Just released on Steam is Non-Euclidean Chess, a twist on the most archetypal and greatest turn-based strategy game of all time that turns the whole concept of chess upside-down – literally, in some cases. It even offers the opportunity to play a 100-person chess battle royale match, if that madness should strike you.
To explain the game’s title, all regular chessboards follow Euclidean geometric rules – which basically means something where all lines are equal distances apart. As a square made up of smaller squares, a chess set is a perfect example of Euclidean principles.
A non-Euclidean chessboard, then, is one where all the rules go out the window and boards can be literally whatever you want them to be. Manifold Interactive’s Non-Euclidean Chess, out now on Steam early access, is the ultimate example of chess gone crazy. The developers simply describe the game as “a chess engine which supports custom board types” – berore downplaying the madness further by saying the title can include matches and boards that “defy traditional movement rules, or even physical limitations”.
Aside from including boards of any type – they don’t even have to be 2D, as the trailer below shows – the developer proudly states that Non-Euclidean Chess is “the only chess game where you can play with any number of players”. It specifically lists a 100-person chess battle royale as an option although the team “can’t promise it will be quick, but you can do it!”
The Steam page lists the following game modes:
- N-Player Chess
- Hyperbolic (Poincare Disk) Chess
- Cubic Chess
- Toroidal Chess
- Battle Royale Chess
- Chesseract
- Growth Chess
- Slider Chess
Since Non-Euclidean Chess is only in early access, the two-person team plans to include more modes, better AI, and Steam Workshop support between now and the game’s planned release next year. Either way, if you’ve got a spare thousand hours why not have a go at a proper chess battle royale? A proper one, not like that Might & Magic Chess Royale thing from last year.