Overview of Game Pieces
AbraTabia has the same basic pieces as regular chess, but introduces more gender equality by having 8 female pieces, along with 8 male pieces instead of 15 male pieces and 1 female piece. You still have 8 pawns, but only 4 of them are named Pawns (male) and 4 of them are named Peasants (female). Each type of piece, has it’s own special talent point tree, spells and combat statistics. In total there are 16 pieces, with 10 unique names and piece types.
The back row still has a King, Queen, Rook, Knight and Bishop. Three new piece names were added: Dame (female knight), Archer (male rook), and Sorceress (female bishop). At the start of the game at level 1, most pieces move similar to chess but all pieces have a limited range, to keep combat closer range for all pieces. All pieces can get increased movement with certain talent points, making their movement different than expected, such as a knight or bishop being able to move 1 square forward, left or right which changes all traditional ways of playing chess at higher levels.
Your Pawns and Peasants, move much differently than in chess right from level 1 since they needed these changes to become useful in AbraTabia. The game can be played with up to 4 players, with player 3 and 4 on the right and left sides of the board, so pawns and peasants had to be able to move left and right to reach those enemies. They can also move backwards and diagonally (at all times). If a pawn/peasants reaches the backline of an enemy, they do not become queens (queening), there is no castling, and there are no stalemates.
In the rest of this article, we will cover each type of piece and what their basic strengths are, which spells they have, and how you should use them. To keep it simple, we won’t consider talent points yet, as each piece type can be used differently when they change talent points at later levels.
Queen: The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. She has dark magic and damages her enemies with magical attacks. She can move in any direction with the most movement of any piece. However she does take a lot of melee damage and like all pieces, takes counter attack damage so she can not be the only piece attacking. Her default spell is Self Heal, which can only heal the queen for 20 health with a 10 turn cooldown.
King: It’s good to be king! Right? Eh not really. With great power comes great responsibility, your King has to stay alive or you lose the game. For the most part, you need to protect your king and stay away from the enemy. Your king has good defensive stats and his spell is named Retreat, which will move your king backwards up to 4 squares. Your king has Assist Attack by default, the only piece that can combo attack the enemy at the start of the game. Other pieces can do this too with talent points, but your king can do it at level 1.
Bishop: The Bishop is a male piece with Holy Magic, who can heal other pieces with his Friendly Heal spell. While bishops have the strongest healing spell in the game, they can change this to a direct damage spell with Talent Points to add more firepower to your strategy. Bishops move in diagonal lines by default, have lower attack stats, but take the least amount of counter attack damage when they do attack.
Sorceress: A female Bishop, the Sorceress has similar diagonal movement but otherwise is the opposite in every way. Sorceress is a dark magic piece, raining fire down on her enemies. Her spell is named Firestorm, an area of effect spell that deals 5 damage to all enemies within 3 squares of the Sorceress. She deals high magical damage.
Rook: A master of the magical bow, the Rook is a female bowman who deals high magical damage. She moves in straight lines: forward, back, left and right. She likes to sneak up on her enemies with her Stealth spell, which makes her invisible on the board for up to 3 turns. While stealth, the Rook may still move hidden to the enemy, but will appear again if the Rook attacks or is attacked in their current square.
Archer: A physical damage fighter, the Archer uses his bow to deal high damage. He moves in straight lines: forward, back, left and right. He has the Teleport spell, which allows him to instantly move back to the square he started the game on, if no other piece is in that square. Use this spell if his health becomes too low, or if you need to return to your base to defend your King.
Knight: Your Knight is a strong melee attacker with one of the best spells in the game, Swap Positions. Swap Positions has an unlimited range, and allows your Knight to change places with any of your other pieces. Knights are strong physical damage fighters, with higher health and defensive statistics than most pieces. They can move in an L shaped pattern like standard chess, 2 squares in one direction, and 1 square in the parallel direction. Additional movement options with Talent Points.
Dame: Who said girls can’t be Knights? A Dame is exactly that. She fights hard with the boys, and usually wins. Your Dame is a strong melee attacker who can take a punch. She has the Charge spell, which allows her to move up to 3 squares forward without counting as your one move per turn. She moves in an L shaped pattern, 2 squares in one direction, and 1 square in the opposite direction.
Pawn: Your 4 pawns love to serve their King and are ready to Sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Their spell is named Sacrifice for this reason and is a critical spell to use at the proper time. Pawns can move forward, backwards, left and right by up to 2 squares and 1 square in any direction diagonally. They do lower damage than any backline piece does, but do more counter attack damage. When you move them around the board, their main job is to block incoming attacks against your other pieces, or to save their health for use with their Sacrifice spell.
Peasant: In addition to your 4 Pawns, there are 4 Peasants that form your front line. Peasants are female pieces with Holy Magic, they do weak damage but are strong on defense. They can heal other pieces, but at the cost of their own life. Their spell is named Transfer Health, as they lose the amount of health gained by the friendly piece they heal.
This was a general overview of each piece type in AbraTabia. I will continue to create more guides on your pieces and how to use them, as well as, general game play tips and strategies. While this information is fresh in your mind, I suggest playing a game against the AI to see it in action. Thank you for playing AbraTabia!!