Battle Chess

Battle Chess is the game that turned a straightforward chess program into a spectacle. Originally from Interplay in the late 80s and reissued across many platforms and re-releases through the 90s, its hook was simple and irresistible: instead of pieces sliding silently across the board, every capture is acted out as a little animated combat scene. A knight hacks down a pawn, the queen zaps a rook with magic, the rook transforms into a lumbering rock monster, and the two kings tangle in a slapstick brawl. It made chess into a show.

Underneath the theatrics is a perfectly competent chess engine with selectable difficulty, so it works as a genuine way to play the game as well as a novelty. But nobody remembers Battle Chess for its opening theory; they remember the animations, which are full of dry humour and clever touches, and which became many players' first exposure to computer chess precisely because they made an ancient, austere game approachable and fun to watch.

Today its charm is largely nostalgic. The animations that dazzled at the time are quaint now, and there are far stronger chess engines available for free, but the presentation still raises a smile and the core game is timeless. Battle Chess endures as a clever piece of design that understood something important, that dressing up a serious game in a bit of showmanship can win it a whole new audience.