3D Chess
Visualize for a moment that we have binocular-vision LCD glasses that display a 3-dimensional chesslike game. The glasses superimpose images onto a transparent view of the wearer's real environment-- not virtual reality, but augmented reality. Imagine also that we have one or two telemetry gloves. The index finger and thumb are tracked in 3D and 'mouse click' when they touch-- the two fingertips are displayed as two cursors floating in the image. I would want to play this game.
Most chess games simulate a physical chess set. In a computer simulation this is attractive but not strictly necessary, and in 3D chess it's an active detriment. Since a computer simulation has no gravity, we do not need surfaces on which to rest pieces. Each piece sits on an intersection of three translucent lines, one for each dimension, in an eight-by-eight cube. Grasping and pulling any edge of the cube allows free rotation. The cube should fill half the visual field, since the user's reach can be transposed on a huge scale, or the user can also change to the size of the pieces and stand inside the cube when desired. Ideally though, the glasses would be tracked with telemetry so that the cube would always float in the same space in the user's real environment while the user moved around it. In this mode the whole cube should fit within easy reach, perhaps three feet to a side.
Without gravity there is no reason for pieces to be stable pedestals with radial symmetry along only one axis as they are in 2-D chess. The shapes that represent one-dimensional ranged movers (such as rooks and bishops) could be 3-D stars. The piece is formed of arms extending from the intersection it occupies, and dwindling to tips before reaching adjacent intersections. Each arm points out toward an intersection to which the piece could move if it weren't obstructed. So, an orthoganal mover (rook) looks like a thickening of bright, bold opacity along the three translucent board-lines of its intersection. Arms of diagonal movers (bishops) and triagonal movers do not lie along the board lines; they reach across the gap toward adjacent line segments and intersections respectively. Leaper pieces have thinner, threadlike arms, that fork into Y's tipped with spheres. Kings are large spheres.
For a game this complex, no one should complain if there is as much graphical computer assistance as possible. All pieces glow when under threat. A large crown symbol appears outside the cube when check is given. When a piece is grasped and dragged, the intersections to which it can legally move light up. Moving an index finger onto a piece, without touching the fingers together on it, causes its name and animated graphic description to display in the space above the cube. The piece on the board grows without thickening its arms: the arms stretch as far as they can without being blocked, to show all the intersections to which it can legally move. At the option of the user, all pieces on the board simultaneously extend their arms/spheres/surfaces as ghostly fogs of color. Since the sides are red and blue, they blend into purple where they cross. This represents threat from the red and blue sides, and varies with intensity based on how many pieces have a line of sight to the intersection.
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