Frequently asked questions

Pawnborn is a chess strategy MMO — a massively multiplayer online strategy game built around real chess. You grow a kingdom on a shattered chessboard world, your citizens train into the regiments that become your pieces, and when two armies meet the battle is played out as a game of chess at your own level. It is in development by Board Night Inc. and is not yet released.

It is a coined word — "pawn" and "born" joined together. In the game's fiction the Pawnborn are the folk of a broken chessboard world, descended from the pieces of two ancient courts, and their founding belief is that no one is born a knight: any pawn may rise. The word is also the name of the game. There is more on the what is Pawnborn page.

There is no release date, and we would rather say so than invent one. The game is in active development and will open first as a small, invite-only pre-alpha, then a wider beta. Joining the notify list is the way to hear when either opens.

The pre-alpha is invite-only and invitations go out to the notify list first. Add your email on the invite page. There is no queue to pay to skip and no way to buy your way in — there never will be.

The plan is that playing Pawnborn is free. What we intend to sell is beauty — cosmetic things like heraldry, court themes and the look of your kingdom — and nothing that affects a game. That promise is written down as the Fairness Covenant.

No, and it is designed so that it cannot become one. No purchase will ever grant board advantage, resources, turns, army, information, or convenience a competitor can feel. Money buys beauty; only play buys glory. See the Covenants.

No. That is close to the whole design brief. Battles are matched at your level, half of the game has nothing to do with your chess rating at all, and the game is built and tested against the question "is this still fun for someone who loses half their games?" A beginner and a grandmaster should both find a real game here.

Yes. Battles are played with real chess rules on real boards, with clocks, and the rules engine is tested against an established chess engine so that legality is never in question. Some boards are smaller than eight by eight, which is where new players start.

Only when you choose to, or when nobody is there. If a battle reaches you while you are asleep, your defence is fought for you rather than lost by default — but a game with a machine in it is labelled as such before the first move, and it never counts toward anyone's chess rating. Your rating only ever moves when two human beings play.

Web browsers first, with mobile apps for iOS and Android built from the same codebase. Both are intended to carry the whole game — no cut-down mobile version. Nothing is committed until it ships, and no store dates exist yet.

Community channels are being set up now. When they are live they will be linked from this site's footer and from the journal. Until then, the notify list is the reliable way to hear anything.

Board Night Inc., an independent games invention studio. The studio's own site is at boardnight.ca.

No — they are unrelated games by unrelated developers. Pawnbarian is a single-player chess roguelike. Pawnborn is a massively multiplayer online strategy game. The names look alike, which is why this answer exists.

Not yet. If and when a Steam page exists it will be linked from this site.

A battle is a quick game of chess — minutes, not hours. The kingdom around it runs on real time and is designed to be manageable in about ten minutes a day. It is built for people with jobs.

Yes. Players band together into republics of up to sixteen, and friends can arrange to arrive in the world together rather than being scattered.