Chess in the Park

A clay chess set stands on a stone table in a city park: the off-white pieces at your end, the dark ones across the board, and in the seat behind them a player who has clearly been coming to this table for years. Around you the park goes on with its afternoon: people walking their dogs along the paths, two kite flyers on the lawn, the city skyline beyond the trees. The board is painted clay, and the pieces are pressed from plain clay, a little uneven, the way a set made by hand would be.

How it plays

This is chess with all of its rules. Tap one of your white pieces and the squares it can move to are marked, with captures in a warmer colour; tap one and the piece moves. Castling, en passant and promotion are all there: when a pawn reaches the far rank you choose what it becomes. The last move made is marked on the board, and a king in check is ringed in red. The game ends in checkmate, or in a draw by stalemate, by fifty moves each without a capture or a pawn move, or when neither side has enough pieces left to mate.

You play against the computer at three levels. On Easy it looks one move ahead and is happy with a move that is only nearly the best. On Medium it looks two moves ahead and follows every exchange to its end, so it rarely leaves a piece hanging. On Hard it looks three moves ahead and takes a moment to think.

Tips

Bring out your knights and bishops early, castle to put your king behind a wall of pawns, and fight for the four squares in the middle of the board. Before every move, look at what your opponent's last move threatens. Against Easy, look for pieces it leaves unguarded; against Hard, keep your own pieces guarded and look for two threats at once.

Chess in the Park needs WebGL; on a machine without it the page says so, and the 2D games in the arcade still work.

Play Chess in the Park (free, in the browser; back to all games)