Pawnage

An old school 1v1 arcade action crashed into the world's most famous board game. Easy to pick up. Brutal to master.
Nothing is captured for free.
Slide your knight onto your opponent's queen and the board falls away. Both pieces land in a 3D arena and fight for that square in real time: no turns, no dice, no waiting. Win and you march back onto the square like you own it. Lose and that piece is gone for good...
...which means that the queen you've been terrified of all match is just one bad duel away from dying to a pawn. Yours or theirs.
Every square is its own battleground.
The board is mapped to a whole roster of arenas, reshuffled every single match. Fighting over d4 is nothing like fighting over h7, and next game it'll be somewhere else entirely.
The arena is not a neutral party. Spike traps. Pressure plates. Pits that settle a duel in half a second. Learn the ground you're standing on or it'll bury you.
Every piece hits different.
Every piece brings its own stats and its own unique attacks: melee, spells, or both. Stamina decides how long you can sprint and swing before you're gasping and wide open.
Fireballs. Frostbolts. Speed buffs. Strength buffs. Heals. You know the drill.
Burn all your stamina early and you'll be swinging on empty when it counts.
Hold back for too long and you'll die with a full mana bar.
Fight dirty: grab the powerups.
Powerups drop into the arena mid-duel. Health, mana, raw stat boosts, and a random spell for whoever gets there first. That's the whole fight right there: the duel you were losing flips the second you beat them to it. Go get it.
Forget checkmate. Kill the king.
Reach the enemy king, win that one duel, and the match is over, even if you were getting dismantled on the board. Every trade is a gamble. Protect your king, because every gamble can be your end.
Bring a friend. Or don't.
Jump into 1v1 online over Steam, or take on a CPU opponent across multiple difficulty levels to hone your skills.