Below the Crown: Chess, dungeon-crawling, and roguelike elements combine to become something truly unique

I’ve never been very good at strategy games; I just can’t quite wrap my head around the need to think several steps ahead of what I’m about to do. That level of planning has never been my forté, so I generally tend to avoid games that call for it. However, every so often, I’ll persevere and try to plot wisely if a game is intriguing enough, and Below the Crown is just that.

Below the Crown is a game by Misfits Attic, who previously made A Virus Named TOM and DUSKERS. It blends an emphasis on chess mechanics with roguelike elements and dungeon-crawling features, and requires excellent strategic skills to succeed and work your way through the levels available in the newly released demo. 

Like chess, but decidedly… Not

Below the Crown is not a chess game, although you do play with familiar chess pieces in a series of grid-based dungeons, using their established movement patterns to navigate. It’s a confusing concept, but it essentially takes the idea of chess and throws half of it out the window to create something entirely different. 

I was never very good at chess, and the part they threw was somehow the part I actually understood. What’s left turned out to be a little challenging for me to wrap my head around, and it took me at least six attempts at a dungeon before I had any idea what I was doing. I still haven’t managed to do what I’m supposed to do in a way that nets me a win, but on the plus side, I am still going back for more, which says a lot. 

Alongside the chess, there are elements of a strange mixture of genres. There’s deckbuilding, with you collecting spells after each successful dungeon to use in the next ones. There are roguelike bits, building up your powers and perks as you progress. There’s a whole lot of dungeon-crawling with your King, trying not to get killed by the Bishops, Princes, and Pawns. 

Below the crown is a bit of a mish-mash of features from other genres, blended together to become something entirely unique.

Making a hasty exit and getting quizzed

As someone who is a complete mess whenever I’m asked to plan anything less immediate than the near future, it’s safe to say that Below the Crown was never going to be a walk in the park for me. My only hope of getting through a dungeon even somewhat successfully has become getting to the door as quickly as possible without dying, which means I miss out on the shop experience. 

There have been some moments where I managed to take out a Pawn or Prince, and even a couple where I got lucky and somehow the opposing King perished, although I’m not entirely sure how I managed to make that happen even now. For me, Below the Crown feels extraordinarily different, but I know that won’t be the case for everyone, or even the majority of players. 

At sporadic moments (they might not be sporadic, but they definitely felt like it), you’ll exit a dungeon and be faced with a brief personality test question such as “plot on the graph how you’re feeling right now,” where the Y axis is loneliness, and the X axis is anxiety. I’m not sure what these are for, but you’re urged to answer honestly.

As I said, I’m not sure what they’re for, and they’re never explained in the demo, so they definitely do feel a little out of place. Hopefully they’re explained a little more or serve a purpose in the full game.

Dear strategically minded…

If you have a head for strategy and a talent for predicting the moves of those you can’t control, then Below the Crown will feel like a dream to play, especially once you start unlocking spells and new chess pieces to use to your advantage. Even for me, with my inability to plan, Below the Crown is intriguing enough that I keep going back for more. 

There are definitely a huge number of gamers out there who will probably find Below the Crown pretty straightforward, and they’ll figure out exactly how to sail through each dungeon with little to no effort. Sadly, I’m not one of those players, but I’m willing to keep suffering if it means I can train my brain, and sometimes a little challenge for the mind is all you need to feel inspired to try.

The demo of Below the Crown is available to download and play through Steam right now. The full game is set to release at some point in Q4 (Winter) 2025, although there isn’t a fixed release date just yet.