Start small
Just a king and three pawns
Each side opens with its king on e1/e8 and three pawns on the d, e, and f files. Everything else — the back-rank pieces and the other five pawns — sits off the board, waiting to be summoned.
GitHub
Build your army. Level it up. Then checkmate.
Chess Upgraded: RPG edition strips the board back to two kings and six pawns, then hands you an economy. Push forward to earn material from the territory you hold, spend it to build back the pieces you want, and spend the XP each piece earns to level it up — pawn into knight, knight into rook, rook into queen. Every game is a different army of your own making.
A brand-new variant from the Chess Upgraded studio — strategy, kingdom- building, and good old-fashioned mate, all on one board.
Earn it, build it, level it up.
A turn in the RPG edition is up to two actions: optionally build a piece or upgrade one of your pieces, then make a move. Building drops an off-board piece onto its original home square. Upgrading transforms a piece in place into a stronger one, paid for with its own XP. The square you just touched is locked until the next turn — no instant-build-and-strike combos.
Hold territory
Push forward to fund your army
Every end-of-turn you score material from the squares you control: +1 for each of your pieces on your own advanced half, +2 for each piece that has crossed into the opponent's half. The bolder you play, the faster your reinforcements arrive.
Build
Spend material, place a piece
Spend material to drop an off-board piece onto its original home square — pawn 1, knight 3, bishop 3, rook 5, queen 9. You can build once per turn, and the just-built piece is locked for the rest of that turn.
Earn XP
Every piece levels individually
Captures give the capturing piece XP equal to half the victim's value (rounded up). Delivering check adds +1. A pawn earns +1 the first time it crosses the midline. XP is tracked per piece, not per side.
Upgrade
Pay XP, transform in place
Spend a piece's XP to upgrade it to a stronger one — pawn to knight, bishop, rook or queen; knight or bishop to rook or queen; rook to queen. The cost equals the new piece's value. Like building, upgrading takes the turn's action and locks the square until next turn.
Losses compound
Rebuild gets more expensive
When one of your pieces is captured it returns to your pool, but its build cost doubles. A first-time rook costs 5, a twice-lost rook costs 20. A promoted piece that gets captured comes back as a pawn on its original pawn home.
👑
Two economies, one king to mate
Material funds your army. XP funds the individual pieces inside it.
Material is shared across your side and pays for new pieces. XP is per-piece and pays to level that one up — so a pawn that captures a queen becomes a candidate for a fast in-place promotion without ever reaching the back rank. Every capture you take away also makes the opponent's rebuild more expensive next time, so trades are never purely even: you are buying time and pricing them out of their own pieces. Castling is gone (no back rank to start with), but stalemate, threefold repetition, and insufficient material are all draws as usual.
Support the next evolution
Chess Upgraded is still growing. Donations help fund new variants, better visuals, mobile versions, and smarter computer opponents.
More chess variants
Fresh rule twists and new games beyond what's live today.
Original art
A custom visual identity beyond classic chess symbols.
iPhone & Android
Native-feeling mobile versions for quick matches anywhere.
Stronger computer play
Better bots that understand every variant and its wild endgames.
Frequently asked questions
What is Chess Upgraded: RPG edition?+
Chess Upgraded: RPG edition is a free, browser-based chess variant. Each side opens with just a king and three pawns. The rest of the army starts off the board and has to be built using material you earn over the course of the game. Pieces on the board also earn XP, which you spend to level them up into stronger pieces.
What does the starting position look like?+
Each side has its king on its standard square and three pawns directly in front of the king (d, e, and f files). Every other piece — the back-rank pieces and the remaining five pawns — starts off the board, ready to be built onto its original home square.
How do I earn material to build pieces?+
At the end of every turn, the side that just moved scores material from the territory it holds: one point for each of its own pieces on its advanced half of the board, and two points for each piece that has crossed into the opponent's half. Pushing pieces forward funds your next builds.
How much does it cost to build each piece?+
Pawn 1, knight 3, bishop 3, rook 5, queen 9 — the standard chess piece values. A piece is built onto its original home square; the just-built piece is locked for that turn and can't move until the next one.
What happens when a piece I built is captured?+
It returns to your off-board pool, but its rebuild cost doubles every time it is captured: 1 → 2 → 4 → 8 and so on for a pawn, 3 → 6 → 12 for a knight, and so on. Losing the same piece twice is much more expensive than losing two different pieces once.
How do XP and upgrades work?+
Each piece on the board earns XP individually. A capture gives the capturing piece XP equal to half the captured piece's value (rounded up). Delivering check is worth one XP, and a pawn earns one XP the first move it crosses into the opponent's half. Spend XP to upgrade the piece in place — pawn into knight, bishop, rook or queen; knight or bishop into rook or queen; rook into queen. The XP cost is the value of the new piece.
Can I take more than one action per turn?+
Yes — you can build or upgrade once, and then make a move on the same turn. You cannot do both build and upgrade in the same turn, and the piece you just built or upgraded cannot move that turn. If you do not want to spend material or XP, you can simply move.
What about castling, promotion, and stalemate?+
Castling is not available in the RPG edition — the starting position has no castling rights, and a rook built later does not gain them. Pawn promotion works as in standard chess. Stalemate, threefold repetition, and insufficient material are all draws, the same as a normal game.
Is Chess Upgraded: RPG edition free, and can I play the computer?+
Yes. It is completely free, runs in your browser with no sign-up, and ships with a built-in computer opponent that understands building, upgrading, and the territory economy.
Ready to build your kingdom?
Launch the demo, earn your first material, build your first knight, and see how an empty back rank turns chess into a whole new game.
Launch game