trickcal

An autochess-like 2D autobattler gacha game developed and published by Korean developer Epid Games. First starting life as an in-development dark fantasy chess-themed autobattler game titled Roll the Chess in 2019, it would later be scrapped and have development restarted as Trickcal, a portmanteau of the words "trick" and "musical" according to the developer, with renowned Korean chibi artist Diyap joining the dev team as its main illustrator.

It would then officially release in Korea on September 27, 2021, but it was rife with launch issues so badly it would end up being set back to "open beta" status and then would later be pulled from service on October 3 in order to salvage what's left of the IP and restart development yet again. Diyap would later quit from Epid Games on January 19, 2022, and the developer would later find a new artist who could mimic his artstyle.

It would later relaunch as Trickcal RE:VIVE, parodying Cygames's Princess Connect! Re:Dive, on September 27, 2023, 2 years after the initial launch. Despite setbacks and financial losses that could've ruined the developer a few months into the game's relaunch, the CEO continued to invest in the game, taking out loans when necessary, and ended up finding success within the casual playerbase after its first anniversary. The game is now preparing for a global release with additional Japanese voice acting, with its publishing partner seemingly being Chinese company Bilibili following a Play Store leak showing a test page for Trickcal's English server.