Laser Chess

Infobox VG | title = Laser Chess


developer = Mike Duppongcite journal |title=Playing with light: A history of games that incorporate the photon |first=Stephen R. |last= Wilk |journal=Optics and Photonics News |publisher=Optical Society of America |volume=18 |issue=10 |date=October 2007 |pages=18]
modes =
platforms = Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari XL, Atari XE
released = 1987, 2006
genre = Board Game
designer = Mike Duppong

"Laser Chess" first appeared in "Compute!'s Atari ST Disk & Magazine" in 1987, written in Modula-2. It won the $5,000 first prize in a programming competition held by the magazine. Ports of the game written in BASIC and machine language were published in the June 1987 issue of COMPUTE! Magazine for the Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari XL and Atari XE.

Laser Chess has been re-implemented many times over the intervening years, including a variant "Advanced Laser Chess" with a larger board and additional pieces.

Description

"Laser Chess" is a two-player computer game, modeled as a board game with chess-like pieces, most of which have mirrored surfaces, and one of which is a laser gun. The game somewhat resembles Deflektor by Gremlin Graphics especially in the presence of the laser game mechanic.

Players take alternate turns taking two actions with their pieces. An action consists of moving a piece vertically or laterally, rotating a piece 90 degrees, or 'firing' the laser. There is also a teleporter piece which can teleport pieces that it lands on.

Moving a distance of one square takes one move; moving two squares takes two moves. Since you have only two moves per turn, the maximum distance a piece can be moved on one turn is two squares. Pieces can be moved forward, backward, left, or right, but not diagonally. However, you can effectively move a piece diagonally by using two moves--forward and right, for example.

Firing the laser

On a players turn, they can elect to fire the Laser Cannon. Firing the Laser Cannon takes only one move, but can be done only once per turn. Therefore, you may want to use your first move in a turn to aim the laser, rotate a reflecting piece to set up a reflected shot, or move another piece into position. Laser beams are absorbed if they hit the edge of the board.

The laser will bounce off any mirrored piece. So both your own and the opponents pieces may be used to set up a shot. Since you are focused on creating a path from your own laser to a target of interest, you must be aware that you are also creating a path "to" your laser at the same time.

References

External links

* [http://www.traygames.com/games/?game=laserchess Laser Chess] at TrayGames
* http://www.laserchess.org