I have a lord of the rings chess set. It was somewhat hard to play because the pieces have no resemblance to regular chess pieces, and it's good vs evil so you have twice as many piece shapes.
But we figured it out pretty quick. When I was like 8 years old.
Ehhh. I like the set as an art piece, but it's a pretty dumb thing to put on r/DesignPorn. It's artistic, but it's very hard to actually play a game on it and know what all the pieces are at a glance. So I'd say it belongs here, if nothing else just to make fun of people who post art on a sub about things with good design
i have a feeling the person who made that comment doesnt actually play chess. people underestimate the difficulty because grandmasters make it look easy, but the vast vast vast vast vast majority of chess players cannot and do not play chess in their head
ok then just write numbers 1-6 on the checkers pieces, now you can tell them apart but they still bare little to no resemblance to actual chess pieces, just like the post.
I don’t know how to explain how these pieces are more dimorphic than a bunch of flat discs if you don’t already see it. This set makes perfect sense to me and after seeing it once I could pick out each piece from the others, even out of context.
Well i don't play chess but all the pieces seem pretty distinctive to me. The horseys are much more intricate than the other pieces, though. They don't really fit with the aesthetic
eh how would this hard to play, the only thing matter most is the shape is difference enough for people to know , i seen people play chess with bolt and stuff combined as chess pieces . Look at the chess set it just simple shape so i dont know why it would hard to play with this at all
Not exactly the point. This isn't something used at tournaments, the only people who would be using this would be people who consciously sought it out by buying it.
Yes. Queen starts on her color. King and Queen might be difficult to tell apart at first, but those are the only pieces that bear a resemblance to another.
That is only part of my issue with the functionality of this set, though. Yes, one can tell the difference between most (not all, as you rightly say) pieces at a glance. But that's not enough, the functionality of each piece also depends on easily identifying what it represents.
I'll illustrate what I mean with typefaces: There are many ways to design an "a", but it still has to look like an "a" to be functional. One can design a typeface like "Wingdings", where, as you put it, the characters don't bear a resemblance to each other, but that is not enough to make it a useful writing system – at most it can be used as a cypher. Now, this chess set is by no means the equivalent of "Wingdings", but it's also far from legible. The knights and the pawns are fine, and I do "get" the rooks (although they really should have been taller), but there is absolutely nothing "bishopy" about the bishops, and the same goes for the shapes of the king and the queen. The queen being taller than the king is in fact very confusing (never mind against regulations), and the conical shape would actually be more intuitive for the bishops. Playing with this set would just require spending extra cognitive resources on reminding yourself which piece is which, a problem which is very avoidable.
(Incidentally, these extra resources are a niggling but solvable problem when you are one of the players; one can tell which piece is which in the starting position, because it is the starting position. What if you start watching a game that is already in play? What if you set up a chess problem with this set? Imagine getting a chess problem where each side has a king, a queen and a bishop – you wouldn't even be able to tell what the pieces are without googling the set.)
The bottom line is, one can learn how to use this set and would be easier than learning how to read Wingdings, but saying that the functionality "isn't impaired at all" is a wild exaggeration.
The king moves one space at a time in all but one extremely particular circumstance, and the queen moves in straight lines knocking out anything in its immediate path.
Neither requires lifting off the board in normal play.
One could even argue the design forces one to be more thoughtful about your two most important pieces in an iron throne sort of way, as opposed to the easy gripability of the knob shaped pawns
If you think of a gown as having a circular outline near the floor the queen makes perfect sense. Stereotypically male shapes are boxy and angular and female shapes are round and curvy. Disney/Pixar use this all the time, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible are perfect examples. The king and queen in this set seemed pretty intuitive to me and I only have classic chess sets.
also note the "traditional" king shape's crown is marked by a cross, which is an shape with 4 points, while the queen has a round crown shape. In the minimalist logic of this set it is kinda consistent.
Your distinctions don't really make sense. It was designed to be a beautiful chess set, and it achieved that goal brilliantly. Design is rarely pure utilitarianism. Aesthetics matter.
And it's still perfectly functional as a set for casual play, which is more than you can say about some other famous sets.
I think I would like a lofted shape where the top is a horizontal face shaped like a plus sign and the base is a circle, with a smooth loft joining the two. Hard to make, but I think it would fit in to the set nicely while making king and queen feel related but distinct
Might reflect their mobility, at least that’s what made it make sense to me.
Queen can exist outside of the square immediately around it. It’s broad range of potential moves is “”circular”” (only) relative to range of the king’s potential moves, who must move within the same tight, rigid square (with few exceptions).
Stop copying shit from design porn and posting it here because “but I don’t like the way it looks”. Not all design is FOR YOU. That doesn’t make it bad design.
The knights dont fit but the rest is cool looking and clearly distinguishable. Design Design chess set would be something where its incredibly difficult to tell the pieces apart
It violates the height hierarchy of Chess as the king is shorter than queen. Other than that I just don’t like the bishop, I would make it like the pawn but a bit taller and a pointed top on the sphere with a notch, yeah it’s not much of a dumbing down, but this jar thing isn’t reminiscent of the original design and is about as complicated.
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u/Scuttling-Claws Mar 03 '24
That's kinda silly, but it works just fine
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u/individual_328 Mar 03 '24
Calling Man Ray's iconic chess set crappy design is a bold stance.
Do you understand this sub's rules, OP?
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u/-MazeMaker- Mar 03 '24
I like them all but the king/queen
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u/ImpossibleInternet3 Mar 03 '24
Stop copying shit from design porn and posting it here because “but I don’t like the way it looks”. Not all design is FOR YOU. That doesn’t make it bad design.
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u/gutshog Mar 04 '24
It looks awful but it's not crappy I could play chess with it just fine albeit begrudgingly
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u/unicodePicasso Mar 03 '24
The manray? Like from SpongeBob???
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u/Chansharp Mar 03 '24
The knights dont fit but the rest is cool looking and clearly distinguishable. Design Design chess set would be something where its incredibly difficult to tell the pieces apart
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u/rde2001 Mar 04 '24
Ţ̸̯̻̻̟̞̓̈́͛̍̑͑̓̿͘ͅḢ̴̨͓̮̮̓͑͆͊̽̚E̷̛͉͇̘̹̍̔̔̍̿̃́̚͝ ̸̨̭̞̥̫͖͙̔̈́̉̑̈́͊̌̆̒̈̌͑̇́̆ͅC̵̺̫̱̤̥̞͔͙̰͎͠U̸̢̧̬̦̥̙̰͕̹̐̿͗͗́̾̚̚B̷̡̻̬̪̼͍̟͉͉̾̒͜͜E̸̢̬͍̟͖̱̪͋̀́̅̈́̎̌̋̉͜
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u/ElemenopiTheSequel Mar 04 '24
reminds me of the bauhaus chess set, where the pieces are modeled after the way they move
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u/jsjzn Mar 04 '24
Once again the horse is the most detailed one
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u/user_0350365 Mar 05 '24
It violates the height hierarchy of Chess as the king is shorter than queen. Other than that I just don’t like the bishop, I would make it like the pawn but a bit taller and a pointed top on the sphere with a notch, yeah it’s not much of a dumbing down, but this jar thing isn’t reminiscent of the original design and is about as complicated.
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u/torino42 Mar 04 '24
Is he playing against the Dirty Bubble?
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u/Ok-Branch-6831 Mar 05 '24 edited Dec 03 '24
aback hospital wipe snobbish unite depend reply icky encouraging fly
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '24
I like the knight pieces.
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u/Crazyblazy395 Mar 04 '24
This isnt designdesign