrough of the road and the side stories.
in the demo: a seven-chapter edition
76 tracks
Gallery & Music
Listen to the soundtrack alongside a slideshow of Casteria’s artwork. Pause the slideshow to browse the art while the music continues.
full game only
5,890 puzzles
Puzzle Explorer
Browse checkmate puzzles by difficulty and pattern, then practise similar puzzles back to back. Play at your own pace or against the clock. Practice does not affect your save.
in the demo: 250 practice puzzles
the map
The map of Casteria
Casteria has nine towns, six Chess Clubs and the Chessino. Collect all six Sigils to open the gate to the World Championship. Select a town to read about it.
