野棋

Wild Chess is a 1v1 online turn-based tactical board game. Two players command rival armies on a hex battlefield, spend energy every turn to spawn and maneuver pieces, and evolve them into 20 specialized forms. The duel ends when one side's commander falls.

Online play only — what you need to know before buying

Wild Chess is built exclusively for live matches between two human players.

• There is no single-player mode, no story campaign and no AI opponent.
  
• There is no offline or local play. A working internet connection and the game's online server are required at all times.
  
• Your Steam account identifies you in the lobby and in matches; there is no separate registration or password.
  
• The game interface and all in-game text are in Simplified Chinese only. There is no English localization.
  
• One purchase includes the full game. There are no in-game purchases, no ads and no paid DLC.

How a match plays

Each player controls one commander, the "small piece". If your commander dies, you lose.

• At the start of each of your turns your commander generates 10 energy. Spawning a new piece costs 4 energy, moving costs 1, attacking costs 2. Evolutions and special abilities have their own costs.
  
• Every piece you spawn can act twice per turn (moving and attacking both count), so energy budgeting decides who strikes first and who gets surrounded.
  
• The player who moves second receives 5 bonus energy on their first turn.
  
• Turn timers start short and grow as the board develops: 30 seconds for turns 1–3, 60 seconds for turns 4–6, 120 seconds for turns 7–12, and 300 seconds from turn 13 onward. You can end a turn early at any time.
  
• You win by killing the enemy commander. Protecting your own commander, blocking lanes and trading pieces well matter as much as attacking.

Evolve your army

Any unevolved piece can be transformed into an evolution form. Each form has its own energy cost, its own limited number of copies per match, and cooldowns on its special ability. Evolutions are where the game opens up:

• A ghost drifts through terrain, terrifies enemy pieces, and three of them can grow into a wraith that possesses an enemy piece and turns it against its owner.
  
• Cannons bombard at range; three cannons can become a sniper that marks a tile and fires at the start of your next turn.
  
• Sand soldiers turn the ground beneath them into desert; three of them can become a sand emperor that moves and attacks through sand.
  
• An armored beast charges six tiles in a straight line, hitting every enemy in its path.
  
• An ice mage freezes an enemy piece for a full turn.
  
• A blood cultist sacrifices your own pieces for energy and, after enough sacrifices, becomes a blood demon with stacking damage shields.
  
• A spear master summons up to three spears that strike and then withdraw, so they never give up the tile they attacked from.
  
• A stone golem is simply immune to damage — a wall you have to route around.

Some forms are passive, some project vision, some punish the opponent for attacking. A match is largely about choosing which forms to commit to and when to pay for them.

Build your school

Before you play, you choose up to 9 evolution forms from the full roster to define your school.

Fog of war, terrain and information

Pieces only see a limited number of tiles around them. Enemy pieces outside your vision are hidden, so scouting, vision-granting forms and reading your opponent's habits are part of the game. Terrain limits movement for most pieces and is ignored by a few; some abilities rewrite the terrain itself. Range, line of sight and cooldown timing often decide a fight before any piece attacks.

Ways to play

• Quick match against another online player.
  
• Create or join a password-protected room to play a specific friend.
  
• Challenge a player directly from the lobby.
  
• Spectate ongoing matches in real time.
  
• Every match is recorded automatically. Replays can be watched later with pause and playback controls, so you can review a loss step by step.
  
• Lobby chat for finding opponents and talking between games.

What is included with your purchase

• The complete game: online 1v1 duels on the launch hex map, all 20 evolution forms, school building, spectating, replays and lobby chat.
  
• Original background music and combat sound effects, with separate music and effects volume sliders.
  
• The full roster and all modes from day one. No locked content, no microtransactions, no season pass.

Progression and playtime

Wild Chess has no levels, unlock trees, ranked ladder or leaderboards at launch. What develops is your own understanding of the 20 forms, the matchups between them and the timing of energy spending — and your saved school list grows with that understanding. There is no fixed campaign length: a match lasts until one commander dies. Early turns are short and later turns allow up to five minutes, so a duel can end in a quick knockout or turn into a long positional struggle.

System requirements

Windows PC, an internet connection and a Steam account. Interface and in-game text: Simplified Chinese.