Check And Defend

Check And Defend is the game we developed as team FlowRate,(Ahmet Yunus Turna, Emir Beşir, Gökmen Kaya, Ege Kılıç) for the "The Second Half" themed YILDIZ JAM 2026.

A chessboard. A timer. A coin flip that decides whether you defend your own king or hunt the enemy's. Every wave, the board changes, and so does the side you're playing on.

Goal

Survive ten waves. Defend when you must, attack when you can, and try not to confuse the two.

Jam Theme

Theme: The Second Half

Every wave is randomly assigned as either the "first half" (defense) or the "second half" (attack) of a match. The same pieces, the same gold, the same inventory, flipped perspective every round. You only learn which half you're in once the wave starts.

How to Play

Each wave runs in three phases:

• Market - spend gold on chess pieces and upgrades. They go into your inventory.
• Preparation - drag pieces from your inventory onto deploy squares. Time is paused.
• Battle - hit START. Pieces act on their own cooldowns, following classic chess movement rules.

Controls

Action	Input
Buy a piece or upgrade	Left Click on shop item
Place a piece on the board	Drag from inventory to a deploy square
Apply an upgrade	Drag upgrade onto a placed piece
Advance phase / Start battle	Left Click on the phase button

Thanks for playing!