Chess.

Since the earliest concept of this project, there’s been a reference to chess in the design. When we decided on the turn-based conversation in the multiplayer part of Bientôt l’été it was chess more than any other game that we were thinking of. Taking turns to choose carefully what we were going to say and do —what we were going to contribute to the conversation— felt a bit like chess.

Also, as of the first prototypes, there’s been a chess board pattern on the café table. For this I originally used a texture that was made for a prototype for another game. We had this idea of creating a larger version of Vanitas, for iPad: a large box with objects that you could collect or that would appear by themselves (kicked in through a little door at the bottom of the box —very amusing). Some of these objects were chess pieces and there was a chess grid at the bottom of the box. We were hoping that people would play chess with the pieces that they found, possibly by replacing some missing pieces with one of the other objects in the box, a little bell, a bird’s skull, etc.

This idea, in turn, was based on a desire to make a virtual chess board and chess pieces for iPad. Just that: a virtual simulation of board and pieces with realistic physics but without any enforcing of game rules or A.I. or networking. The purpose was to offer a virtual chess set that two people could play with together on the same tablet.

This entire idea, somehow, found its way to Bientôt l’été. You will be able to collect chess pieces on the beach. And if you and your online partner succeed in collecting enough, you can simply play chess with each other.

For this reason, the maximum amount of objects you can collect is 16, which is the number of pieces one player needs to play chess. These will be arranged in the inventory in 2 rows of 8, mimicking the chess board layout.

I’m not sure why I’m attracted to chess. Maybe it’s just because it’s “the default game”. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s because Auriea and I enjoy playing chess together, even though neither of us is any good at it, and we don’t even do it very often. For us it’s a way to be together intimately. And chasing down each other’s pieces on the board has a gentle erotic connotation. If only because of the prominence of the archetypal male and the archetypal female in the game: King and Queen: the passive and slow King who nevertheless performs the key role versus the agile and all powerful Queen, who leaves a trail of destruction in her wake and without whom playing gets very lonely.