Checkmate! LEGO and chess: where two unlikely returnees came together
Posted by Huw,
This #ThrowbackThursday article has been contributed by WoutA:
The recent pandemic and a television series relaunched a hundreds-of-years-old board game back into popularity. Once people made fun of you when you admitted to playing it, today it’s cool to pull out a chess board and get the pieces ready to wage war.
The same seems to be true of our favourite construction toy. The earliest idea books had sections for adult builders and the term AFOL was first coined online in 1995. But really, until fairly recently, people over 18 years old who were still playing with LEGO were frowned upon. Nowadays, though, what could be cooler than building with bricks?
The marriage of these two creative pastimes started virtually and, as of today, has yielded fewer than ten official releases. Let’s dive into the history of LEGO chess sets.
Before 2000: chess is just a game
The first marriage between LEGO and chess was aptly titled LEGO Chess. Set 5702 was a 1998 video game that promised to make “real chess really fun”. PC users could choose between different game modes. The basics were taught by the Chess King. This king and his brick build throne were included as 2586 The Crazy LEGO King with the first release of the game.
In game mode, players could play chess with western, pirates or traditional pieces. In 1998, pirates had already been around for almost ten years while western had just been discontinued after a brief two-year run. The game was played by clicking a piece, upon which the computer showed every possible move. Reviewers applauded this way of teaching the rules quickly and easily.
In story mode, several games needed to be won for the sheriff to capture all the bandits or the soldier to get to the treasure before the pirates did. Another extra element were the video clips that played when one piece captured another. 72 different ones were made. Despite the favourable reviews, it would take another seven years before some clever guy/girl at LEGO thought about breathing real life into this virtual idea.
2000 - 2010: a baseplate and a big one
In the noughties, five real life LEGO chess sets were released in five consecutive years, all of them in the classic castle and pirates theme. Four of these were really basic, with a 32 x 32 board consisting of a regular baseplate with either 4 x 4 plates attached to it or 2 x 2 and 2 x 4 or 4 x 4 plates glued to it. When simply attached, plates would come loose when lifting pieces. When glued, the baseplate and plates could not be used for anything else. Only the rooks and the knights were brick build, the other pieces were simple minifigures.
These four sets were 851499 (using figures from castle’s Knights Kingdom II, from 2005), 851861 (blue versus red Vikings in 2006), 852001 (in 2007 in the castle fantasy setting, with priests posing for bishops) and 852751 (from 2009, when a new pirates line, Pirates II, was introduced). All of these came in big cardboard boxes, with opening front lids offering a closer look at what’s inside, and could easily be described as enormous minifigure packs as well.
In 2008, LEGO released 852293 Castle Giant Chess Set. With close to 2300 parts, it hadn’t stolen its name. It came in a huge box that looked like an ancient book. This was the fantasy era of the castle theme so wizards and orcs were used as the bishops on opposing sides. The rooks were big, brick build towers.
After 2010: classic themes and special editions
After the previous five-year run, LEGO released two more chess sets in the two classic themes, although with larger gaps between them. The board of 853373 from 2012 was again a 32 x 32 baseplate with 4 x 4 plates, although this time it was placed inside a studless raised castle baseplate which was unique to this set. The rooks were the only brick build pieces. Kingdoms was the castle theme around this time so on the board, the red royal family is competing with the green dragon knights.
Another new pirates line, Pirates III, was again supported by a chess set in 2015. 40158 Pirates Chess Set is a beautiful set, with a brick build board with storage space for the pieces underneath and centre studs in each square to hold the pieces during the game. The scenery was also nicely executed, with the pirates having a blue seaside and the bluecoat soldiers a tan landside. Interestingly, the pirates were given what seem to be Islanders statues as knights.
The blueprint for the 40158 pirates chess set was expanded two years later into the 40174 LEGO Chess set. As its name implies, the pieces looked very traditional, using some ingenious SNOT techniques. By adding 48 round studs to the 1400 pieces that were needed to build the board and the chess pieces, this became a 2 in 1 set including checkers, although obviously this game should officially be played on a board with 10 x 10 squares, not 8 x 8.
The last officially released LEGO chess set is last year’s 76392 Hogwarts Wizard's Chess, which celebrated 20 years of LEGO Harry Potter. It was inspired by the magical chess set from The Philosopher’s Stone or (as it was known in the US) The Sorcerer’s Stone, released in 2001. Both the pieces and the board are all brick build, although the board doesn’t contain any storage room inside. The bishops are actually bishops.
The marriage between LEGO and chess seems likely to still last quite some time. The Bricklink AFOL Designer Programme, which celebrated 60 years of LEGO bricks in 2019, included a steampunk mini chess set on a board of 8 by 8 studs. Plenty of MOCs can be found online too and a number of submissions to LEGO Ideas are chess sets, ranging from the very classic to the very popular Star Wars. Which one would you like to include in your collection?
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I played the game when I was a kid. I loved it, but unfortunately by that time Pirates and Western were already discontinued and I didn't get the chance to play with real sets.
And now they're quite expensive on Bricklink.
Sadly failed to get a castle version while they were still cheap.
The baseplate of the vinkings has velcro at the bottom and the plates were glued, but a great army builder.
I wonder if the newfound popularity will die just as quickly given the massive scandal still rocking the chess world.
I would like a LEGO Chess set. I’ve just never pulled the trigger because it seems like it would be a hassle to move the pieces compared to a regular board.
Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere.
@Huw said:
"Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere."
Ah OK thanks Huw. I wasn't aware of that.
So... it's time for a Blacktron vs. SP1 Edition!
Throwback Thursday articles are always a huge treat! Thank you, this was a very enjoyable read! As someone who grew up through this era I knew about all of these, but it's still fun to look back on all versions in a row :D
I do remember the funny animations that played in the Lego Chess video game; really wish more chess games would do something like that
The first Harry Potter Advent Calendar had a tiny chess set. Non-playable, but I used a bunch of spare pieces to make mine into an accurate 8x8 microscale chessboard. (Helps that it came with spares of the black and white microfigures.)
I had the Lego Chess PC game; it was the last of the classic Lego games I got, some years after its release. It was a lot of fun; playing it with the familiar characters of Lego minifigures made the game interesting to me and made me actually want to learn it, in a way that playing with traditional pieces on a real board never had - and the comedic cutscenes for capturing pieces added an element of light relief that stopped the gameplay process becoming too stressful. I lost as many times as I won, especially when I started poking at the higher difficulty levels, since I'm not particularly strategically minded; but in any case, I know I enjoyed it a whole lot.
Additionally, Pirates and Western were both themes that had been 'before my time' (or at least, my time as a Lego fan) too, so it was fun to get a bit of a glimpse of what they'd been like ^^
I still have the game disc, actually. Just, like so many old games, it won't run on any modern PC...
@peterlmorris:
Depends on if they figure out how it happened, and if it sounds cool enough to base a movie on.
@ResIpsaLoquitur:
I did the same thing, basically as a garden chess board. I still haven’t built a copy (just designed it in LDraw), but I remember it took more effort to come up with a workable design for the knight, that fits within a 1x1 column, than the rest of the chess pieces combined.
@ThatBionicleGuy:
I remember playing Battle Chess in the school library. I was terrible at chess, so eventually I just used the game editor to set up various scenarios so I could see every capture animation. After that, I kinda lost interest in it.
@Huw said:
"Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere."
I have three of those, a castle, a viking and a pirates. I haven't noticed that at all? My kids and I have used the pirates one the most (852751) - not for playing chess, just playing with lego) and I never gave it a thought that they are any different from every other minifigs...
@windjammer said:
"I suppose as these sets were released at least 20 years ago they won't come with an anal vibrating cheating bead that we've seen speculated about in recent chess times.
"
Why can’t chess players just use drugs to cheat like normal people...?
At least that doesn’t give me weird mental images I can now no longer un-see
I had that first Knight's Kingdom chess set! Only because I was obsessed with the castle themes, of course.
Did not age well in my eyes. The minifig selection and base were pretty uninspired. And baby blue is among the least flattering colors for a medieval army. :L
"some clever guy/girl at LEGO thought about breathing real life into this virtual idea"
a.k.a. a "person".
Otherwise an interesting article, some sets I'd never seen before. It'd be cool if they revisited the idea, but no doubt it'd be an adult collectable set that would cost £200
Chess must be pretty popular right now, as Rebrickable just did a review on the Hogwarts Wizard's Chess set on October 7th. This also included a once-over of the previous sets.
https://rebrickable.com/blog/537/review-76392-1-hogwarts-wizards-chess/
@CCC:
Sale items that return to regular price are one thing, but usually they raise the per limit on clearance items. At least they do online. I’ve seen limits of 50, on small stuff they just want gone.
@Murdoch17:
That’s at least based on a movie scene, so it’s not necessarily about playing a game of chess, and probably more about playing out a scene where other people do so.
@Huw said:
"Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere."
I've noticed this on the Giant Castle set. My Knights horse armor's all have broken clips for their banners.
I bought 40158 on clearance right when I got out of my dark ages. I got it as a nice parts pack. Never bothered to play chess with it. And I must say that 852293 looks amazing, as a minifig and parts pack, as a display piece and also as an investment- bricklink prices are 5 digit numbers in my currency!
@peterlmorris said:
"I wonder if the newfound popularity will die just as quickly given the massive scandal still rocking the chess world.
I would like a LEGO Chess set. I’ve just never pulled the trigger because it seems like it would be a hassle to move the pieces compared to a regular board. "
It doesnt have minifigures but the 40174 set is on sale from Lego.com right now
I've still got the Chess game CD somewhere. I've literally never been able to play it though. Back when we got it, our computer wasn't powerful enough to run the game, and since then, I think I've had the opposite problem. Set 40174 is an interesting one, as I bought it when it first came out, and our local lego store still has them in stock. It's a 5 year old set at this point.
I have the generic one. But I would love to also have the giant castle one too.
"...obviously this game [checkers] should officially be played on a board with 10 x 10 squares, not 8 x 8."
Had no idea a board bigger than the standard chess board was the standard in some places. Also had no idea Lego had made so many chess sets. We got 40174 for a friend's son and he absolutely loved it. Big set for the money, too.
Thank you, as always, for these kinds of deep-dive articles.
I haven't had the courage to open my 852293, mostly because it is beautiful on my bookshelf with my actual book collection.
This 2015 pirate battle pack is really expensive...
@Martin_S said:
" I have three of those, a castle, a viking and a pirates. I haven't noticed that at all? My kids and I have used the pirates one the most (852751) - not for playing chess, just playing with lego) and I never gave it a thought that they are any different from every other minifigs..."
Check the inside of the arms. If there is a square-shaped indent or writing the parts are from China. I never had a chess set but the magnet figures from china were easy to spot because of the details on the inside of their arms and because the colors of early production runs were noticeably off and milky.
To add, current minifig arms all have some writing on the inside but it is barely noticeable and far smaller compared to the magnet figures and CMF Series 1 and 2.
@Huw said:
"Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere."
Are you sure about all of them? Vikings and Power Rangers would have to be the very first figures produced in China and that seems unlikely. The Boxes had windows, I have seen them in person in the stores and they definitely didn't have the milky coloration that had been on magnet figures.
While most of these are cool, I really wish I'd gotten 852293 Castle Giant Chess Set. That fantasy theme was awesome, and the chess set based on it was equally awesome.
@Martin_S said:
" @Huw said:
"Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere."
I have three of those, a castle, a viking and a pirates. I haven't noticed that at all? My kids and I have used the pirates one the most (852751) - not for playing chess, just playing with lego) and I never gave it a thought that they are any different from every other minifigs..."
I bought 852001 heavily discounted a couple of years after its release for its minifigures and accessories and haven’t found them to be lesser quality than European LEGO of the time.
@Wouta, Thank you for researching and writing this article. It was a fun read and I sense you had fun writing it :~)
@Rimefang:
Send it to me, and I will open it for you. I ain’t skeered!
@Anonym:
If you know what to look for, or have known items to compare them to, the soles of the feet and between the hip studs are other mold markings that were quite different during the early days of Chines minifig production. Also…Power Rangers?
I have 40174. I ended up replacing the tiles on the checkers with part 18674, so the kings would stay together. Oh, and I found what @Wouta was talking about with the 10x10 checkers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_draughts
The LEGO group should bring back a version of 852293 Castle Giant Chess Set to see how popular both the Game of Chess and castle is!!
If they start including Power Functions to these sets we need to start worrying about cheaters
If anyone nowadays was selling the Castle Giant Chess Set for a...reasonable price, it would be an instant buy. Even with a full-time job, it seems like too much of a waste of money :(
Bring back 852293. What an awesome set.
Funny, before releasing official images of the pirate set you would have thought that Lego would have checked that the white square was in the right hand corner. The Harry Potter version is still my favourite, although a version with mini-figs could be interesting although unlikely now that 32 mini-figs would cost over $100 unless they do this as a collectible series. Star Wars Moc chess sets always remind me of the advent calendar, maybe they can combine the two?
@Huw said:
"Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere."
Same goes for the whole CMF Series. The first few Series had noticeably lower quality and evolved over the years to be fully printed, dual-molded etc.
Nevertheless the chess sets show that minifigure packs don't have to cost 250€ or more (e.g. Foosball table).
@Huw said:
"Buyer beware of the 2000-2010 chess sets: the minifigs were made in China and noticably inferior to those made elsewhere."
Yikes! Glad I have 853373 and 76392. They're both great sets. We love to play chess.
The former is a great battle pack for the new castle 10305. The latter is a great parts pack.
@ra226 said:
""...obviously this game [checkers] should officially be played on a board with 10 x 10 squares, not 8 x 8."
Had no idea a board bigger than the standard chess board was the standard in some places."
I was going to say this too - I've been playing checked occasionally for over 40 years and had no idea there was a version bigger than 8x8.
@ambr:
It is in the righthand corner. The problem is, on a square, you’ve got a 50/50 chance of guessing the right righthand corner.
@PurpleDave said:
" @ambr :
It is in the righthand corner. The problem is, on a square, you’ve got a 50/50 chance of guessing the right righthand corner."
I don’t think @ambr was talking about 852751 . I believe the set that was being referred to was 40158 which is indeed pictured with a black square in the near right corner from the viewer’s and the player’s perspective. According to the rules of Chess, the near right corner should always be white.
If LEGO would release a chess set now for 50 bucks with 20 to 30 Castle minifigs, I would not hesitate to buy it.
@Brickalili said:
"I do remember the funny animations that played in the Lego Chess video game; really wish more chess games would do something like that "
@PurpleDave mentioned Battle Chess. I myslef don't know of that many pure chess video games - given it comes as free preinstalled on most computers and its simplicity compared to complex modern games, both physical and virtual. There are some grid-strategy video games (fire emblem in particular has been lauded for its animations) that play animations whenever one unit attacks another.
@CCC said:
"I bought 10x sets of the Kingdoms set, I think they were £28 on clearance. I also bought 5x of the Pirates one, again on clearance. I would have bought more but they were strict about purchase limits, even for sale items. They were both great figures / parts packs, I'm still occasionally opening up a Kingdoms one and selling off most of the figures keeping the lovely dragon armour for myself. Despite having bought 15 LEGO chess sets, I cannot say I have ever played a single game with them."
All I can say is …. Wow!!
15 sets and NEVER played one game of Chess with them?!
Kinda defeats the purpose!….
I bought two of the old Castle and Vikings, second hand, a couple years ago.
Beautiful sets with some great minifigs!
Never noticed they were “made in China” or inferior in any way.
That beautiful 852293 Castle Giant Chess Set is my Holy Grail set now, since I have pretty much all my other Grails already!
One guy in another part of Australia is selling one on eBay, but wants over A$3,000 for it!!!
:((
Giant trolls, Dragon heads, brick built castle scenes, tons of great minifigs….. what’s not to love?!
@Norikins:
Battle Chess was just chess, but the pieces were animated (it also had a plainvanilla mode, if you wanted to be boring), and every different capture (except king vs king, obviously) had a unique animation. I can’t remember if we ever managed to find a king vs king capture, which should be impossible to reach by conventional gameplay, but it might be possible to use the board editor to create a setup that forces it to happen.
Anyways, there do appear to be chess programs out there. Oddly, I can find several websites discussing chess software, but all I can find on Best Buy’s website are physical chess sets, so there might not be a ton of money in chess programs. However, one free program that’s bundled with the OS may not provide the right level of challenge for every player, or all of the options they may want access to. Some of the features I was seeing mentioned included replay video of the entire game, running analysis of every move, being able to focus gameplay scenarios on different parts of the game, and access to several (250!) different chess AI programs within one piece of chess software.
@lemish34:
Several of these were cheap sources of genre minifigs, with a few even being exclusive to the chess set. The Giant Castle Chess board was so well designed that many people (myself included) were at least tempted to buy a copy just for the intricate border scenes. And in a world where every piece of home decor sends a message about the person living there, chess sets and globes are two items that can be staged to make the owner appear smart.
That Castle set is an extremely-rare set now. What a shame, it's a beaut and I'd love to own it.
@ThatBionicleGuysaid:
"I still have the game disc, actually. Just, like so many old games, it won't run on any modern PC..."
I have it and after some fiddling, it now runs just fine on my Linux machine. Windows' guys and gals may ran into more issues unless you ran it in a Virtual Machine.
I knew there had been quite a few versions of the game, but didn't expect it was quite this many. Pirates III was the first I got (and the only I ever played). The set has a fun sense of humor, with one screwball in pawn on either side bringing a banana or a baguette instead of of a proper weapon. But I remember that I had to get creative in one game when I got a pawn across the board and promoted it. I stole a blonde wig from a nearby CMF to turn my pawn into a second queen.
A few years ago 40174 had a significant discount from its original price, making it a great value. I got several as parts packs, but I kept at least one intact.
Oh, and count me as one more who didn't know that "obviously" international checkers uses a 10x10 board. But now I do. Good thing Lego is easy to customize, so those who wish to play checkers in the manner to which they are accustomed won't have too much trouble making a Belgian or Singaporean set by adding a few extra parts.