I'll explain the game and hopefully someone feels like helping me build it.
The game rules
I've written out the game rules and asked chatGPT to summarize them:
1) The player controls the white side and starts at the bottom of an infinite chessboard.
The goal is to keep the White King alive while clearing waves of attacking black pieces.
2) Each wave is a self-contained battle, and clearing it allows the player to ascend one rank higher on the board.
The visible zone consists of eight playable ranks and two preview ranks above showing the next wave.
When a wave is cleared, the board scrolls upward, briefly revealing the next wave before it activates.
3) White moves one piece per turn using normal chess rules, except no castling or en passant.
Black moves all its pieces every turn, following strict movement and capture priorities.
4) The move order for black is pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, queens, and kings.
When multiple identical pieces move, the lowest-ranked and then leftmost piece moves first.
5) Black pieces move in limited or patterned ways (bishops and rooks move two squares, knights follow looping L-patterns, queens move two squares toward the King, etc.).
Black must capture when possible, always prioritizing the most valuable white target (K, Q, R, B, N, p).
If values are equal, it targets the piece closest to the White King, then the closest to the back rank, then to the center.
6) Boss pieces appear every ten waves and have extended movement ranges or instant Frenzy.
7) Pawns promote normally for White, and black pawns become queens when they reach white's backrank.
When black pieces (N, B, R) reach the back rank, they enter Frenzy Mode and directly charge the White King each turn. Black's queen always has Frenzy, the moment they land on the board and will go towards white's king immediatly.
8) Capturing pieces gives experience (XP). Clearing a level also gives experience, especially if you do it in fewer moves. If you go up a level you get to place some reinforcements. If black cannot move (e.g. a pawn is stuck) you will lose a set amount of experience every move. If your XP goes down a level you have to remove a piece. Also if you don't capture anything in 15 turns you have to remove a piece. This to prevent stalemates.
How black's pieces move
I won't describe every piece, but blacks pieces are really dumb and always follow the same move logic. Take the bishop. It moves in a zigzag down:
1) it always moves just two squares
2) when it lands on the board, in the first move it will move towards or over the center of the board (d/e file).
3) then it will zigzag down, all the way to white's backrank
4) if any enemy pieces comes within it's 2 square move range (in any direction) it will capture that piece. Afterwards it will continue it's move order in the same way as before.
5) when it reaches white's backrank it get's Frenzy: it will move directly towards the king (or capture when within reach)
Game modes
I had 3 game modes in mind:
1) Tutorial
Explains the player how the black pieces move and capture.
2) Survival mode
An algorithm based on the rank number determines randomly what kind of wave you get. The higher the rank (=the more waves you've beat) the harder it gets.
3) Story mode
A story where the player survives set waves. After every 9th wave a boss will appear (a historic world champion). this mode is deterministic: if you play it the same way, it will give the same result.
why is this fun?
I've been playing this offline, OTB, and have been experimenting with all kinds of waves. I found that it is has a lot of emergent gameplay and replayability. What really strikes me as a fun thing is how at times I think I am doing fine and then suddenly I am in a world of trouble. Every wave is a puzzle. And the experience (XP) being connected to being rewarded new pieces, gives you an incentive to quickly clear the wave - but this also lures you into trouble.
So, I've been trying to program this myself, but I don't have enough experience to do it. Is there anyone with some time, knowledge and who thinks this is fun? Let me know! I will take on any costs that come from hosting or whatever, buy you a bunch of pizza's and I don't look for profit. I just would love if the world would be able to play it. So I was thinking about some simple browser game. No login. Just a random username and country based on IP and that's it.
Thanks for reading and let me know if you think it might be fun!
Feel free to ask questions.