Minecraft Player Created a Working Chessboard
People who play Minecraft never cease to amaze with ingenuity. In this case, we are dealing with a fully playable, full-sized chessboard created with redstone.
- One player created a full-sized, working chessboard in Minecraft;
- He used redstone blocks;
- The chessboard enables us to play all the basic moves, castling, and even promote a pawn on the eighth/first field.
Recently, chess has grown in popularity - much of this is due to chess streamers and the success of Queen's Gambit, thanks to which many people became interested in the royal game. As it turns out, thanks to the work of one of the players, chess can now also be played in Minecraft.
User mattbatwings2 recently presented his creation on Reddit. He created a fully functional chess board using only redstone blocks. The game board is full-size - it consists of 64 fields and includes a side panel containing additional options:
"Hello! This is a fully playable redstone chess game. Each cell is only 11x11 blocks, so in total the board is 88x88. It includes full support for castling, pawn promotion, and more.
To move a piece, it's extremely straightforward. Just press the stone button to select a piece, and then press the wooden button to move it to a new location. The board unfortunately doesn't check for legal moves, so if you play this with a friend, you'll have to make sure they know the rules. I opted not to check for legal moves because it would make the game a lot slower, and it wouldn't allow you to undo a move (as it would consider it illegal).
To castle, simply use the input panel associated with your color on the left. There are 2 castling buttons for each player, one for the left and one for the right. The castle icon will automatically light up when a castle is available.
To promote a pawn, same idea. Use the input panel to choose which piece to promote it to. The pawn icon also lights up when a pawn promotion is available."
The chessboard even supports the so-called en passante capture. Being able to play illegal moves can be a bit of a hassle, but the basics of chess rules are so simple that even laymen will be able to understand them after a few games. If you make a mistake there is always the option to undo the move.
Below you can see a video showing the chessboard in its full glory:
If you want to try playing chess in Minecraft yourself, check out this link, where the creator shares the results of his work. It is worth mentioning that mattbatwings2 has also created a working Tetris game in Minecraft, also using only redstone.
