CombatChess
its chess, with fists
Only for iPhone
Free · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
iPhone
No piece goes quietly. Contest any capture in a retro arcade brawl punch, block, dodge. The winner keeps the square. The loser leaves the board.
It's chess. With fists.
Combat Chess is real, full-rules chess until a capture is contested. Then both pieces drop into a real-time retro pixel brawl, and the winner keeps the square. No piece goes quietly. Not even the king.
ACTION CARDS: FIGHT FOR THE SQUARE
You start every match with 3 Action Cards. When your piece is captured, spend one to force a fight instead of just losing it. Win the brawl and the capture is repelled your piece holds the square and the attacker is removed. Cards are spent win or lose and never refill mid-match, so card management is a whole extra layer of strategy. Run dry, and captures land like ordinary chess.
FIGHTS THAT MATTER
- Fighting power scales with chess value: pawns brawl at 75 HP, knights and bishops at 125, rooks at 175, queens at a monstrous 275, kings at 300.
- Damage persists for the ENTIRE match. Wound the queen now, hunt her down later a health bar follows every piece that has fought.
- A pawn can topple a queen. It just takes near-flawless play.
SIX-BUTTON ARCADE COMBAT
- Left punch (fast jab) and right punch (slow, heavy cross).
- Side-matched blocking read the tell and guard the correct side to absorb 80% of the hit.
- Timed dodges perfect timing negates all damage and charges your meter.
- A stamina system that punishes button-mashing. Burn out and you're exhausted: unable to act and taking 1.5x damage.
- Land perfect dodges to unlock the SUPER a single power shot worth 2.5x a heavy punch.
Spam loses. Reads win.
THE KING NEVER FALLS QUIETLY
- In check, you can move out of danger or spend a card to send your king to fight the checking piece directly.
- Checkmate isn't automatically the end. It triggers a mandatory final fight: your king duels the mating piece at 300 HP, no card needed. Win the last stand and the mate is broken. This cuts both ways: to beat you, your opponent must finish the job in the ring.
A REAL CHESS ENGINE UNDERNEATH
- Complete standard chess: castling, en passant, promotion, check, checkmate, and every standard draw rule.
- Powered by the Stockfish engine, tunable from 600 to 3190 Elo - friendly beginner to superhuman, with a strength slider for every difficulty in Settings.
- Single-player works fully offline. Sound and haptics are yours to toggle.
CHALLENGE FRIENDS ONLINE
- Turn-based multiplayer through Game Center: invite friends, run several matches at once, and take your time.
- Get notified when an opponent moves, captures, or starts a fight with daily reminders before the 4-day forfeit window closes a stalled match.
- Built for turn-based play: when you contest a capture, the fight resolves instantly on your own device against a computer-controlled version of your opponent's piece fighting with its true HP and power, including damage it already carries. No waiting around, and your opponent sees a full recap on their turn.
EVERY MATCH ON RECORD
- Match history with wins, losses, draws, win rate, streaks, per-difficulty records, fight stats, and your biggest upset.
Your first update, built from player feedback!
SEE THE BOARD WHILE YOU DECIDE
The fight-or-concede prompt no longer covers the board. It now lives at the bottom of the screen both fighters and their HP flank the buttons and a pulsing red arrow on the board shows exactly which piece is capturing which while the decision is pending, in solo and online play.
MATCH LOG
Tap the new green LOG button for a live history of the whole game: every move, every fight outcome, and the result, updating in real time. Online, both players see the identical log.
PLAY AS BLACK
Single player now opens with a setup screen: pick White or Black and fine-tune the CPU's Elo within your difficulty before the first move.
ONLINE RELIABILITY
Fixed the "both players waiting" stall. The app now re-syncs with Game Center when you return to it and continuously during a match, so a missed turn notification can no longer hang a game stalled matches heal themselves in seconds.
The developer, PUNCHMAN, LLC, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- PUNCHMAN, LLC
- Size
- 82.3 MB
- Category
- Board
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
9+
- 9+
- Infrequent
Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Copyright
- © 2026 Punchman LLC
