
Chess is broken. Gather the Black Army, build a party of chess pieces, and battle through fractured boards in this asymmetric turn-based roguelike. Empower your army, adapt your strategy each run, and unravel the mystery behind a world trapped in an endless match.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
Prices
The United States storefront in every case, so this compares stores and not countries.
Discounts
Every price cut of more than 20% we have observed, in each market that quoted one, with this game's chart position on either side of it. These are episodes, not a model: a sale is one event, and one event cannot tell you what the next one will do.
Reviews, worldwide (the counter carries no country): 0/day in the week to Aug 22 → 0.29/day in the week after.
For scale, across Steam · Top Sellers · Brazil over the last 30 days: the 26 chart moves that followed a price cut of more than 20% went a median of 7 places towards #1, and the 2,400 moves with no price cut behind them went 2 away. One store, one chart, one country — it is the only place we have enough observations to say even that.
Prices outside the United States have been collected since 6 August 2026 and chart positions since 19 July 2026, so a cut older than that has no market to compare and a market that joined later has no history yet. Nothing here is converted between currencies.
About
Once a Pawn a King is a roguelike, turn-based strategy game with party-building mechanics, where chess meets chaos. Venture into the ever-shifting castle of the evil White King on a quest to rescue the beloved Black King, who was recently taken by the tyrant.

The board is shattered. The rules are twisted. And the king is gone.
Once A Pawn A King is an asymmetric turn based roguelike where you gather a party of chess pieces, empower them with magical abilities, and fight through a fractured world built from the ruins of a timeless chess match.
Classic chess strategy collides with roguelike unpredictability. Every run challenges you to adapt, experiment, and outthink a game that no longer follows its own rules.

Assemble your forces from classic chess pieces including pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, and more. Each piece brings unique movement, abilities, and strategic possibilities.
Recruit allies, strengthen your army with powerful upgrades, and reshape your strategy as your party grows.
Every piece matters. Losing the wrong unit can change the entire course of a run.

You do not need to know chess openings or memorize theory.
Once a Pawn a King takes the core ideas of chess tactics and transforms them into a more accessible strategic experience where experimentation, positioning, and decision making matter more than memorization.
Learn by playing, adapt to unexpected situations, and discover new strategies with every run.

No two runs unfold the same way.
Randomized boards, randomized upgrades, and unpredictable encounters ensure that every attempt offers new challenges and opportunities.
Each run asks you to rethink your approach, refine your strategy, and push deeper into the fractured chess world.
Failure is part of the journey. Every defeat teaches you something that will help you on the next run.

In a decaying world sustained by an eternal chess match, the black and white armies battle endlessly. They fight, they die, and the cycle resets.
Command the Black Army as it searches for its lost king, uncover the truth behind the White King's growing madness, and confront a new rebellion rising from the board.
The cycle is breaking. The board is changing. And the truth behind the endless match is waiting to be discovered.
Sums Steam only; GOG publishes no volume signal, so the true total is higher by an unknown amount.
| Store | Price | Audience | Score | Chart | Est. revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SteamYou are here | $11.99 | 58reviews | 59% | — | $17.9K |
| $11.99 | 1ratings | 100% | — | not modelled |
Matched by title — a reused name can pair the wrong games. * is a critic aggregate. Prices and positions are each store's United States storefront; Epic charts worldwide. Audience and Score too, except Steam's, which is worldwide.
Engagement
Reviews
Themes across 45 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
Have crashed 5 times in 14 minutes, from black screens, to soft locks the game is just unplayable and should not have been released to 1.0 yet, also cant seem to find any responses from the Developers about any planned fixes and still hasn't been a 1.0+ patch to date despite the very common complaints.
If you have an ultra widescreen monitor you are cooked. The game is unplayable. I cant even get past the start menu. The game loads up and the title is over the top of the play button. I can click on "settings" but then it opens a menu that simply has move speed options and none of the other settings can be clicked or navigated to. I Tried - Verifying game files - Clean install - Forcing to windowed mode - Using various commands on the steam launch settings to change resolution and set windowed. Nothing worked, GG , refund I guess.
Media

Related
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Price dynamics, follower growth, revenue and sales trajectories with interactive tooltips
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Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Hours played at review time, across 46 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
I've softlocked the tutorial twice by just playing the game. It wasn't ready for release. Getting a refund.
For some reason, the game wont let me bypass the Angel due to there being no resolution settings for this game.... I cant see where I need to click to exit the angel and the menu's are all squished. I have a 3440x1440 monitor and even the main menu has overlap (Play is under the title screen for some reason) seems like the bottom of the screen is missing when in maps. I got through the first 2 battles with this being no issue but as soon as I hit the first angel after buying my options I cant exit and even going back to the map it wont allow me to proceed to the next fight. I tried using the -windowed trigger and that wont resize or window the app.... very frustrating as I want to get further than the tutorial and 2 battles!!
Needs an undo button or at least a way to purchase an undo. I don't have time in my life to restart a new run because of one mistake. I won't be playing again until they add an undo.
Game is fun, a nice concept. It however is basically abandoned, a buggy early access game that got a 1.0 just so they could say it was released
棋子有血量和攻击力,更类似战棋+解谜,可以买一次性道具、技能,技能还可以升级,每次战斗地形、敌人、障碍物、宝箱、特殊门之类都是随机的,甚至可以退出重进刷新。还是挺有趣的,之前B站上传过试玩视频,主要是很喜欢国际象棋,沾边的游戏都想试试,打折21挺值得,希望正式版能再多加点内容,单词虽然不复杂,有中文会更好增加销量一点吧,也想要创意工坊
Got a bug that softlock the game within 10 minutes of playing.
This game deserves more love. I don't play chess often. I know how to play, but I barley have over 700 elo on chess.com. Despite my lack of skill, I still find this game super enjoyable! It has satisfying animations, appealing visuals, and is overall super easy to play! You don't need to be some chess grandmaster to enjoy the game, and that is one of the best features. The story is entertaining, most of the pieces have a unique personality, and the music matches the theme very well. Overall, this game deserves a much larger community because this game is better than over half the games EA is developing these days. If you are thinking about buying this game, just do it. It's super cheap and if you don't like it, you can just issue a refund. At least give this game a chance.
I think its important for people to understand that more then this game is a chess rogue-like, its a chess **themed** rogue-like. and thats a critical distinction. yes, while its true that the core "unit" movement works like traditional chess, on a macro level it plays similer to games like Into The Breach. and so, even though there are some kinks that need to be ironed out, if you like tactical games that require you to put in a lot of thought before each action you take - then I highly reccomand giving this game a shot.
Selling now
See how fast this game is selling right now — estimated copies and revenue per day from recent review growth.
Players by region
Where this game's players are, estimated from review languages.
Related
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| — | 0 | — | — | |
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Related
| Game | Estimated lifetime revenue | Reviews | Review score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $17.9K | 85 | 84% | $9.99 | |
| $17.9K | 113 | 93% | $9.99 | |
| $17.9K | 113 | 80% | $9.99 | |
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| $17.9K | 50 | 90% | $15.99 | |
| $17.9K | 113 | 38% | $7.99 |