Chocolate Chess

Project Overview

Growing up, playing chess with my father was a memorable experience for me. I was drawn to the game's setting and mechanics, which made me feel like a commander on the battlefield. Being influenced by the game, I naively believed that war is something exciting and fun. However, my understanding began to change as I became more aware of the harsh realities of war. I came to realize that if chess accurately represented the brutality and suffering of war, I would never have enjoyed it. This realization inspired me to create Chocolate Chess.

This project was presented at Northeastern University SCOUT's six annual design conference: Intervention: Ignite.

Inspiration

I first found my inspiration in Yoko Ono's 1966 artwork, the white chess. She created a chess set with only white pieces. In her artwork, I see a war with no winner and soldiers killing their own people. In wars, soldiers are told to kill other people just like themselves.

I found another piece of inspiration in this war of mine from 11 Bit's studio. They use their game as a medium to showcase the harsh realities of war and challenge other popular modern shooter games for misrepresenting and promoting war.

(You can find my related work below)

Critcal Analysis

This War Of Mine
Reflection Paper

The influence of games on people's perspective on real-life issues
Chess

A competitive game that must have a winner

Players get rewarded by capturing enemy pieces

A game that can be restarted

Clean game board with organized pieces

War

A serious matter that has no winner

Kills people and leaves soldiers with mental trauma

There is no turning back once the war starts

Chaotic battle field that destroys the environment

With my research and inspiration, I started to create my own iteration of chess.

This time, it will accurately represent the reality of warfare.

Chocolate Chess

Chocolate Chess is a chess set with a soild white board, and all of its pieces are made out of 95%-cocoa bitter dark chocolate. Unlike traditional chess, the game requires the player to eat the piece instead of capturing it. After eating the bitter chocolate piece, the player has to wipe the melted chocolate from their fingers onto the white board.

I hope that after playing this game, the players will see the destroyed game board, taste the bitterness in their mouths, and realize that there are no winners in this game. Despite the rather frustrating experience, Chocolate Chess offers a more realistic representation of war than traditional chess.