The Immortal Game

Introduction

Chess as an international game has existed for almost two thousand years, with the earliest signs of the game being played in India. Two of the brightest minds in chess, namely  Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky, played a game back in 1851 in London that changed the game forever, to the extent it received its own title. The Immortal Game is the world’s first web3 chess game.

The Immortal Game takes chess from its simple form everyone has been enjoying physically and digitally and adds blockchain, NFT, and earning mechanics. These elements add a whole new dimension to the experience and can keep you coming back for more to not only play chess as a hobby but also get rewarded on your journey to Grandmaster.

Game Rules

There is very little wiggle room for the development team to work with since chess has had the same rules for centuries. The Immortal Game will follow the same rules known to anyone who played chess before, and if you are unfamiliar with the rules, you can check them out below.

• Each player has 16 pieces: 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and 8 pawns.
• Take out enemy pieces who stand in your pieces’ movement path
• A player wins when they put their opponent’s king in an inescapable position from being captured

It can be a bit overwhelming at first but each of the six different pieces in chess have a unique movement pattern they can never change. This means that you can’t move it or take away an enemy’s piece unless it is within its designated movement path. F

• Pawns: Pawns can only move forward. 
• Bishops: Bishops can move any number of squares diagonally.
• Knights: Knights can move only in an L-shape, one square up and two over, or two squares over and one down, or any such combination of one-two or two-one movements in any direction.
• Rooks: Rooks can move any number of squares, up and down and side to side.
• Queens: Queens can move any number of squares along ranks, files, and diagonals.
• Kings: Kings can move one square at a time in any direction.

Immortal NFTs

So far, there is nothing that makes The Immortal Game stand out in any way from a regular chess game. However, the Immortal NFTs play a pivotal role in your experience and add a lot of depth and complexity to the game. Immortal NFTs are chess pieces that players can own, buy, sell, and trade freely.

What these bring to the board, pun intended, is adding challenges for players to complete within every game to boost their earnings. Each Immortal has an element that gives it a specific artistic design and unlocks synergies when used together in the same team.The 4 initial elements are:

• Marble
• Ebony
• Ivory
• Crystal

Before queueing up, you need to select up to four Immortals to take with you in-game. If you own more than four Immortal NFTs, you will still be prompted to choose only four. At the beginning of the game, you will get the opportunity to choose where to place them depending on what piece they are. The position where you place them is particularly important as it corresponds to the challenges you are given to complete during your match.

Quests and Challenges

The Immortal Game takes advantage of their Immortal NFTs to add a new dynamic to the classic game. The quests and challenges given to the players allow them to explore new ways to play and open up their horizon to new playstyles. There are three quest categories: Aggressive, Defensive, and Movement.

Aggressive

Aggressive quests push players to adopt a more attacking playstyle. Its quests can vary from winning the game under an amount of time to capturing a specific number of enemy pieces before the game ends.

Defensive

Contrary to the aforementioned aggressive quests, defensive quests test your ability to control the board and keep your opponent at bay from ever reaching your king. Its quests are the most challenging as you need to constantly be able to read your enemy’s next move and prepare for it accordingly. 

Movement

Movement challenges sometimes are completed by themselves because they don’t really push players to go out of their way and flow naturally with the match. Some of the movement challenges can be moving a specific piece 10 times for example.

How to Get Started

Once you visit The Immortal Game's website, you can instantly click Play. From there, depending on whether you own an Immortals NFT or not, you can choose a variety of modes.

If you own an Immortals NFT, select the Immortal variant in the second row and choose the white or block preset Immortal NFT pieces you have to be able to queue up. You can only select a minimum of one and a maximum of four pieces to take with you into each match to attempt and complete their designated quests.

If you don't own any of the game's NFTs, you can simply keep the Standard variant and queue up either for 1 minute or 5 minute blitz games.