What In-Game Features and Controls Does Pokémon Chess Offer?

Pokémon Chess (pokemonchess.com) is a browser-based chess game with Pokémon-themed graphics, and its in-game controls cover the full span of a match: hosting and joining rooms, choosing a promotion piece, switching sides, skipping an additional move, forfeiting, and requesting a rematch. The site's own update notes and interface text confirm these features, along with supporting tools like algebraic notation around the board and a Team Builder. The details below describe what each control does and when you would use it.

Room setup options before the game starts

Hosts configure the match before anyone plays. According to the site's October 26th update notes and the host panel, the available room options are:

• Room Name and Room Password — for private or identifiable games.
• Disable Critical Hits & Misses — removes the RNG element from combat outcomes.
• Random Teams — enforces randomly assigned teams rather than chosen ones.
• Timer — three choices are listed: 10 Mins, Blitz 3|2, and None.

The update notes state that timers are now tracked on the server rather than on each client, which is intended to keep clock behavior consistent between players. The same notes mention that it should no longer be possible to create multiple rooms at once.

The Available Rooms list shows each open room's Room Name, Win Rate, and whether No RNG, Random Teams, and a Timer are in effect, so you can judge a match's rules before joining.

Team Builder

The Team Builder lets you configure and save your teams before joining a game, per the update notes. Within it you can:

• Enter a Team Name
• Randomise All or Randomise Missing (fill only the empty slots)
• Save Team or Clear Team
• Delete a saved team

This is the place to prepare a specific lineup in advance rather than assembling one under time pressure in a live game.

In-game controls during a match

Once a game is underway, the interface exposes these actions:

The board itself is canvas-enabled and shows algebraic notation (A–H files, 1–8 ranks) around the edges, so you can read and call out coordinates directly from the display. Each player's clock is shown as a numeric readout (for example, 10:00.0) beside the board.

Connection and status states

The interface also handles non-gameplay situations with dedicated screens and messages:

• Awaiting Opponent... — shown while waiting for a second player, with a Not Ready state and a Back to Menu option.
• Opponent disconnected! — displayed when the other player drops, with Back to Menu.
• You have disconnected for reason: followed by Attempting to reconnect... and a Reload button — the path back into a game after your own connection drops.
• Cheater detection — the update notes state that if you win for seemingly no reason, the opponent may have been attempting to cheat, implying the system flags suspicious outcomes.

Practical notes

• The update notes mention that move-related gifs and audio are preloaded so they shouldn't arrive late the first time, and that images are preloaded (shown as a 0/197 counter).
• The site credits the idea and graphics to Little Z and programming to El Xando, and points players to its Discord for discussion and bug reports.
• The page includes a "buying the dev a coffee" link and a cross-promotion for Smash Monopoly; no pricing details for the game itself appear in the available material, so nothing here should be read as confirming whether any feature is free or paid.

If you want to check the current state of any of these controls, the host panel and in-game buttons are the authoritative source, since the site ships updates (the notes above are dated October 26th) that can change labels and behavior.