Materials:
- Arena board(self-made)
- LEGO bricks
Rules:
Instead of using a chess set, I decided to use several different composition of LEGO bricks as my chess pieces. All the units in this game must stand on the grid points. Players take turns and kill the enemy’s King to win the game.
Pawn(1 HP)*4:
- Movement Speed: 1 step.
- Attack range: 0
- Damage: 1
Basic troops. Pawns cannot move backward. However they can jump over allied pawns and walls( means actually 2 steps).
Captain(2 HP)*1:
- Movement Speed: 1 or 2 steps.
- Attack range: 0
- Damage: 1
Leader of the pawns. They can move 1 or 2 units in each turn and can build a wall instead of “Attack”.
- Wall(1 HP): Built by Captains. Can block the the roads and block the attack from Canon. Exists for 1 turn.
Cannon(3 HP)*1:
- Movement Speed: No limitation along one chosen direction.
- Attack range: No limitation.
- Damage: 1
Cannon needs to be loaded before firing(takes 1 turn). It can fire once before the next loading process.
- Canon cannot attack enemy directly. There must be one unit between the canon and the enemy piece that is going to be attacked (no range limitation). However the accuracy is 50%, thus the player needs to pick a card from two cards(Joker and 2). If it’s Joker, then the attack is successful, otherwise the attack is failed.
- Pawn on canon: The accuracy is 100% (no need to pick a card).
Horse(1 HP)*2:
- Movement Speed: 1*2 area
- Attack range: 0
- Damage: 1
Knight(2 HP): Pawn rides on horse and becomes Knight.
- Movement Speed: Along diagonals of 1*2 area
- Attack range: 2*2 area
- Damage: 1
Wizard(1 HP)*1:
- Movement Speed: 2 steps
- Attack range: Within 4*4 area
- Damage: 2 dmg within 2*2 area or 1 dmg within 4*4 area
Wizard can Freeze an enemy for 1 turn instead of Attack if he crossed the river.
Player needs to pick a card from 2 and Joker. If it’s Joker, the attack is successful, otherwise the attack is failed.
Wizard can also sacrifice himself to summon a huge fireball within his attack range, which is an area splash that can destroy anything within a 2*2 area. (Fireball cannot land in the King’s area).
Bishop(1 HP)*2:
- Movement Speed: Any steps diagonally (cannot cross river)
- Attack range: 0
- Damage: 1
Guard(1 HP)*2:
- Movement Speed: 1 step along the lines or diagonally within the King’s area.
- Attack range: 0
- Damage: 2
King(1 HP)*1:
- Movement Speed: 1 step along the lines or diagonally within the King’s area
- Attack range: 0
- Damage: 2
Pictures:
Arena Board
Arena board set up
Pawn
Horse
Cannon
King
Dinosaur (not part of this game)
Let’s start!
Artist Statement:
Some people thought DADA movement was an anti-war movement however its oppositions thought it was actually the cause of the WWI. Thus whenever I thought about DADA, “war” is always the first word comes up in my mind. How can I include the concept of war into a game? My answer is chess. The original idea of the game comes from Marcel Duchamp, who had made a lot of artworks about chess. Those fantastic artworks and unlimited creativity destroyed the boundary of my thinking on chess. After the studying on Marcel Duchamp and the book The Art of Chess, I believe that the chess actually does not need to stick to its earliest form. We can do as many modifications as we want to make it more interesting. That is how the idea of LEGO chess came up.
This game includes several appropriations from other games. In the first iteration I appropriated idea from Mondrian Paintings to make a puzzle, however after the playtest I found that it was not as interesting as I thought before, but I like the idea of “purity” that comes from the Mondrian Paintings.Thus I decided to use primary colors to make the arena board. The layout of the arena is inspired by the mini map in the online game League of Legends, and the playing method is inspired by Chinese chess. My favorite part of Chinese chess is the cannons. They cannot attack the enemy directly because the cannon needs a holder to support the barrel of the cannon. It is pretty interesting that it makes the game more like a real war. Thus I decided to add this weapon to the game and let the plays to be able to apply ranged attack. Meanwhile, since the ranged attack is powerful and safe, some limitations such as the “pick-a-card” mechanism is set up. This mechanism also adds unstable elements to the game to make the game more realistic .
Also I found Yoko Ono’s White Chess very fascinating that it makes the chess super complicated and full of chaos. Since the chess pieces in the League of LEGO are LEGO bricks, if you are confident enough you can use the bricks in the same color to make the game much more challenging.
Chess is such a classic game with great fun, I love playing chess while seeking for some ways to make it even more interesting. Here comes this game and I hope everyone can enjoy.