We’ve already touched on the fact that I’m quite the nerd in podcasts and unboxing videos, and let’s face it, sitting in the school library on my lunch breaks playing Magic: The Gathering with friends back in the early 2000s didn’t exactly help that image. Sure, that kind of school lunch activity is a little more acceptable since I left school, but being in the Chess Club still comes with a kind of stigma associated with it. Well, guess what. I was in the Chess Club too, and I wasn’t just a member, I was one of the champions for three years in a row. So yes, I am very much a nerd.

SokoChess, by Daisy Games, was originally released in August of 2022 as a minimalistic puzzle game that used chess pieces and their real-world movements to solve puzzles, and using the white pieces, you needed to move the black pieces to their allocated squares, which sounds easy enough, but this is far from a normal game of chess. There are obstacles in the way, it is not your standard chess board, and the black pieces can fight back and capture your pieces, whereas you can only push them around. SokoChess White takes that gameplay and asks the question, “What if the black pieces just didn’t show up?” and we’ve been given a chance to find out.

Releasing early in March 2023, SokoChess White features 70 newly created puzzles set on some pretty obscure chess boards, but unlike the original SokoChess, the black pieces are missing. Instead, most of the puzzles will feature obstacles such as boxes that need to be pushed around or snowflakes that freeze your piece in place until you can push it around with another, but the end goal remains the same; get your pieces into their designated positions.

To do this, simply clicking on a piece will select it, and then you can click where you would like to place it, and pieces can only move in their real-world directions. For example, a Rook, or the Castle, can move horizontally or vertically around the board, any number of squares before it runs out of space or hits another piece, whereas a Pawn, which can normally only move forward one space, can move a single space diagonally to push another piece. Don’t worry too much if you’re not familiar with the pieces and how they move though, the board will highlight where you can and can’t move.

You’ll need to carefully position your pieces so that you can use a Rook to push the Bishop forward or to the side, or set up your Pawn to shunt your knight vertically, but you have as many moves as you need to do this. The only stress you would ever be under is that which you put on yourself. There is no time limit, and you can re-do or restart the level as many times as you need to. If it comes to the crunch, you can even skip the level completely and come back to it when you’re feeling less frazzled. Or not. I’m not your King.

While you’re busy bullying a Knight into position with a Pawn or temporarily sacrificing your Queen to the icy abyss, you’re listening to some absolute bangers like Canon in D for Two Harps, or Prelude in C, both composed by Johann Bach, or a short list of accompanying beats.

All joking aside, the calming music really compliments the gameplay and helps you to remain grounded as you repeatedly smash the undo button after making a move you can’t recover from and forget the Restart or Skip buttons exist.

The sound effects aren’t quite as stimulating, with mostly generic clicks regardless of whether you’re scrolling through menus or moving pieces, but you’ll know what you freeze one of your pieces or shove boxes around.

True to the minimalistic nature of the game, and following suit with the sound effects, the graphics are also quite simple, but they do the job. If you’re familiar with the pieces, you can easily differentiate the 2D pieces dotted around the board and recognise their real-life counterparts and where they need to end up. Certain obstacles, such as the crate, feature a little extra detail, or in the case of the Snowflakes, you can readily see that your pieces are frozen once they move into that square. It’s nothing special, but once again, it suits the minimalistic nature of the game.

While it certainly isn’t chess, SokoChess White does offer some interesting gameplay if you’re a fan of puzzles. The 70 levels will get you thinking about your next move, just like the real-life game, but you’re under absolutely no pressure to finish them within a time frame, or at all for that matter.

Calming music and stylised art will help you to feel at ease, and the quality of life features really help complement the gameplay and help you to focus on completing the levels. The only gripe I have is that it’s not chess. It’s far from it, but if you want a solid puzzle game, you’re in the right place.

Written by: Mathew Lindner