PIECE
STORM
Real-time chess where every piece has its own cooldown. Pawns are quick. Queens are slow. Juggle piece timing, race the clock, and turn positional chess into a reflex duel.
● Press Start — runs in your browser, no download
GAME CARTRIDGE
com.oathstudio.piecestorm
Level 1 — The One Rule
CHESS, BUT EVERY PIECE HAS A TIMER
Instead of "move, wait, move" — every piece you play has a personal cooldown after it acts. That single rule changes everything: you juggle piece timing, race the clock, and the board becomes a live arena where a pawn wave can out-pace a queen.
TWO TRACKS
Move cooldowns and capture cooldowns are separate tracks — a piece can be slow to march but fast to strike.
BOSS OVERRIDE
Bosses carry passives that stretch or shrink both tracks — speed up your army, slow down theirs.
NO TAKE-BACKS
Pieces glide along their path and reserve their target the moment they leave the square. Commit.
Level 2 — Gameplay
HOW A DUEL PLAYS
PICK A PIECE
Tap, click, or use the WASD cursor to select any ready piece. The moment it acts, its cooldown ring starts counting down.
IT GLIDES
The piece travels along its path at a fixed speed and reserves its destination — so both players can plan around moves in flight.
JUDGE THE RACE
Their pawn is ready in 2.5 seconds. Your queen takes 7. Time the strike, bait the cooldowns, and out-tempo the whole board.
Per-Piece Cooldowns
Each piece has its own tempo. Pawns spin up in 2.5 seconds, the queen takes 7. Plan around it, juggle it, race it.
Three AI Rivals
Rookie, Club, and Master — a tuned negamax ladder from first blood to full gauntlet.
Full Chess
Castling, en passant, promotion, captures, draw offers. The rules are real; the pacing is not.
Safe Travel
Pieces glide along their path and reserve their target. No teleports, no mid-flight griefing.
Every Input
Touch, mouse, keyboard (arrows or WASD), and gamepad. One unified action layer underneath.
Offline First
No account. No ads. Runs on modern flagships and ancient phones alike.
Level 3 — The Roster
48 CHARACTERS
Every character is a specific identity for one piece type — with its own stats and one passive ability. 16 neutral companions form the default board; 32 special units are unlocked by capturing special enemies.
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
SLevel 4 — The Gauntlet
29 BOSSES
The gauntlet is the hard mode. Every boss fields a roster of special enemy units — and carries a passive that rewrites the cooldown rules themselves: speeding up their army, freezing yours, corrupting your best piece. Beat the boss, earn the units.
Level 5 — The Treasury
21 RELICS
Relics bend the rules in your favor — cooldown shredders, haste fields, reprisals. The free build ships with the Treasury locked; the Founder Pack unlocks the entire catalog at boot.
Controls
PLAY IT YOUR WAY
Technical Spec
BUILT FOR THE LONG HAUL
Ships on
Help Room
QUESTIONS
Is PieceStorm turn-based chess?
+No. It is real-time. Both sides move whenever their pieces are ready — there is no "your move" and no waiting. The board is a live race, not a relay.
What exactly is a cooldown?
+After a piece moves or captures, it goes on a short personal cooldown before it can act again. Pawns: 2.5s. Knights: 4s. Bishops: 4.5s. Rooks: 5s. Queens: 7s. Kings: 3.5s. Move and capture cooldowns are separate tracks, and bosses can stretch or shrink them.
Do I need an account or to pay to play?
+Neither. The free build is fully playable with no account and no ads. The optional Founder Pack is a one-time unlock of the entire Treasury — all characters, bosses, and relics.
What is the difference between neutral and special characters?
+Every board starts with 16 neutral characters — the classic pieces with identity and stats. 32 special characters are unlockable by capturing special enemy units in battle. Each character brings one passive ability: no cast buttons, no targeting, just rules that reshape the duel.
Can I play offline?
+Yes. PieceStorm is a local-first game: matches, settings, and progress live on your device. There is nothing to download mid-game and nothing to sync.
Is my data being tracked?
+No ads, no accounts, no data sales. The only network traffic is anonymous Firebase analytics that helps us improve the game. Read the full privacy policy below.
● Coin Accepted
READY
PLAYER ONE?
Free in your browser right now. No account, no ads, no waiting for the other player.
PieceStorm is a free game from OATH Studio. Built with Flutter and Flame, a love letter to the DOS era — 16-colour palettes, chiptune audio, and a CRT glow.
Privacy Policy