Hello world!
3 years ago, my friend Ajay (Devil's Garage) and I (ZenCoder) started a crazy journey to finish an indie game and today we are proud to announce that we have finally made it :)
Welcome to Anti Chess!
Video Link: https://youtu.be/AsOF5GygBuk
A pretty popular variant of chess (also called Suicide chess sometimes), this game is our take on making the game cute and accessible for anyone and their loved ones to pick up and play.
The game features an AI and Local Multiplayer mode and is completely free!
Get it here :
IOS :
Itch.io:
Kongregate:
New grounds:
To those interested in our journey making it, read on :)
Backstory:
Ajay and me first met when we worked for a small game studio called Rebel Entertainment (working on Dungeon Rampage, the hack and slash action rpg).
I was a youngling game programmer with the naive yet fiery passion for making something fun and cool.
Ajay was a slightly more experienced 2d artist with an exceptional talent at making things come to life in 2d.
We sat next to each other and bonded over video games, board games and our journey of being born in India but having managed to get out of the rat race to follow our passions here in the US.
Then one day, Ajay brings in a Chess board. After wrecking him in a couple games of a Chess (I used to play tournaments back in the day hehe), we decided to play a variant I hadn't tried as much. He beat me. Then I him and so on till the end of the day. This variant was fun! It was so easy to play, yet deceivingly different at its core that it made anyone who played chess feel like the first time they ever played the game.
A spark lit in our heads....We wanted to make this game. Our version of course. We wanted to let others to be able to play it on their browsers and phones and play with their loved ones. And so it began. Our first indie game!
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Flash forward, it's 2015, early 2016. Over the past couple years, we each got married to our partners. I had a kid and went through multiple startups shutting down but we stuck through with the game in our spare time. Nights and weekends. Trello, Skype, Git, Dropbox.
Originally made in Flash we were close to being done but Boom. Flashpocalype! This was a huge blow since we had to decide. Do we let Anti Chess die with Flash or did we want to give our baby a real chance at being out there. We didn't give up. Rewrote the whole game in Unity. This was going to come out and now for mobile too.
If any of you have ever made and released a game, you will recognize the struggle of getting something out there, bug free for people to play. Finishing and Releasing a game is usually almost as hard if not harder than the initial journey of making something fun.
But we pushed on. We worked too hard to give up now. To help us with our final push, we had help from our loved ones, Janice (UI) and Anna (Website/Blog) and we contracted the music from a user on new grounds (arne20beta).
Flash forward even more. Today, December 2016. We fucking made it. Hallelujah.
Anti Chess is now available at new grounds, kongregate, itch.io and IOS.
We made it completely free to play. No ads. No micro transactions. This was a labor of love made for all who appreciate indie games.
Peace!
ZenCoder
