One of the most exciting promises of consumer augmented reality is the possibility of re-imagining and expanding the play possibilities of classic games. There is no more classic game than Chess. The first verified games of chess took place in about 600 AD somewhere near India (1). The storyline which players act out, of warring kings fighting for territory, is as old as the concept of monarchy itself. With a “game-tree complexity” of at least 10^120, the game has proved to be the ultimate test of skill and wit, and it quickly spread to Europe and around the world.
Chess is the rare game of skill that can be learned in a matter of hours, but takes a lifetime to master. This range of complexity has made conquering it the ultimate prize for centuries of inventors. In the 1770s, “automata”, mechanical representations of living beings, came into being, and the western world was amazed by the emergence of the “mechanical turk”, an automata that could allegedly beat humans at chess (2). A century before humanity mastered electricity, the idea of a machine beating a human at such a game was unthinkable, and rightfully so. After years of mystery and speculation, it was discovered that the turk had a hidden human operator in its base, but the dream of man-versus-machine chess lived on.
In 1996, chess found itself once again found itself in the spotlight as the test by which the emerging processing power of computers would be tested. A specially designed supercomputer named “Deep Blue” played a heavily publicized series of matches against Chess World Champion Garry Kasparov (3). Whereas the human manifestation of chess master in 1770s had been dressed to look nearly human, Deep Blue was starkly machine, a giant, cold black box. When Kasparov found himself the loser of a match, he accused the IBM team of cheating. No computer, he surmised, could possibly beat him on honest terms. Chess had been conquered by machine, and inventors needed a new challenge. Reinventing the way the game is played seems to be a good one.
Ukrainian software development company Faifly likely wouldn't say they've reinvented chess, but their freely available “AR Chess” smartphone game is a step towards progress. It’s a beautiful, challenging implementation of the classic game. On starting a game, the app prompts you to place your board. I placed it on the wood table in front of me. From there, the game proceeded just like the dozens of games I’ve played with friends and family throughout my lifetime. The board is photorealistic, a fine, thick wood chess board with intricate pieces and shadows. By moving around with my phone, I was able to get an aerial view of the board, and a view from all sides. It was so photorealistic that I (no joke), at one point reached towards it to move a piece. When my hand struck air, I was embarrassed and awestruck.
What struck me most about this implementation was how familiar it was. I have played chess on phones and computers before, but it has never felt so “real”. Here, I genuinely felt as if I was playing within my environment. The Faifly single-player experience is excellent, but the cumbersome constraints of AR gaming (needing a flat surface, looking weird flailing around your phone) limits the circumstances in which I could actually play it. The portability limitation will change as the the technology advances, but the weird looks may take some cultural shifts to fade.
That said, it’s certainly more convenient than bringing a board with me (and setting it up), and offers me an instant opponent. Where AR chess games really excel are in multiplayer mode. Chess is a nostalgic game for many. They learn it when they’re young, from a childhood friend or a relative, and then they move into the world and lose the ability to play with the opponent they first learned from.
Plenty of online multiplayer chess games have existed for a decade, and do a decent enough job of allowing you to compete against your opponent of choice from anywhere in the world, but Faifly’s game is the first to really recreate the physicality of playing with a family member. I can play with my cousin, looking at the board in front of me just as we did when were kids. There’s something unique and special about being able to walk around the board and examine moves from every angle. A startup called “Squareoff” made waves this year for a $369 robotic chess board that allows players to play truly physical games against remote or AI opponents. Faifly’s game allows a similar remote physicality, for $369 less (per player). Moves may still have to be made from a smartphone, but the physical engagement with the space around the player makes it feel like a classic game of chess.
Over the next few years, digital games will close that physicality gap. Right now, to control pieces, players have to swipe on the board from their smartphone’s screen, but I’m hopeful that in the near future players will be able to simply reach out and grab a piece to move it. Haptic feedback from smart watches will guide them towards the piece they’re looking for, and AR headsets will allow them to engage with the gameboard without having to awkwardly hold their phone up. I also expect that future versions will allow players to engage more with the premise of the game -- the warring kings and queens, the bishops, and the territorial conquest at the heart of the game. The treatment of pawns, and their physical limitations is a poignant commentary on the expendability of infantry that would be even more powerful if pawns appeared more human.
Chess’s physical limitations have forced it to be a very figurative game throughout history, but advances in consumer CGI will change that. Another game, “Hologrid: Monster Battle AR”, based on Star Wars’s “HoloChess”, exemplifies the ways in which AR can re-contextualize the pieces in a board game. Hologrid’s mechanics are very similar to Faifly’s AR Chess. Players place the board on a flat surface, and move pieces by tapping on a square. Individual pieces live or die based on their individual abilities.
The difference lies in the pieces themselves, and the interaction between pieces. Pieces are three-dimensional, high-definition monsters. They fidget and roar, and when they move, they stomp on the board. You can hear it and feel it. Current implementations of AR Chess have already changed the notion of presence in digital games. Adding interactions like these, making the narrative more compelling and real, will turn a classic game into something entirely new and powerful.
Sources:
1. http://math.uww.edu/~mcfarlat/177hist.htm An excellent summary of early chess history
2. http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/08/20/the_turk_an_supposed_chess_playing_robot_was_a_hoax_that_started_an_early.html
3. http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/deepblue/
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