Chess blended with dungeon crawling, Below the Crown hits 1.0 on April 21

From the devs of the excellent Duskers, Below the Crown is a glorious mix of chess blended with a dungeon crawler and the full release has been announced. It's currently in Early Access but will hit the big 1.0 on April 21st.

I played the game at the original release and came away really impressed with it, and since then the developers have expanded it quite a lot. What I especially like about Below the Crown is how it unique it feels, it's nothing like any other chess-styled game I've ever played. The way it blends a mysterious narrative with the dungeon crawling, and the compact arenas with clever abilities makes it really interesting to play.

See the new trailer below:

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They also just launched a big new update for the game ahead of the full release that includes a whole bunch of additional and expanded content including:

• Save/View Replays and a new Replay Room
• New Emperor Narrative elements (when you return from runs - playing with a clean save file will give the full experience)
• Infinite Dungeon Mode (we haven't really tested this much so beware!)
• New difficulty settings to make things easier for players that need it
• Escape Rooms overhaul (Key added, rebalanced)
• So many new animations and artwork (stores, victory, etc.)
• New Scoreboard & info window
• New opening song (do you like it or prefer the old one?)
• Store Screens Overhaul
• Rebalanced Wizards
• New Dungeon Boards
• Piece movement tweaked (feedback on whether it looks right appreciated)
• Knight King boss got new animation for Lightning ability
• Gave Knight piece to Rook Wizard (feel strong enough?)
• At Spell Store, see your empty Spell slots
• Fog hazard visuals redone
• All victory/loss dialog should now go down to the bottom of the screen, not blocking the Board
• New Death animations
• Game Over Animation
• New Audio sound effects

You can actually get this and some other great games in the current Humble Bundle. If you enjoy turn-based strategy games and want something different - this needs to be on your list.