to specific heroes at all instead of just
collecting them in your pack.
Then there’s the merge-three
minigame. Plonking down three
identical heroes of the same level will
merge them into a single, more
powerful hero. This has knock-on
effects when it comes to which
heroes you buy, when you should
place them on the board, and how it
raises or reduces the number of units
on the board.
When I booted the game up for
the first time it wasn’t even clear
where I was, or how I was supposed
to chess. The game tips disappeared
offscreen before I’d read the first
word, and the camera was pointing at
a rival’s board, meaning I couldn’t see
the result of any of my actions. The
resulting panic is how I learned that
the boards of each of the eight
players are presented as physical
islands in a 3x3 grid. Panning around
you can check in on other players
or enjoy the fact that the middle
board is missing, replaced by a small
version of the Dota map.
Finding my island is how I
discovered I needed to interact with
my chesses by selecting a donkey and
having it do the chess on my behalf.
If you’re familiar with Dota, moving
your donkey around is probably also
when you’ll realize it’s not a donkey.
Instead it seems to be the hero Io (as
per the lore—a multidimensional
wisp billed as a Fundamental of the
universe) wearing a donkey costume.
You can tell it’s Io because it’s making
Io’s Ibiza chillout beeping and
blooping noises, and trailing particle
effects across the chessboard.
CHOICES TO MAKE
The existential question of “when is a
digital donkey not a digital donkey” is
irrelevant to play, but it’s fun to notice
how pieces of the main game are
repurposed in these custom modes.
Again, it’s a way that Dota Auto Chess
feels true to an older form of
Dota—the Defence of the Ancients
which emerged from the Warcraft III
fan-made map cauldron, and whose
quirks are often the result of units
being turned to a new purpose.
I’m absolutely loving it. In each
phase there are a manageable
number of choices to make. Making a
sub-optimal choice doesn’t feel like a
total disaster. It taps into the little
jolts of pleasure casual games are
good at—the satisfaction of merging
heroes, auto-fought battles with
over-the top effects and the chance to
win, a little leaderboard...
Another joy is the lack of toxicity
and pressure. It probably says a lot
about the confusing interface that for
ages I had no sense of whether the
lack of repulsive messages was
because the game elicits less rage or
if there’s just no all chat function.
A message in Russian during my
fourth match points to the former.
But, with or without chat, I often feel
massive pressure in PvP games. I
don’t want to embarrass myself. I
don’t want to lose.
I particularly don’t want to be the
worst on any leaderboard.
But here, I’m playing a weird
once-removed version of PvP. My
squad of heroes is mostly pitted
against the heroes of a human
opponent, but the other person isn’tspectating that match. They’re
looking at a different chess board,
watching their heroes take on a
randomly chosen selection of
someone else’s heroes. It might end
up being mine, but it might not. Me
winning or losing doesn’t affect them
directly. We’re just having our armies
and choices calibrated and
recalibrated against each other. And
it’s this distinction which takes the
sting out of the competition without
damping the pleasure of winning.
But what would a free-to-play
game within a free-to-play game be
without cosmetic microtransactions?An excellent question, dear reader.
Well, you can earn or buy candy—the
premium currency and spend it on
spins of a slot machine. The rewards
from spinning this machine are
different couriers. So it’s not
pay-to-win, just a different look for
your non-chess piece character.
And it’s not pushy either—a real
contrast to the Dota client it sits
within. While logging in to Dota 2 to
access the custom game section,
Valve immediately invited me to
spend a large sum on an outfit for a
character I don’t even play. After I
refused, it reminded me I can pau to
open a seasonal treasure chest.
At some point I fully expect the
Steam store will stop trading in cash
and start accepting the souls of
children in exchange for digital hats.
But I digress.SKILL CEILING
The above should give you a sense of
both the low barrier for entry (“low”
being a relative term and entirely
skewed by Dota’s base level of
nonsense) and the ridiculously high
skill ceiling of Dota Auto Chess. It
manages to be similar to and the
polar opposite of Artifact’s considered
design and overwhelming complexity.
It’s a joyful, weird, opaque
project—a hodgepodge of casual
mobile gaming compulsion and PC
gaming at its most bloody-mindedly
hardcore—spitting personality and
spell effects from every angle.MAJOR MODS, ANALYZED
MOD SPOTLIGHT
ANATOMY OF DAC A basic guide to what’s on screen
ESSENTIALLY IT’S
THE COURIER
FUNCTION THE DONKEY
TRADITIONALLY
FULFILS IN DOTA 2- Click this to see
the heroes currently
for sale - The 8x8 playspace
- Heroes with green
HP bars are yours. - These are the
actions you can
perform. - This is you—the
donkey courier - Items awaiting
delivery to heroes - How many of your
maximum piece limit
are in play - Gold in hand
- The leaderboard
for the match
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