I like the look of my rook.
The thing I perhaps made over complicated is the alternating pieces. I extruded the whole thing, end extruded down the middle part after insetting.
Then I deleted two faces underneath so I could do a loop cut where I wanted to make an opening. Then I just filled it back in. Maybe I should have done it the other way around and just extruded the “walls” I wanted?
I got more a feeling of a king. It resembles a crown.
I see what you mean. What will give it away more so later is the scale when the other pieces is there. It’s only slightly larger than the pawn
I did mine more the second way, extruding the walls, and it ended up being just about as complicated as how you did it. I think both ways are fine, as long as the end result it what you want, looks and topology-wise. I really like the shape of the piece.
