This is lovely.
I don't have a great appreciation for chess. I don't have a great appreciation for shuffleboard. Somehow smashing them together has resulted in something with more approachability than chess, and more depth than shuffleboard, like some adorable hybrid puppy made of games I normally don't care for.
My main critiques are 1) it wasn't always super clear which piece I'd be clicking on. This is partially me not utilizing the rotate feature enough, but a highlight would go a long way. 2) Even knowing what the pieces do in normal chess and figuring that you'd try to replicate that, I find it hard to quantify the actual differences between the pieces. I got the impression that making chess more physics based kinda messes with the inherent "value" of a given piece, where value might be represented by [value = mobility * quantity available] Here, though, we throw mass into the equation, rendering it something like [value =( mobility * quantity) / mass)] where mass or lackthereof is a factor that can totally mute a piece's mobility or qualtity. It's a hugely important factor in decisionmaking here, and I found myself wishing for a way to visually identify a given piece type's heft a little more clearly, just by looking at it.
As an aside, I'm one of those people who chronically confuses the queen and king pieces. That's mostly on me, but I definitely found myself wondering why my queen was so sluggish before sacrificing "her" only to discover that I'd lost the game.
It's still lovely though, and it has the distinction of being the only game jam game outside of my own that's going to feature at my next game night. Good show!