
Battle Chess - tosh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Chess
======
jchw
I assume this is being posted largely due to the duck story:

> An apocryphal story of the development was the invention of "The Duck" (an
> example of Parkinson's law of triviality): The producers of the game were
> known to demand changes to the game, presumably to make their mark on the
> finished product. To this end, one animator added a small duck around the
> queen piece, but made sure that the sprite would be easily removable. Come
> review, the producers, predictably, okayed everything but asked for the duck
> to be removed.

I’ve heard (do not recall where) that this might not be true to reality, but
it is amusing nonetheless.

~~~
blotter_paper
It's suspiciously similar to the "hairy arms" of Disney lore:

> So the story goes that probably a long while ago - probably in the '30s or
> '40s - they had a lead animators, but they also had creative directors. And
> when the lead animators would make concept designs, meaning, like, character
> development, they'd be so proud of these characters. And they would go to
> their art directors, and their art directors would change something
> constantly even though they thought it was their best work.

> So what they realized after working with these art directors - that what
> they hated the most was anything added to the character, especially hair on
> the arms 'cause this is, you know, '30s and '40s. Things had to look very
> slick. So what they did was to distract the art directors from making other
> changes, they would automatically put hair on the arms of each character.

[https://www.npr.org/2014/11/17/364760847/whats-with-all-
of-t...](https://www.npr.org/2014/11/17/364760847/whats-with-all-of-the-hairy-
arms-in-graphic-design)

Though both stories could be true, it's also possible that somebody familiar
with the Disney story created another narrative based on it. I'm not even sure
that the Disney version is real, but I'd give it a higher likelihood.

~~~
radarsat1
Heh, my supervisor from a postdoc liked to call that a "shit magnet". Put
something egregious in an article so the reviewers have something to complain
about.

It sounds ethically dubious but if you think about it, it also makes some
sense -- reviewers are engaged specifically to find problems in your work --
so if they don't find problems, they feel like they are not doing their job.
So it's not in their interests to _ever_ say, "this is fine, nothing to
change." A shit magnet thus is not just to distract, but to legitimately give
reviewers an "out" while saving face.

~~~
taneq
Happens in all different contexts. If you've ever had to take a car over the
pits to get it re-registered or get a defect notice removed, you might have
been given the advice to take out one of the tail-light globes. Then the
inspectors feel useful because they have something to write down, it's trivial
for you to 'fix', and everyone's happy.

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ehsankia
I remember playing this as a kid. I barely knew how to play chess, but just
loved the intricate animations when a kill happened.

~~~
Aardwolf
I played Battle Chess 4000 back then.

That was on a 386 computer without sound card, but BC4000 could play digitized
sound through the PC speaker! Amazing stuff.

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jansan
Anyone remember Archon and ArchonII for the Commodore 64? It was a game that
looked like chess, but the figures had to fight a real duel in an arena. The
Pawns had just a club, there where dragons that could spit fire, etc. Much
closer to an action game than to real chess. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun
paying it.
[https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Archon](https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Archon)

~~~
zipwitch
Yes! I had Archon II as a kid and loved it. I remember that playing against
the AI was a very different game than playing against another person, as the
AI could do things during the fights with perfect aim and split-second
reflexes that made it very overpowered with certain units that another human
had a hard time using well. But it's strategy wasn't as good, so I could
outplay it on the board enough to get a win, especially after I figured out
which units I could use effectively against the AI.

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rosstex
This is the only place I'll ever get to post this... in undergrad, I took a
teaching seminar in which we had 5 minutes to present on any topic. I chose to
present on Battle Chess, and somehow framed it as a conspiracy theory
involving Hiroshi Yamauchi (founder of Nintendo) and Bill Gates... now I'm
tempted to go dig that up.

EDIT: Damn it, I found it! Enjoy:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ACvnjrThPNVQAOteI0okg5kSoTG...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ACvnjrThPNVQAOteI0okg5kSoTGqjz_s/view?usp=sharing)

Any time the green square is on a slide, I am currently telling accurate
history.

~~~
FillardMillmore
You gotta share this with us! Dont leave us high and dry.

~~~
rosstex
It is done.

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sam_goody
I loved this as a kid, and remember when we got a new computer (a 286?) and it
was "too fast" to run Battle Chess [not sure how that was, but memory].

So, a few years ago I looked for it online - found an exe that I tried to run
with WIne on my Mac, but could not get it to run.

Would love it if there was some way to still play!

~~~
JshWright
> it was "too fast" to run Battle Chess [not sure how that was, but memory]

The Clipper database program ran a check on startup to see how fast the CPU
was (it ran some code and timed how long it took). "Modern" CPUs are fast
enough that the runtime of the function is effectively zero, so when it gets
used as the denominator of a division a bit later on in the startup the
program crashes on a divide by zero.

[http://computer-programming-
forum.com/19-clipper/2cd478f1fcf...](http://computer-programming-
forum.com/19-clipper/2cd478f1fcf154cb.htm)

~~~
taneq
Same thing happened in Screamer 2 (the racing game). Worked fine up to a
certain CPU speed but crashed on anything faster than that.

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harryh
A fun thing about this game was that every possible kill combination had a
different animation. If you don't have any other plans for the next 9 minutes
of your life, you can watch them all here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSnAiXKU7h8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSnAiXKU7h8)

~~~
u801e
It looks like they had a problem with the king takes queen animation. This
video [1] includes that animation.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcRkzCvPHI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcRkzCvPHI)

~~~
trianglem
What’s the problem?

~~~
Fnoord
Well, if the queen would take the king, the queen was able to get the king
basically naked. Which I suppose is some kind of problem in the USA.

I played this game as a kid, and I loved the sounds and especially the
visuals. It taught me chess, and it enforced me to explore how to beat the
computer with different moves (because I wanted to see all the moves, or a
specific move). So it was fun to explore.

------
drdeadringer
I remember when the Boston Science Museum had this in their little off-in-the-
corner computer room.

In a following year they had removed it "for being too bloody//violent". I'm
sure many parents at the time were happy about that. I'm sure some of those
children who remember that are now parents, and I wonder what they think.

~~~
2OEH8eoCRo0
I've wondered that as well. I know so many friends who are now parents that
grew up with Doom or Duke Nukem and choose to shelter their children from
absolutely everything. Since I don't have children I'm not allowed to talk
about parenting though.

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matt4077
I learnt far too much chess theory trying to take the king with a pawn, which
was the last animation I had not seen.

IIRC they grab the crown with their pike and it somehow ends up on their head.

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
How could you take a king with a pawn? Does the game allow it?

~~~
tedunangst
The piece that moves before checkmate takes the king.

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
Ah that makes sense, like a finale animation after the game has ended.

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the-dude
Brings up memories of a whole different time : when you would visit friends
and family and be exposed to something completely new.

I remember this for Battle Chess. But also for Teletext. And Windows 1.0 ( or
was 2.0 ? ).

------
tedunangst
> Battle Chess was the first title developed and published by Interplay
> Entertainment themselves after ending their relationship with Electronic
> Arts, besides Neuromancer.

So... the second?

~~~
Arnavion
Mediagenic published Neuromancer, so Battle Chess _is_ the first one published
by Interplay themselves. But I'm not sure why the sentence brings Neuromancer
up at all.

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dwheeler
Demo game:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qKcZwPb7C3k](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qKcZwPb7C3k)

All death animations (Amiga):
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iSnAiXKU7h8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iSnAiXKU7h8)

------
Cactus2018
Archive has several versions available to play using in browser emulators.
[https://archive.org/details/battle_chess_1988](https://archive.org/details/battle_chess_1988)

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sethammons
I recall thoroughly enjoying the little fights, sans one: the rook eating the
queen always made me uneasy. Not being able to play batttle chess on more
advanced hardware was my first exposure to software becoming obsolete.

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gdm85
I fondly remember this game has having great animations, plus it could be
beaten :P which was a plus, more modern Chess games were really hard to beat

~~~
larnmar
As a moderately bad chess player, I would love to see chess AIs get better at
playing bad chess — that is, in being bad at chess in the same way that the
average human who knows all the rules and plays a few games of chess every
year is.

I find that most chess programs on the lowest difficulty settings seem to play
in a way that’s bad but unrealistic — like they’re playing their normal good
chess but randomly making a deliberately terrible move every now and then.

~~~
symplee
Try using an early net of LCZero. You used to be able to adjust how many
"rollouts" it plays with, and what generation net to play against. Since it's
a neural net, it has the "intuition" of a 1000 elo player, or 1500, etc. I.e.
it does not play expert then blunder. Hopefully they get the play.lczero.org
website back up and running sometime. I didn't have too much success getting
the other links to work... [https://blog.lczero.org/2018/11/where-to-play-
leela-online.h...](https://blog.lczero.org/2018/11/where-to-play-leela-
online.html)

Let me know if you find an easy way to play "human" level LCZero AIs.

Edit: Main project website: [https://lczero.org/](https://lczero.org/)

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grimgrin
re: strange chess variants

I scooped up a handful of Knightmare Chess decks when I saw 'em really cheap.
Still haven't tried, but the idea of a chess variant with physical cards that
Do Things to the game, sounded very interesting

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightmare_Chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knightmare_Chess)

~~~
jtolmar
I came up with a great chess variant ages ago, and finally got around to
making a computer version of it last week.

Implied Chess:

Rule 1: Chess

Rule 2: You can't capture normally

Rule 3: Any piece threatened by two enemy pieces is captured (except kings)

Rule 4: The player who just moved captures first

Rule 5: No En Passant (it just doesn't make sense)

Rule 6: Check and checkmate are normal

[http://noisyowl.com/chess/](http://noisyowl.com/chess/)

~~~
xashor
That's quite fun (especially chain-capturing!), can't beat Alpha Beta 3 yet.
Any reasons for Rule 6?

~~~
jtolmar
Thanks!

Check and checkmate are normal because it's just way too hard to checkmate the
king with dual threats.

I can't beat Alpha Beta 3 yet either. If anyone starts beating 4 I'll put some
effort into optimizing the search so it can go deeper. Going 10 ply deep is
pretty standard for a chess engine, so it's pretty embarrassing for humanity
that nobody is beating the 3-ply setting. I think this game actually favors
computers over humans more than regular chess does.

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mikesickler
I learned to play chess with the help of this game on an Atari ST.

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t0mbstone
I have a lot of nostalgic memories about Battle Chess. If someone released a
version of this game for iOS/Android, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

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Razengan
Battle Chess was one of the biggest reasons I fantasized about owning an
Amiga, along with Populous and Sim City. :)

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tracker1
Used to love this game... would love a refresh with modern models and
animation.

~~~
beardyw
It would certainly run in a web page. It would be fantastic to interest
children in chess. I'm in!

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TomGullen
Fond memories playing this at my granddads house!

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alex-ant
Remember playing this on 286

