Someday I may learn the rules and problems of chess, at that point, I will get a lot more out of Dungeon Chess from Experiment 7. As is, there’s not much for me to do in Dungeon Chess other than to enjoy the sites and sounds. It’s a basic game in most respects, but that does not mean it’s bad, especially with a fair asking price of just $10.
Dungeon Chess can be played from a sitting position, and unless you’re a chess whiz, is probably best done so. I used a Xbox 360 controller and that’s really all you need. The game begins immediately, with a menu that is persistently available to you during play, simply by looking up and to the right. From this menu, you can choose to play against the AI and adjust their difficulty with a slider. Eventually there will be online support, too. You can choose between two settings, a tavern or a dojo with floating mountains outside. Some of the artwork in these locales can be changed, and you can change your avatar as well by choosing from a few different items. The locations are pleasant and immersive enough, and the music is a soft, strumming guitar track that fits the mood nicely. It could get a
little repetitive eventually, but having only playing short spurts, I didn’t get to that point of fatigue. Characters look cool and animate nicely.
From the menu, you can also adjust your seat height between three different settings and change your seat position around the table ninety degrees at a time. To move a piece, you have to look at them (move the red reticule over them) and then you can press A and then move them where you would like to go. Not knowing the rules of chess or having any kind of in-game tutorial, I was playing without really any direction, though.
This article would be a lot more interesting if I knew how to play chess and could better speak to the quality of the AI, but, unfortunately I’m not in that position. That said, given the price and what Dungeon Chess brings to the table, no pun intended, this seems like a something chess players should check out.
###
