Royal Gambit

Chess. Cards. Chaos.

Royal Gambit turns every chess match into a live tactical spectacle. Build a

15-card power deck, study your private hand, and wager rating points across two

poker betting streets before the first chess move is made.

Then the Wheel of Chaos rewrites the match. Pieces may disappear, clocks may

shrink, armies may scramble—and both players must adapt while communal River

cards reshape the board for everyone.

Build your strategy

- Draft a 15-card deck and protect your most important powers

- Ban cards from your computer opponent before the match

- Buy, sell, and collect 20 distinctive Power Cards

- Earn Power through captures, checks, castling, promotion, and centre control

- Play tactical, defensive, and information cards during live chess turns

Bet before battle

Two proper heads-up betting rounds support checks, calls, raises, re-raises,

folds, and all-ins. The locked rating pot goes to the match winner.

A chess match presented like live sport

Face three AI difficulty levels, climb a seven-opponent Gauntlet, or enter a

three-round computer tournament. Live commentary, match statistics, animated

cards, music, sound, clocks, and post-match rating transfers turn every game

into a broadcast.

Features

• Complete single-player chess with castling, promotion, en passant, draw rules, resignation, and draw offers

• 20 Power Cards, five communal River effects, and six match modifiers
• Two poker betting streets with matched-stake rating settlement
• Persistent rating, coins, card collection, tournaments, and interrupted games
• Fully offline play after loading; no account or separate sign-in required
• Designed for desktop browsers and fullscreen play

Concept, game design, and creation by Werner Viljoen.

Controls

• Mouse: select pieces, destinations, cards, betting controls, and menus
• Escape: cancel a targeted Power Card
• Fullscreen button: recommended for the complete broadcast layout

How this game was made

I built it solo with Claude Code and Codex. The process is written up in Ship It With AI, a series of guides to making games with AI. The Starter Kit is free: beacons.ai/roguedogindie