Knights & Roses 2026

Knights & Roses is an abstract strategy game for two players, played on a standard 8x8 chessboard with 64 double-sided pieces. Each piece has two faces: a Knight on one side and a Rose on the other. The theme is a quiet duel between steel and bloom, where every capture transforms the piece that makes it.

The rules are simple. Pieces never move to an empty square; they move only by capturing. A Knight captures like a chess knight, in an L-shape, jumping over other pieces. A Rose captures like a king and a bishop combined: one square in any direction, or any distance along a diagonal. A player may capture both enemy and friendly pieces. After a capture, the capturing piece is flipped to its other face: a Knight becomes a Rose, and a Rose becomes a Knight.

This flipping is the heart of the game. Strength and mobility constantly trade places, and every move removes exactly one piece from the board. Capturing your own piece is not a mistake but a legitimate resource, and sometimes the only way to survive when no enemy piece is in reach. The starting position is a symmetrical pattern of Roses and Knights, with Roses framing the edges and holding the center.

Players take turns. If it is your turn and you have no capture available, against any piece of any color, you lose. There is no scoring and no draw. The game remains alive as long as a single capture exists.

—description from the designer