Project Partner: Jeffrey Piotrowski

Through a series of observations we found that the game of chess was often very stressful and frustrating for the players. Therefore, we wanted to take a route that allowed the players to have a fun interaction with each other, and the game.

Bounce is a new kind of chess game that reinvents how the players interact with the game and with each other. By adding an extra element to the board we are able to create a movement that creates an interaction.

Elastic fabric made the bouncing movement continuous and effective to a point that rippled the movement throughout the board each time a piece was moved. This interaction, using movement within the board, was then imitated within the relationship of the players. More movement in the board instigated fun interaction between those playing the game and those viewing.

An extra element of our game, was stacking the pieces to create the highest tower. We noticed while testing our mockup games that people wanted to build with our pieces; whichever player that built the tallest tower with 5 of the pieces would be able to retrieve one of their pieces from their opponent. This adds to the strategy that each player has to account for to decide which pieces of their opponents they want to capture.