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Innovation:
This puts Genealogy of the Holy War's scaling to shame: the whole map's on one continent! Thematically, picking up the pieces and reassembling the continent is interesting.

Fun:

The Jugdral inspiration is clear, and I like my Jugdral. Implementing roads to speed up backtracking proved to be useful to catch up any units lagging behind. There wasn't much incentive to rush, however. Almost every enemy was static and when my fortress was destroyed the game didn't end. The chapter took me 47 turns and 1:20 to finish, shorter than what I was expecting. Low percent crits were ever-present, but I never got hit by one.

This game knew its theme, and stuck to it. The empires shattered with the Divine Glass, and Ki and company have chosen to put things back together again. Small things like the misaligned road tiles add to the sense of the broken world. It's a shame the storyline petered out halfway through, but deadlines are deadlines. It did come to a conclusion, at least.

The banter between Ki and her friends is funny, as are the recruitment conversations. But then the text dries up in the second half of the chapter: I can only assume due to deadline crunch. But what is there is good.

The large amount of custom assets set the scene nicely. Being able to see the whole world also helps sell just how big of a task fixing the ruined world was going to be.

These are another point of focus. Almost all the default assets have been replaced with large, distinct portraits drawn for the chapter. All the player portraits are tinted blue, while all the enemy portraits are tinted red. The chapter tileset is also refreshing to see. Some of the late-joiners don't have full-sized portraits, presumably due to time crunch, but that doesn't really detract from the work that went into the rest of the character artwork.

This chapter set out to be a big, contient-spanning epic with unique graphics for everyone. And as it so happens, I like Jugdral. I did find it a bit odd I could pick off the enemies at my leisure, but it was a nice and relaxing run, low percent crit rates aside.

Thanks for reviewing. Apologies for the bugs; that sage should have a real weapon and I'll have to shorten Kaiba's text even further. The lack of restore staff was simply sloppiness more than anything else. The status staves are present regardless of difficulty, but what testing was done was on hard. Not sure what was going on on normal. The Tyrfing being anti-sword is a complete accident.

The railway is another of my hobbies, as you figured out. I wanted to experiment a little, and a day or two after the jam started the idea of a runaway train popped into my head. From there, foot units wouldn't be able to catch up, so everyone had Canto. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself.

Thanks for reviewing.

Regarding the theme, there was meant to be more of an implication of the railway being in decline, but the chapter was rushed out the door and I only verified that the chapter could be finished. The ending dialogue is also extremely short due to that.

The village error is especially bad, and I'll probably fix that and other noted issues in a v1.1 in the future (not here so as to not influence the judging process). The guys by the wall are just meant to guard the wall to make it a bit harder to reach the station area.

Overall, I'm glad you enjoyed it and thanks for playing.

I'm going to break down my reviews by category.

Innovation:

I have to give a high score here. Three pieces from three chess variants have been thrown into a Fire Emblem blender. This is a long way from a traditional SRPG experience and is defintely an interesting idea. Adapting the pieces' movement styles from their games of origin is also a nice touch.

Fun:

The chapter set out what it aimed to do. I enjoyed myself, but it was so short (my run took ten minutes) I can't give it a very high rating. It's worth noting here that the shuai's attack can hit your own units. Otherwise, rush to the promotion zone as fast as possible before drowning in go stones.

Theme:

The theme is "shattered empires", and chess is a game about waging war to expand your empire. As the name "Shattered Chessboards" implies, these have been broken, leaving the shogi laurel horse to put things together again. An unorthodox interpetation of the theme, which is interesting.

Humour:

Points for a funny premise, but with the plot being thin, there aren't really any jokes to be told here.

Mood:

I don't have much to say here, but it's nice to see the game boards have been amalgamated into one combination.

Graphics:

The piece graphics are cute. I did get confused that the tiles on the xiangqi spaces didn't align with the grid, but the alignment used is correct to the actual game, which means it would be unfair to dock points for that.

Audio:

There is no background music whatsoever.

Overall:

Shattered Chessboards is a simple game with a simple premise. It doesn't set out to be an overly ambitious chapter, but it's unique and doesn't outstay its welcome. The gameplay follows the premise well. Overall, it's worth a play.

Should be fixed. Apologies for any issues.

I made it up to wave 11. I enjoyed it!

If in doubt, smack things with hammers.