Pushmate Devlog #1 - Panic Chess with Ghosts: Kicking Off the Pushmate Prototype
Real-time, no-turns chess party game where a tiny ghost wreaks havoc on an oversized board.
Devlog #1 - Why I’m Making a Chaotic Chess Party Game
The job market is pretty rough right now, so instead of just doom-scrolling job ads, I decided to level up my skills and see if I can make a small game within about a month.
This is my first proper devlog for a prototype I’m calling Pushmate (working title!) – a first-person, real-time chess party game built in Unreal Engine.
You play as a little ghost floating above an oversized spooky chessboard. Instead of calmly thinking three moves ahead like a normal chess enjoyer, you run around, possess pieces, and literally push them around the board in real time. No turns, no “your move / my move” – just panic chess, screaming, and hopefully some friendship-destroying couch co-op.
I’m not a veteran game dev. I’m learning game design and Unreal Engine as I go, one bug at a time. The goal is not perfection – the goal is to actually finish something playable, share the process, and bring this weird ghost-chess idea to life.
What Is Pushmate (For Now)?
At its core, Pushmate is:
A chaotic, real-time, no-turns chess party game
Played on a single shared chessboard
For 2–4 players (local couch brawler vibes)
Where you run around, grab chess pieces, and launch them to legal squares
To capture pieces for points and control center tiles
Matches can end in two ways:
King Break – The moment any king is captured, the match ends. Whoever has the most points at that exact moment wins.
Classic Timer – An optional 3–5 minute timer, and when it hits zero, the highest score wins.
The focus is on:
Fast, readable gameplay – You should instantly understand what’s going on when you glance at the board.
Low art overhead – Simple, stylized visuals so I can iterate on gameplay instead of crying over shaders.
Party game chaos – This is meant to be played on a couch with friends, snacks, and a lot of “WHAT WAS THAT MOVE?!”
Think: “What if chess and a couch brawler had a baby?”
Building the Spooky Chessboard (Environment Pass #1)
Before I could do anything fun with gameplay, I needed a place for my poor ghost to haunt.
For the prototype environment, I’m using the “Stylized – Nanite Dungeon Pack” from Studio Kobo on the Unreal Marketplace. From that, I:
Built an 8×8 chessboard with
One extra ring of tiles around it so players can step off the board and reposition without falling into the void.
Used Material Instances to fake a classic checkered board:
Black tiles → texture brightness set to 0.05
White tiles → brightness pumped up to 3.0
Added a small border around the board and placed a brazier in each corner for that cozy-spooky dungeon vibe
Right now, the board is already:
Readable from first-person
Dark and moody but still clear enough to see what’s going on
Lightweight enough that I can iterate fast without touching every asset by hand
Is it final art? Absolutely not. Is it good enough to start breaking chess with ghosts? Yes.
Classic Chess Pieces, Chaotic New Rules
For the pieces themselves, I’m using a free chess asset pack from the Blender Marketplace. That gives me:
All classic chess pieces (pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen, king)
A familiar silhouette language so anyone who has seen a chessboard can understand what’s happening
The twist is:
You don’t calmly click a piece and choose a square.
Instead, you run up to it in first person, “claim” it as your ghost, and launch it along its legal movement pattern.
Every capture gives you points, and controlling key tiles (especially the center) will be a big part of the scoring system.
Later devlogs will go deeper into:
How movement and cooldowns work
How I’m making sure it still feels like chess, just… extremely caffeinated
First-Person Ghost: Learning Unreal on the Fly
To get things moving (literally), I started with the default Unreal Engine First Person Template. That gave me:
A basic first-person controller
Movement, jumping, and camera controls out of the box
A quick way to run around my new spooky chess dungeon and check scale, readability, and vibes
Right now, the ghost is just… you, in first person, walking around like a normal FPS character.
Long term, I might:
Switch to the Third Person Template for future projects and adapt it
Add a proper ghost body / VFX so you feel more like a floaty troublemaker than a camera on legs
But for Devlog #1, my main goal was:
Can I walk around a stylized dungeon, look at an 8×8 chessboard, and not get lost?
Answer: Yes. Progress!
Pushmate, Phantom Gambit… Help Me Name This Thing 👻
Right now, the working title is Pushmate – because you literally “push” your pieces and ruin your friends’ day.
Another idea I’m playing with is Phantom Gambit, which leans into the spooky, ghostly theme a bit more and sounds like it could be whispered by a mysterious chess grandmaster.
I’d love your input:
Which name do you like more?
Pushmate
Phantom Gambit
Or do you have a better spooky chess name? (Please don’t say “Among Chess,” I beg you.)
Drop your ideas in the comments – I genuinely want to pick something that fits the vibe of:
cozy chaos + ghosts + chess + couch screaming
What’s Next for the Prototype?
In the next devlog, I’m planning to cover:
How movement works – You run up to a piece, claim it, and push it along its legal move pattern
Cooldowns – You shouldn’t be able to spam the same queen 24/7 (even if that’s how we all secretly play chess)
King Break vs Timer Mode – Two different ways to structure matches
More game feel: sound, tiny VFX, and ways to make captures satisfying and readable
If you’re into:
Indie game devlogs
Unreal Engine experiments
Or just want to watch someone slowly learn how to ship a game prototype without losing their mind
…then consider following the devlog series and subscribing to my YouTube channel. I’ll be posting short gameplay clips, breakdowns, and probably a few bug compilations.
