Echoes of Calir
Chess rules, a TCG-style collection and a board you build yourself: pick five units and five terrains and outmanoeuvre your opponent on an 8×8 board.
Links go to the official store or developer page. Last verified Nov 8, 2026.
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Desktop · Steam
About Echoes of Calir
Echoes of Calir is a free turn-based 1v1 tactics game for Windows that mixes chess, a trading card game and a board game. Before a match you choose five units and five terrains from more than 80 pieces and place your base, your terrains and your units on an 8×8 board; there are no random card draws and no mana curve, so your deck becomes the battlefield. Every unit has its own movement pattern and abilities, and as in chess a piece is captured in a single move, with no hit chances, damage rolls or health bars. You win by eliminating all of the opponent's pieces or taking their base. Terrain is part of the strategy: water, mines, forests, mountains and spreading fungal growth open routes and close others, and some units, such as the Tidewalkers and the Baskan Dwarfs, use particular terrain. Factions include Fairies, Shadowhunters, Humans, Dwarfs, Mycelian swarms and creatures of the deep, and cards can be mixed across them. You can play online PvP, practise against a computer opponent or learn the rules in a five-part tutorial, and Shards earned through play unlock cards from the first expansion, Hours of Calamity, and accessories; the store page says there are no real-money purchases. The game's world is Calir, broken in a Calamity and surviving only as Echoes that the player, a Binder, calls back. The developer, GK Software, says the game took two years: a friend who codes back ends programmed the first prototype in November 2024 and left soon after, the developer then taught themselves basic Python, and from August 2026 Codex wrote the code. The developer says AI was used (almost) only for coding and that the idea, music, voice acting, unit and terrain design and balancing are human work. Released on Steam on 6 November 2026, in English and German.
Screenshots and art
Echoes of Calir key art · Steam store artwork
How it was built
Partially verifiedIn a post on r/aigamedev (5 Nov 2026, UTC) the developer tells the game's history: a back-end coding friend programmed a fully functional first prototype in November 2024 (without card selection or placement) and left shortly after; from September 2025 to March 2026 the developer, who says they cannot code, worked on it with self-taught basic Python and released a first version on itch.io, but says ChatGPT and Claude “werent ready to help me out much (execpt for multiplayer)”, and gave up for half a year. In August 2026 the developer “connected Codex to the game ... and holy hell, what an improvement it was”. The developer writes: “I am incredibly thankful for AI to code my game idea for me, but also glad that is (almost) the only thing AI did here”, and “What I am still proud of: I only used AI to code.” The post does not say how much of the earlier hand-written code is still in the released game, and no model is named.
Designed over two years by the developer, with a prototype first programmed by a friend in 2024 and a self-taught Python version in 2025–2026; from August 2026 Codex worked on the code base and the game was completed for its Steam release, per the developer. The developer says the game idea, music, voice acting, unit and terrain design, balancing and ecosystem are human work, that artwork was bought from artists, and that the last placeholder images are still being replaced; the Steam AI disclosure says some artwork still has generative AI content. The computer opponent for practice is ordinary game AI; nothing in the sources describes AI services used during play.
- Engine / framework
- Not disclosed
- Languages
- Not disclosed
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer ReportedReddit (u/EatYourProtein4real)
- Initial build time
- About two years from the first prototype (November 2024) to the Steam release; Codex from August 2026Developer ReportedReddit (u/EatYourProtein4real)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“I am incredibly thankful for AI to code my game idea for me, but also glad that is (almost) the only thing AI did here.”Verification notes: History and AI use from the developer's post on r/aigamedev by u/EatYourProtein4real (5 Nov 2026, 13:14 UTC), read from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 8 Nov 2026; the post links the Steam page and announces the 6 November release. Gameplay, modes, the no-real-money statement, languages, requirements and the AI disclosure from the Steam store page and store API, re-read on 8 Nov 2026 (developer and publisher GK Software, free, Windows, released 6 Nov 2026, English with full audio and German). The code claim rests on the developer's statements that AI coded the game idea and that AI was used only to code, together with the account of connecting Codex in August 2026; because a friend and the developer wrote earlier versions by hand, no share of AI-written code is recorded. The post says “solo develop”, while the Steam page uses “we” in places; the team size follows the post. The post's mention of ChatGPT and Claude (“except for multiplayer”) is too vague to record as tool use. The store page showed no user reviews on 8 Nov 2026. The earlier itch.io version was not looked up. The developer's other personal details in the post are not recorded. The game was not played.
Development history
- November 2024
A friend of the developer programs the first functional prototype; the friend leaves the project soon after.
DeveloperReddit (u/EatYourProtein4real) - September 2025 – March 2026
The developer continues alone in self-taught Python and releases a first version on itch.io, then pauses for half a year.
DeveloperReddit (u/EatYourProtein4real) - August 2026
The developer connects Codex to the game and AI takes over the coding.
DeveloperReddit (u/EatYourProtein4real) Released free on Steam.
OfficialSteam
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
Steam
Free on Steam (Windows 10, 64-bit; the minimum requirements list a broadband connection). The store page says there are no real-money purchases: Shards earned through play unlock expansion cards and accessories.
Not publicly available: Concurrent players, Steam reviews, Positive Steam reviews, Estimated owners, Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| My two year journey as a vibe coder to a fully fleshed out Steam release: A reflection on that time. (r/aigamedev) Reddit (u/EatYourProtein4real) | Social post | Nov 5, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Echoes of Calir on Steam Steam | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
- Artwork
- The developer's post says 90% of the artwork currently in the game was created by humans, while the Steam AI disclosure says “30/80 artworks in the game are human made” and that the AI placeholders are being replaced. (Reddit (u/EatYourProtein4real), Steam)
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