Tag: Chess

Arimaa

Z-Man Games has a nice looking Arimaa set. As the Z-Man website summarizes the game,

Arimaa is a game where stronger animals like elephants and camels try to push and pull the weaker ones from the opposing team into traps while one of the rabbits tries to sneak across the board and harmlessly reach the other side. The first player to get a rabbit to the other side wins.

But Arimaa is more than just that. It is a mini-revolt against our computer overlords.

Created after the 1996/1997 chess contests between Deep Blue and Gary Kasporov, Arimaa was explictly designed as a board game that computers would have difficulty beating,

In an attempt to show that computers are not even close to matching the kind of real intelligence used by humans in playing strategy games, we have created a new game called Arimaa. Here is a simple game that can be played using the same board and pieces provided in a standard Chess set. However the rules of the game are a bit different and suddenly the computers are left way behind. For humans the rules of Arimaa are very easy to understand and more intuitive than Chess, but to a computer the game is a thousand times more complex. To the best of our knowledge Arimaa is the first game that was designed intentionally to be difficult for computers to play.

The Arimaa Wikipedia entry has a good summary of the challenges faced by computer programs trying to beat humans at Arimaa, and there is an Arimaa wikibook with lots more information about the game, including strategies, etc.

Battle Vs. Chess Killed Off by Trademark Lawsuit

So I’m probably one of four people in the world who cared, but last Fall promotional material started appearing for an XBox 360 game produced by SouthPeak Games called “Battle vs. Chess.” In fact, Official XBox Magazine actually published a review of the game in their Holiday 2010 issue, saying,

The game’s core chess experience is outstanding, but where it really takes off is in its variations, many of which makes chess feel brand-new. One mode couples fog of war with random piece placement . .

Then the game’s release date kept being pushed back, and finally Gamestop and other retailers were saying it had been canceled. Finding information on why the game was canceled or delayed has not been easy, but apparently Interplay filed a complaint that the game’s title was too similar to its Battle Chess trademark.

On October 26, 2010, Interplay filed the following report with the SEC,

Item 8.01

OTHER EVENTS

INTERPLAY ENTERTAINMENT CORP. FILES TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT LAWSUITAND OBTAINS PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION TO PROTECT ITS BATTLE CHESS MARK
The Company filed a lawsuit against TopWare Interactive, Inc. to enjoin infringement of the Company’s federally registered Battle Chess trademark and to recover damages.  On October 21, 2010, the United States District Court, Central District of California, determined preliminarily that TopWare’s use of “Battle vs. Chess” in conjunction with a chess video game is confusingly similar to Battle Chess.  The Court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting use of “Battle vs. Chess” by TopWare, its officers, directors, affiliated companies, and those acting in concert with the foregoing.  “Battle vs. Chess” was to be co-published and distributed in the U.S. by SouthPeak Interactive Corporation.  Following the ruling, the Company will continue to protect  its intellectual property rights in the Battle Chess trademark against TopWare and others who are or may be contributing to the alleged infringement.

On the one hand, this is ridiculous. Interplay has not published a game with the Battle Chess name since 1994. On the other hand, how did SouthPeak Games and publisher TopWare not do even a minimal Google search on “Battle vs. Chess” which would have revealed the very similar name of the Interplay game before they got to the point where the game was actually finished?

The only thing certain in the high stakes world of video game development is the preponderance of poor business decisions.

The First Rule of Chess Fight Club….

Chess boxing is just what it sounds like — a melding of boxing and chess that started as a fictional sport in comic books and film until fans decided to make the sport a reality and actually hold chess boxing bouts.

According to the Wikipedia entry on chess boxing,

A match consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess. The match begins with a four-minute chess round. This is followed by three minutes of boxing, with rounds of chess and boxing alternating until the end. There is a one minute break between rounds. Speed chess is used, a form in which each player has a total of only twelve minutes for the whole game.

Competitors may win by a knockout, achieving a checkmate, by the judges’ decision, or if their opponent’s twelve minutes of chess time is exceeded. If a competitor fails to make a move during the chess round, he is issued a warning and he must move within the next 10 seconds. Repeated warnings may result in a disqualification. The players put on headphones during the chess portion so that they do not hear any shouted assistance from the audience or the live chess commentary. If the chess game reaches a stalemate, the scores from the boxing rounds are used to determine the winner. If the boxing score is a tie, the player with the black pieces wins.

And yes, there is a World Chess Boxing Organization. God forbid Don King ever find out about this.

ChessHeads – An Attempt to Cross Chess with CCGs

ChessHeads is an attempt to cross chess with a collectible card game. There are 121 different cards that are randomly inserted into packs, although a complete set of all 121 cards can also be purchased for $99 at the time of this writing.

ChessHeads first came out around 2004-2005, and unfortunately there just aren’t many reviews out there about how well it actually plays. David Weinstock posted an overview of the game on BoardGameGeek.com back in April 2005 that noted,

So, what’s new with ChessHeads? Two big things, and one of them will be more important to you than the other. Which one will vary by reader. One is a meta-game issue: ChessHeads is a collectible game, and the cards in each box are random. There are no rarity levels; each card is as likely to appear as the next. The other is an in-game mechanic: card effects have to be paid for with “Entigy” (which is just “energy” with some game-world flavor). The usual way to gain Entigy is by capturing pieces.

The addition of Entigy means a game of ChessHeads often comes out of the gate very much like orthochess (that is, “regular” Western chess) as the players must make some captures or play some resource cards before they can start throwing around the board-shattering effects. It is not enough simply to have the perfect card in your hand, you also have to pay for it when you play it.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has actually played ChessHeads or if anyone knows of any formal reviews of the game.

Sample ChessHeads cards taken from the ChessHeads website

MegaChess.com

MegaChess.com sells pretty much just one thing — large chess sets … as in chess sets where the pieces are up to 6 feet tall.

Some of those sets can, not surprisingly, get pretty expensive. On the other hand, depending on the material you’re willing to settle for, you can also get some large chess sets relatively inexpensively.

For example, a chess set featuring plastic figures where the King is 49″ tall can be had for $299 (plus the cost of whatever board you’re going to want — and, yes, they sell those too).