Uncommon Chess

Chess where the pieces fight for the square. 35 hand-animated battles, a screen that teaches a child to play, and a real 162,000-game study explained in plain words.

Chess, but the pieces fight for the square.

Every capture in Uncommon Chess is a hand-animated duel between two original characters — the ivory Bone Court against the blued iron of the Iron Court. Thirty-five of them, one for every attacker and defender pairing, each choreographed separately. A pawn taking a rook does not look like a queen taking a pawn.

LEARN TO PLAY A whole screen for somebody who has never played. How each piece moves, shown on a real board, plus the rules that look like exceptions — check, checkmate, stalemate, castling, en passant, promotion. The diagrams are played by the game's own rules engine, so they cannot be wrong.

SEE IT YOUR WAY Turn the board, tilt it, zoom in. Watch the fight from wherever you like.

PLAY HOW YOU LIKE Against the computer at four strengths. Two players passing one device. Four players, two a side. Or online through Game Center — 1v1 and 2v2, with your turn waiting for you whenever you pick the phone up.

FUN MODES Optional novelty rules for a single match. Anoint a Champion that survives the first attack on it, a Berserker that strikes twice, or a Phantom that slips through anything in its way. Strict chess is the default, is complete, and costs nothing.

THE MATRIX A real study of 162,000 games between two engines, and — unusually — a plain explanation of what its numbers mean. What a margin of error is. Why more games help only slowly. What the experiment cannot tell you. Written for a child and true for everybody.

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