The chess roguelikewhere every turnis a hand of cards

Gambit Deck is a single-player chess roguelike deck-builder for Mac. You play real chess against a computer opponent, but every turn you also draw 5 cards and spend 3 energy to bend the rules: freeze a piece, leap like a Knight, summon a Pawn or strike from across the board.

Gambit Deck costs $9.99 once. There is no subscription, no ads, no accounts and no in-app purchases. Every deck, card, relic and enemy is unlocked by playing, and every future update to the game is included.

No. If you know how the pieces move, you can play. A run starts against a rabble of pawns, the guided tutorial teaches the cards in a few minutes, and the Hint button shows what the computer would do in your place. Strong players get five Stakes per deck to push against.

A battle takes 3 to 6 minutes and a full run of 10 floors takes about 30 to 45 minutes. The game saves after every move, card and screen, so you can quit any time, even mid-battle, and continue exactly where you were.

Each battle sets a target, like "take 12 points in 10 turns". Pieces are worth their usual value: Pawn 1, Knight and Bishop 3, Rook 5, Queen 9. Reach the target before your turns run out, or take the enemy King, which you can only do if it was already in check when your turn began.

Yes, Gambit Deck plays fully offline with no account. When you are online it sends anonymous error reports so bugs get fixed, and nothing else. It runs on macOS 11 or later on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. A Windows version is planned; buying now on Mac does not include a separate Windows licence yet.

It borrows their run structure: you build a deck across 10 floors, pick paths on a map, cash out gold after each fight and collect relics that change how you score. The difference is the board. Every battle is a real game of chess, and your cards bend its rules instead of dealing damage.

Yes. The Daily run is the same for every player each day: the same deck, map, enemies, card rewards and shop stock, plus one twist for the whole run, like an Edict on every battle or a single life. The title screen tracks your best result and your streak of days, and the end screen copies a one-line result to share.

Yes. Classic chess has full rules (castling, en passant, promotion, checkmate, stalemate, the 50-move and repetition draws) against the computer at four strengths, or two players on one screen, with a move list, undo and board flip.