Battle Chess

Battle Chess
Cover art showing the red queen killing a blue knight
Developer(s)	Interplay Entertainment Silicon & Synapse (C64)
Publisher(s)	Interplay Entertainment
Producer(s)	Brian Fargo
Designer(s)	Michael Quarles Jayesh J. Patel Troy P. Worrell
Artist(s)	Todd J. Camasta Bruce Schlickbernd
Platform(s)	Amiga, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Acorn Archimedes, Amiga CD32, Amiga CDTV, Apple IIGS, Apple IIe, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, FM Towns, NES, Mac OS, NEC PC-9801, X68000, Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	1988-1994
Genre(s)	Chess
Mode(s)	Single player, two player

Review scores
Publication	Score
CVG	84%
Dragon	(CD)
EGM	6.2/10 (3DO)
Amiga User International	9/10
Commodore User	85%
ST/Amiga Format	84%

Battle Chess is a video game version of chess in which the chess pieces come to life and battle one another when capturing. It was originally developed and released by Interplay Entertainment for the Amiga in 1988 and subsequently on many other systems, including 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Acorn Archimedes, Amiga CD32, Amiga CDTV, Apple IIGS, Apple IIe, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, FM Towns, NES, Mac OS, NEC PC-9801, X68000 and Microsoft Windows. In 1991, Battle Chess Enhanced was released by Interplay for the PC, featuring improved VGA graphics and a symphonic musical score that played from the CD-ROM.

Battle Chess was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, resulting in two official follow-ups as well as several inspired games. Its remake, Battle Chess: Game of Kings, was released on Steam on March 16, 2014.

Since there are six types of pieces for each color, and a king cannot capture a king, there are 35 battle animations. The rook, for example, turns into a rock monster and kills a pawn by smashing his head. There are some pop-culture homages; the knight versus knight animation references the black knight fight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail , and the king versus bishop fight pastiches the short battle between Indiana Jones and a swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark.