Where to get it

2026 · Indie · Simulation

Gambonanza

Gambonanza is a mind-bending roguelike where every move counts. Unlock over 100 innovative Gambits and harness powerful synergy with your chess pieces to transform your board into a festival of explosive combos and tactical twists!

Released: 1 May 2026
Platforms: Android Linux Windows iOS macOS
Genres: Indie Simulation Strategy
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Languages: Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Spain), Turkish
Time to beat: 2.5hmain story4hcompletionist

About

Gambonanza is a 2026 turn-based chess roguelike video game developed by Blukulélé and copublished with Sidekick Publishing and Stray Fawn Publishing. The game's goal is to capture every single rival piece instead of just putting the king in checkmate. The game was chosen as part of the SXSW Sydney 2025 Game Festival official selection and was shortlisted for the festival's Game of the Year.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game starts with a board smaller than the traditional chess 64 squares board, where the goal is to capture every single rival piece instead of just putting the king in checkmate. If the players wastes too many moves the board will start crumbling.

Reception

Two weeks after Gambonanza's release on May 1, 2026 the game sold over 200,000 units across all platforms. This was a massive hit for Blukulélé as their previous two games failed to sell over 700 units combined. Blukulélé sayid that they personally earned roughly $220,000 USD after fees, which they describe as "a life-changing success". The PC version of Gambonanza received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received fair approval, being recommended by 57% of critics.

The game was chosen as part of the SXSW Sydney 2025 Game Festival official selection and was shortlisted for the festival's Game of the Year.