God bless Battle Chess
Or how the influence of an old game echoes down the ages
I recall clearly the first time I was blown away by technology: watching my Dad play Battle Chess.
As far back as I can remember, we had a computer at home, and some of my earliest memories involve sitting next to my Dad while he played about on it.
Back in those days — and, lord above, I sound like an crotchety old man here — few computers had a graphical user interface (GUI).
What this meant is when you booted up a machine, you didn’t get useful little pictures to help you out. Instead, you had a black screen, obtuse white text, and a blinking cursor.
From here, my Dad would create what I viewed as pure magic: he’d type a combination of letters and symbols and, somehow, this would lead to a gorgeous, colour-filled universe.
Motherfuckers, it was Battle Chess.
Even if you have no concept of what that is, I bet you can guess from the name alone.
Had enough time?
Yup, you’re right: it’s a game of chess where the pieces fight each other.
To my young eyes, it was pure magnificence.
The queen paraded around, disintegrating her enemies. The king battered opponents with a mace. And the rook, goddamn, the rook — this castle-shaped piece would transform into something vaguely resembling The Thing before absolutely fucking smashing someone.
Battle Chess wasn’t just entertaining, it was downright funny. The animations were almost slapstick in their violence.
And I was obsessed with the game — I just had no idea how to play.
When I’d finally worked out how to start the game from MS-DOS command prompt (which took a long-ass time to master), I’d be confronted with the incomprehensibility of chess.
I mean, come on, I was five or six. All I wanted was to watch the pieces beef.
What’s interesting is I hadn’t thought about Battle Chess for years. It’s something that came up on my social media and I was immediately flooded by these memories.
It’s fascinating though to have such a core experience rocket to the front of my mind. Looking back, I wonder how much influence it had on my life.
Would I have loved games, technology, and violent animation as much without it?
Possibly not.
I’m sure I would’ve experienced similar emotions through other games, but that doesn’t really matter, because it was Battle Chess that threw me into a whole new world.
It showed me there was this entire universe of entertainment and technology, one I’ve been happily exploring ever since.
And for that? I’m ever thankful for its brilliance.