Laser Chess

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Laser Chess
Developer(s)	Mike Duppong
Designer(s)	Mike Duppong
Platform(s)	Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, Atari XL, Atari XE
Release date	1987, 2006
Genre(s)	Board Game

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.

[edit] 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.

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.

A modern version of Laser Chess

[edit] 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.