How are we not talking about this yet?
Or maybe we already did, in another timeline!
5D? It’s already missing the 3rd one!
I’ve been coding my own chess engine, so I’m actually kinda curious about this. All the chessboards moving around remind me of the thousands of chessboards I’m moving around for my AI to evaluate. But the video left me puzzled about how this game is supposed to work.
lol, the first few reviews I read were all saying that too. “False advertising, it’s only 4D chess!!!”
Ugh, even thinking about Achron gives me a headache to this day.
It looks like you can move pieces back in time to a previous board position (without changing the square it’s on). This creates a variation (ie alternate timeline) in which you have a one piece advantage. But in the main line you have to continue with a one piece deficit.
Very clever, since chess players are used to considering alternate timelines whenever they study variations.
On top of the time travel, you can also move pieces from turn X of one variation to turn X of a different one. Which sounds even more bonkers.
Thank you for the very clear explanation. They should have hired your service!
Ok, I’ve actually played this now and it’s more complicated than I thought. When a piece moves back in time, it doesn’t remain in place. The boards are stacked in a 3D configuration and the movement rules are transformed. The game helpfully reorients the board(s) to help visualize the movement.
For instance, a knight move is two spaces forward and one to the side in the current timeline, or two spaces forward and one step back in time. Bishops can move diagonally in spacetime, so spatially along a single rank or file (like a rook) and then back in time. The rook in the video only stayed in place because it always moves along a single axis, either in space or in time.
So it’s really 5D :O
Oh damn, yeah, I had too.
I guess this game is good for fans of Archon as well. ;)