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About Gambit Dungeon
A roguelike where chess tactics are the combat. Climb a dungeon of real puzzles, collect relics that bend the rules, and take on the Daily Run that is the same for everyone. It's free, with no ads, and it's made by one person.
- Free for everyone
- No ads
- Installs like an app
- Made by one person
How to play
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Choose a path
Each run climbs three acts. On the map, pick a path through battles, elites, campfires, merchants, treasure and “?” rooms (a strange encounter, a find, or an ambush), then face the act’s boss.
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Find the move
In a fight, your opponent makes a move and you must find the best reply. Solve the puzzle to damage the enemy, and solve it quickly for bonus damage.
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Mind your HP
Every wrong move costs HP; after three wrong moves the solution is shown and the enemy draws another puzzle. Bosses fight against a clock.
Any move that delivers checkmate counts, even if it is not the move the puzzle lists. New to tactics? The courses start from the rules.
Who makes it
Nick Kritikos
From Samos, based in Athens. I run in the mountains, share my race preparation on YouTube, and play chess.
Gambit Dungeon is made by one person, with no company or team behind it. New rooms open a few at a time, and the game gets better bit by bit.
Instagram @nick_kr7 (opens in a new tab) YouTube My channel (opens in a new tab)
Instagram @nick_kr7 
YouTube My channel 
Support the game
No course, lesson, hero, theme or Legends puzzle is behind a paywall, and nothing that changes a score is for sale. If the game helped you, you can chip in what you like.
- Wings next to your name on the leaderboards
- A few looks: gold heroes, map skins, boards and piece paint
Display only: nothing a supporter gets changes a run, a puzzle, a rating or a score.
Chip in · Give what you want, on Ko-fi
Credits
Puzzles
Puzzles come from the Lichess puzzle database, released under CC0. Thank you to Lichess and its players for generating and rating them. Every puzzle links back to its page on lichess.org.
Legends
Legends puzzles are positions from historical games (game scores from the PGN Mentor collections and The Week in Chess). They were found and checked offline with the Stockfish engine, which is not part of this app. The move notes and stories were written for Gambit Dungeon.
The legend heroes are inspired by the styles of famous players. They are invented characters, not affiliated with or endorsed by those players.
Code, art and fonts
Move validation uses chess.js (BSD-2-Clause). Icons in the vector themes: Lucide (ISC). Fonts: Pixelify Sans, Inter, Cinzel, Orbitron, M PLUS Rounded 1c, IM Fell English and Alegreya (SIL Open Font License). Pixel art, the vector chess pieces, sounds and the board are original to this game.
