Chess³
Chess on an 8×8×8 cube, where every piece gains a whole new dimension to move in. Play against the computer or a friend.
Shipped Side Project
Regular chess has 64 squares. Chess³ has 512.
A London-style opening in 3 dimensions: the pawns meet in mid-air, and the bishop climbs 3 levels to f4δ
The board is a cube: 8 files, 8 ranks, and 8 levels stacked on top of each other. Both sides start in the usual positions on the ground floor, with 7 empty levels above them. From there, every piece also gets a vertical axis to play with. Rooks can move straight up and down, bishops can move diagonally through the cube, and queens can do all of the above. Pieces above the ground float on thin stems down to their square, so you can always tell where they are.
Select a piece and every square it can reach lights up (queens get a little overwhelming)
I actually made this game entirely on my phone while on vacation. It's a straightforward idea, but the hardest design problem was making 3D moves understandable. When you select a piece, all of its possible moves burst outward as a starburst of lines and discs. Hovering over a destination previews where that piece could go from there on the next turn, including red lines to show possible lines of attack. Since there's no hover on phones, a tap shows the preview and a confirm button locks it in.
Adding a third dimension breaks a lot of chess intuition. Interestingly, knights get the short end of the stick: they gain a few more moves, but nowhere near as many as the others. As a result, the computer opponent values them much lower than it would in regular chess. I don't think this is a 'solved' game, but the regular chess balance is definitely thrown out the window.
Mid-game, with rooks, bishops, and queens climbing the cube
Visually, I wanted it to feel like an old brass astronomical instrument floating in space: ivory and wood pieces, a dotted star field, Greek letters for the new vertical levels, and some calm ambient music in the background. You can play against the computer on 3 difficulty levels, or against a friend on the same screen. It works on desktop and mobile, and you can install it as an app. Fair warning: trapping a King gets a lot harder when they have more dimensions to escape to.
Is your giant brain too big for regular chess? Give Chess³ a shot: