"Chesstris 2000" is part block pushing game and part love letter to the forgotten tetris spinoffs of the 90s and 2000s. Throughout the game, players must navigate a chess piece attached to a tetris block to an exit square on the board. Eventually, players learn to master not only different chess pieces -- pawns, rooks, knights-- but also different tetromino shapes, line clears, and more!

A major focus of developing Chesstris 2000 involved not only making its puzzles fun, but also making its ~~vibes~~ coherent. An homage to titles like Tetris for Philips CD-i, Tetrisphere, Myst, educational software, the game features three different whimsical, soothing environments and a vaporwave soundtrack by Stevia Sphere.

I made Chesstris 2000 over the course of a couple of months. There are 30+ levels and takes the average player about 2 hours to play through. I'd say it's my most complete game! It's also the game that taught me game development -- my first "big" thing. I found the level design / 'content' portion very fun! There was definitely a balance between trying new concepts and keeping the game breezy. Looking back on it there are a ton of performance tweaks I could make but am proud of doing something this complete with its own visual flourish all by myself.

check out the game here!

Awards, Recognition, Showcases

• 2021, Online. Indiepocalypse Issue #21 Featured work
• 2022, Online. "Arcane Cache" Review
• 2024, Online. "Virtual Moose" Review

Development Log

Post Mortem