The game has an opening library of over 30,000 moves (which were not available for the Commodore 64 and Apple II versions).īattle Chess was the first title developed and published by Interplay Entertainment themselves after ending their relationship with Electronic Arts, besides Neuromancer. Digitized sound is used in the MS-DOS version for all battle sound effects and is played through the PC speaker, without the need for a sound card, using a technique akin to RealSound.īattle Chess can be played against a human opponent (by hotseat, null modem or over a local area network in some ports) or against the computer's artificial intelligence (AI). The game can be also played in a 2D version with no animations, and the Amiga CDTV version has a fully voiced introduction describing the movements of the pieces for the benefit of beginners. There are some pop-culture homages the knight versus knight animation references the black knight fight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the king versus bishop fight pastiches the short battle between Indiana Jones and a swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The rook, for example, turns into a rock monster and kills a pawn by smashing its head, and the rook kills the queen by eating her. Since there are six types of pieces for each color, and a king cannot even check (let alone capture) another king, there are a total of 35 different battle animations. Furthermore, when checkmate is delivered, the checkmating piece fights and defeats the king. A remake, Battle Chess: Game of Kings, was released on Steam on December 11, 2015.īattle Chess follows the same rules as traditional chess, with pieces moving in an animated fashion and battles playing out so that the capturing piece defeats its target. In 1991, Battle Chess Enhanced was released by Interplay for IBM PC compatibles and Macintosh with improved VGA graphics and a symphonic musical score played from the CD-ROM.īattle Chess was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, resulting in two official follow-ups as well as several inspired games. It was developed and released by Interplay Entertainment for the Amiga in 1988 and ported to many other systems, including the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Acorn Archimedes, Amiga CD32, Amiga CDTV, Apple IIGS, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, FM Towns, Nintendo Entertainment System, MacOS, PC-98, X68000, and Microsoft Windows. Cover art showing the red queen killing a blue knightĪmiga, 3DO, Archimedes, CD32, CDTV, Apple IIGS, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, FM Towns, NES, Mac, PC-98, X68000, Windowsīattle Chess is a video game version of chess with 2.5D graphics and fighting animations showing the result of one piece moving onto the square of another.

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