The Initial Inspirations
Chess is one of my favourite games. With a simple set of rules, you get an intellectually enriching, and often emotionally exhilarating experience.
In the readings that we did, the art pieces that popped out to me are the ones that are based on Chess. “White Chess” is an art piece that came to mind. It is the same game of Chess, except that all the colours of the pieces are White. One might say that the game was not really changed, merely how it looks. Still, unless you can play Chess blindfolded, there will come a point where it becomes very difficult to differentiate between your pieces and your opponent’s pieces. With the same game of Chess, it speaks volumes on the meaning of war that we never really considered–what does it mean for us to be on different sides, fighting against each other? Especially when it becomes difficult to differentiate between us and them?
Still, White Chess is not merely the same as two sides being the same color. The entire game takes advantage of the intellectual and emotional aspects of Chess, thereby adding a multiplier to the underlying message.
There are other examples of Chess being sampled. For instance, various artists, including Duchamp, made Chess pieces with particular styles. In all of these instances, these appropriations of Chess took advantage of the very nature of Chess to emphasize on a different underlying message.
The same way that the simple rules of Chess allow for emergent gameplay behavior, appropriating Chess also allows for corresponding emergent messages.
Thus, I wanted to do appropriate Chess in a way that delivers an underlying message that isn’t present in the base game. The message I wanted to send across in my art piece is the cyclic nature of war. Chess is a game that has a clear end goal–checkmating the king. Once that’s done, the game is officially over. However, most wars in real-life are never that simple. They often last for several generations until no one really knows how the war began, only that they have to win it.
In the same anti-war spirit of several Dada art pieces, such as White Chess, I would like a Chess game that discuss the gruesome part of war that never ends, and to make players, what does it all mean?
Version 1
In the very first version, I wanted to remove all possible win conditions from the Chess game. Firstly, I had kings removed from the board. I had a feeling that this will make the game far less engaging, as a lot of dynamics of Chess rely on playing around the kings on the board. Secondly, I added a rule that whenever a piece gets eaten, you can have it respawned on one of its starting positions. A respawning piece may land on a Chess piece that is already there, in which case that Chess piece gets eaten and you can respawn that too.
The results of the first playtest showed that the game does communicate the message of war happening across several generations until the point where the original configuration of the board has become lost through noise and tiome. After playing for a while, both players agree that the game has become meaningless. They are just playing it for the sake of playing the game.
Although this does meet my goal, I also feel that I don’t want the message to be delivered because the players feel bored. I want players to feel engaged by the art piece, both intellectually and emotionally. This cannot happen if there are almost no consequence to the player’s actions.
Version 2
In order to add consequence to the player’s actions, I have decided to modify the rules so that whenever you respawn a piece, you have to wait have to make two moves before you can respawn another piece. The reason for this is so that the game is still endless, but there are brief moments players can feel that they got the upper-hand, as in real-life war. Still, unless the player is a professional, they will likely be unable to capture all of the pieces.
Furthermore, I have put the kings back on the board. This was a tough decision to make. The problem with removing the kings from the board is that too much has been taken away from the game of chess. Chess strategies revolve around the king, and so, without the king, chess strategies are inherently meaningless. Much of the beauty of the game is lost without the kings.
The playtest of the game showed that this version of the game is much more intellectually and emotionally engaging, and still communicates the cyclic nature of war. However, I believe there is still room for improvement. There is a lot of cognitive energy needed to keep track of how many moves you need to make before you can respawn again. What makes chess elegant is that all cognitive energy is spent on how the pieces interact, and not anything extraneous. Another observation I made is that the game is best when both sides have lost quite a number of pieces, and are trying to hold it out until they can get their respawns. I felt like the game should exist in this state more.
Final Version
For the final version of the game, I have modified the rules such that whenever you lose 6 pieces, you can bring 4 of them back. This removes the distraction of having to keep track how many moves you need to make before you can respawn again, while keeping the spicy part of the game where both sides have lost a few pieces.
When we showcased the game in class, one player managed to checkmate the other player, and both players lost 5 pieces. Thus, the respawn mechanic was not triggered. In an ironic twist, they just played a regular game of Chess. In an effort to make the game more intellectually and emotionally engaging, I have weakened the part of the game responsible for discussing the cyclic nature of war.
Post Mortem
The Chess’ checkmate rule and my message on the cyclic nature of war are inherently contradictory. A possible idea for how this game could be changed is changing checkmate such that it doesn’t end the game. For example, whenever you are checkmated, the another piece is promoted to the king, and the king simply becomes the piece that was promoted.