It's all fine and good, but why would you want to play with this? (other than for the novelty factor)
Chess piece styles
It's all fine and good, but why would you want to play with this? (other than for the novelty factor)
Well... I like the way it looks, to be honest. When I look at a board, I want the game to leap out at me with as little pause for my brain to interpret all the symbols as possible.
I know some people like ornate and detailed depictions of the pieces, but I've always preferred something a bit more minimalistic and functional. Of the sets Chess.com provides, I like Modern the most. Condal, Vintage, Maya and Club all strike me as too busy. I initially had high hopes for Lines, but it seems to be stark and minimalist while still being confusing.
So... I thought to myself what I would really want. Something that captures some kind of essence of the pieces, maybe geometrically. You can either hint at the shape of the traditonal pieces, or at the way they move. I decided upon the latter, as it should tell your brain exactly what's going on with less mental processing steps. I did also try to retain some hint of the knight's shape, and with the pawns decided to stress their simple, unspecialised nature.
While there is no doubt some optimisation as regards line thickness and style to be done, I really would like to use this as my primary board. I could also see myself getting them 3D-printed, embedded in a translucent/transparent material, and using them in real life.
Plus, I imagine it might make learning chess easier - it would be less difficult to remember what each piece does.
I'm just wondering what you guys think of this minimalist piece design I made. It's basically what I would want to be playing with, but the closest available here is Lines (which I just found that a bit of an unpleasant half-way house).
I chose not to over-complicate pawns, or to use a swastika for knights (for obvious reasons).
Any thoughts?
EDIT: I've added in a couple of variations for the pawns and knights.