To recreate the narrative of how chess is played, my partner Juliet Pintos and I changed the game to include weapons from 6th century Indian and Medieval warfare. This goes back to the origins of chess being a war-based game and it acknowledges the clash of where chess was originally created, which was India, and the false connection it has to European roots. This narrative includes the ability for a discussion on colonization and true history. In addition to this, the pieces themselves are all working versions of the weapons depicted to make chess more exciting for the players.
Initial Ideas and Sketches
To begin the process, we listed out the traits of both ancient Indian and Medieval time in order to correctly attribute them visually while also identifying the power ladders for the actual chess pieces. During the initial sketching, we focused on trying to find the balance between representational and abstract pieces but ended up going the more representational route in order to clearly convey our ideas.
Wooden Prototypes
As we developed our ideas, we created wooden prototypes out of baltic birch plywood using the laser cutter. We did this to understand the scale and working mechanism of the "weapons". At this time, we realized that some of our ideas were not plausible and we had to take a step back and rethink
Final Cutting Diagram
Our final pieces were cut out of baltic birch plywood on the laser cutter to create multiple pieces that come together using slip joints.
Final Chess Redesign
In our chess redesign, my partner, Juliet Pintos and I wanted to change the narrative of playing chess through form exploration of the pieces and interaction with the user and board. We went back to the origin of Chess and brought the narrative of the game back to the original premise of warfare. We based our war on the war of colonization between Ancient India (where Chess originated) and Medieval Europe (where Chess is most associated) with forms based on these armies along with interactive weapons that actually work. The impacts of colonization are often not noticed in everyday life but learning how history affects our present day in small things like Chess allow for players to realize how colonization has affected things on a global scale. This is not meant to be degrading in any way but rather an educational game that teaches the players about the impacts of colonization. We aimed to give a younger audience a more interactive, interesting, and educational way to play Chess as it usually associated with an older demographic as well.