Saturday, November 28, 2020

The Lore of Chess Rush: Flamecaller

So this is something I've been meaning to link to for a while now.  Last year, I really became a fan of the auto battler genre of video games (sometimes called auto chess after its first major representative).  As I've mused previously, it's really hard to pin down exactly what it is about these games that's so addictive...but man do I love them.

Three of the genre's heavy hitters - Teamfight Tactics, Dota Underlords, and Hearthstone Battlegrounds - are built upon established IP with well-developed universes.  However, my two favorite auto battlers - Auto Chess and Chess Rush - have been building their worlds pretty much from scratch.  I say "pretty much" because their characters, at least initially, were largely tweaked and reskinned versions of the heroes from Dota 2, since it was a mod of that popular game (created by Drodo Studio, the current developers of Auto Chess) that set off the auto battler craze.  (Also, I think the Chess Rush characters - or character models, at least - may be from a previous game by Chinese mega-developer Tencent, but I have no idea how much effort may have been put into making the overall worlds similar...)


Screenshot from Chess Rush


The directions that these games have taken their heroes has granted a lot of opportunity to develop interesting worlds for gaming.  I have often thought that a game might be able to help distinguish itself from the others in this fairly crowded niche by tailoring the experience toward immersion in a fantastic universe.  And aside from that, I just like reading game lore.

So, I decided I'd pester these companies a bit, letting them know I'd like to see more lore and offering my own feeble attempts.  Well, the kind crew at Chess Rush was gracious enough to link to a short story I wrote from their official Facebook page once I posted the story on their subreddit.  So...I am happy to share that I have semi-officially added a bit of lore to the Chess Rush universe with a short story about the hero Flamecaller that you can find, if you're so inclined, right HERE! :)


And...since I'm on a bit of a Light City kick lately, here's Flamecaller for Swords & Wizardry Light...

Flamecaller

Level 3 Magic-User
AC 8[11]    9 HP

STR 10    DEX 15(+1)    CON 11    INT 18(+1)    WIS 7    CHA 16(+1)

Attack:  Dagger +0 (1d6-1 damage)
Spells known: (1) Detect Magic, Light I, Magic Missile; (2) Knock

2 comments:

  1. I love seeing Light City making a resurgence.

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    1. Thanks man...it's definitely entertaining me at the moment. There was an interesting convergence of events where I moved to NJ and started thinking thinking about LC due to my proximity to NYC, I started looking for a "new" project to make myself feel a little more productive in my new home, and I realized that I probably got more traction from LC than any of the many other projects I've started on here. And then...especially unexpectedly as the notice went to my promotions folder and I almost never look there...I noticed that Royce had messaged me from DTRPG with some thoughts on LC. I couldn't ignore that happy little coincidence...!

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