I thought the narrative and writing were very endearing, its inspirations are clear and it has a quirky charm about it.
I did softlock twice in the pawn pushing section and had to manually reload the game, which was kind of frustrating. The final boss was confusing at first, since there's no obvious feedback that you're actually attacking it (the text that appears feels more like it's telling you to attack). The lack of music or diverse sound effects was also a little jarring, and the existing audio is a bit too quiet.
Much like the story, I found the cartoonish pixel graphics very endearing as well, if a bit inconsistent (the player doesn't have the same style as the pieces, for example). Despite my complaints though, I actually had a lot of fun going through it!