The Escher Chess Duality Game

An Escher-inspired chess variant with a mystery at its heart.

Escher Chess ESCHR CHESS DUAL

A chess variant for two players, played first on a 5×10 board and then on an 8×8 one. In each case, there are two flatly contradictory ways of seeing this game which somehow turn out to be perfectly coherent with each other.

A chess set drawn from two contradictory viewpoints at once
The firewall

You and your friend must play on separate devices. No peeking at each other's screen. No talking — mute the call. For the first game, each of you should attend only to your own board. Breaking the firewall spoils the mystery. Call each other afterwards.

There is a tutorial and a game in both sizes (5×10 and 8×8). Please play them in the correct order as they build upon each other. Taken out of order they will spoil each other. The two tutorials can be played alone, or side-by-side with your friend. But the two games require that you use separate devices.

  1. 1 The 5×10 tutorial It will only take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the new board shape and the slightly funny pieces. Tutorial
  2. 2 The 5×10 game Play with a friend on separate devices. Chat afterwards. Play
  3. 3 The 8×8 tutorial Another (even shorter) tutorial to familiarize yourself with how the pieces behave on the new board. Tutorial
  4. 4 The 8×8 game Play with a friend on separate devices. Chat afterwards. Play

Each screen hands you the next one when you are finished with it, so you can start at the top and never come back here.