Online gaming

Overview🗑 Recycled

World Chess organizes and broadcasts chess tournaments. The company launched online gaming with an official FIDE rating in 2020. Now you can fight for the title of FIDE Online Grandmaster in the comfort of your home. The user interface for the game and lobby was designed by Bureau Gorbunov.

worldchess.com/arena · October 14, 2020

The lobby

The game begins after you select the time per move and an opponent is found for you:

Your options include: playing a quick game with the computer or a random opponent, inviting a friend to a game via a link, finding an opponent with a certain rating, or just choosing from a list of players

The game

The game screen is minimalistic yet informative:

There are two interface styles: for unofficial and for official FIDE games. The unofficial style is designed for non‑professional players.

Informal style
When a player clicks on a piece, dots appear marking all legal moves
For extra clarity, castling is indicated by two dots
When a piece is dragged on a phone, the target square is highlighted and labeled so it is visible under the player’s finger
The previous move is indicated with an arrow
A check is highlighted in red

The official style of FIDE games is more formal and distinguished. The wooden board used for them replicates the standard design of the official World Chess board.

Official style
Instead of backlighting, the player whose turn is up is marked with a white hexagon
The FIDE logo and caption confirm the official status of the game
The legal moves are not indicated when a piece is selected
A check is not highlighted. You have to keep an eye on that yourself
Instead of an arrow, the previous move is indicated by faint highlighting of the squares

The game menu is always within reach, and the CCTV camera reminds the player of the automatic anti‑cheating system in place:

The menu is opened by hovering over the area to the left of the board
If you report your opponent for cheating, the game will be reviewed
The menu is opened by hovering over the area to the left of the board
If you report your opponent for cheating, the game will be reviewed

When the game ends, the menu on the left opens up and you are invited to play again. Below the game notation on the right, a link to the game file appears for download and further analysis:

To resign, press and hold the Resign button for a few seconds. This helps to avoid annoying confirmation questions like “Are you sure you want to resign?” and accidental clicks.

To resign, press and hold the Resign button for a few seconds. This helps to avoid annoying confirmation questions like “Are you sure you want to resign?” and accidental clicks.

Flip the board to see the position through the eyes of your opponent
Customize the board’s appearance

Official pieces

Upon the launch of the new gaming platform, World Chess officially adopts a chess piece graphic design created by Bureau Gorbunov. It is the font Averbach, first used in the book Journey to the Chess Kingdom. In designing the font, we drew inspiration from old and new traditions⁠—books from the 19th and 20th centuries, modern textbooks, and chess websites. In the future, these pieces will be presented in broadcasts and other World Chess products.

Yuri Averbach, Mikhail Beilin. Journey to the Chess Kingdom (in Russian). Bureau Gorbunov Publishing, 2018
The font not only allows the pieces to be used on the board, but also in game notation and text
By the way, the fall of the defeated king also comes from the book ‘Journey to the Chess Kingdom’
The font not only allows the pieces to be used on the board, but also in game notation and text
By the way, the fall of the defeated king also comes from the book ‘Journey to the Chess Kingdom’

Review

If you click on any move in the notation, the game review opens and the selected move displays on the board. The game can be reviewed and analyzed step by step. The review mode is designed in the spirit of chess textbooks:

The board can be flipped in review mode as well

Business

An important objective of the website is to sell paid subscriptions, which allow users to play FIDE rated games officially online. At the end of the game, anonymous players are invited to join World Chess while already registered players are invited to get themselves a FIDE rating.

In the lobby, we also offer players to upgrade when necessary:

Usually the game setup ends with the ‘Find opponent’ button
If a player wants to play officially, but does not have a FIDE rating yet, we offer them the opportunity to get one
Usually the game setup ends with the ‘Find opponent’ button
If a player wants to play officially, but does not have a FIDE rating yet, we offer them the opportunity to get one

Explanatory captions motivate the player step‑by‑step: create an account to play with an internal rating and save games for analysis; upgrade to a paid subscription to play with a FIDE online rating and officially compete with chess players from around the world.

The client on working with the Bureau

“ The Bureau has longstanding standards for work ethic and interaction with clients and adheres to this code religiously. It regulates almost all stages of client‑designer interaction. Fortunately, this code implements a strict attitude towards deadlines, value, and compulsive attention to details.

For this reason, it is generally more expensive to work with the Bureau than with other studios of this level, but development based on their layouts is much cheaper, considering the profound amount of thought they put into their products. ”

“The Bureau has longstanding standards for work ethic and interaction with clients and adheres to this code religiously. It regulates almost all stages of client‑designer interaction. Fortunately, this code implements a strict attitude towards deadlines, value, and compulsive attention to details.

For this reason, it is generally more expensive to work with the Bureau than with other studios of this level, but development based on their layouts is much cheaper, considering the profound amount of thought they put into their products.”

Ilya Merenzon
World Chess president

About the project

Start
August 5 —
Launch
October 18, 2019
11 weeks
Design
Design and development
Art director and lead designer

Ilya Birman

Designers

Konstantin Mozgovoy

Daria Chiltsova

Michael Nozik

‘Usetech’ developers

Evgeniy Klepnyov

Yuri Lobanov

Nikolay Pasynkov

Zorikto Sambyalov

Alexander Sinichkin

Stanislav Stasenko

Dmitry Shilovsky

Recycled

We thank Ilya Merenzon for his trust and Vladimir Kramnik for his participation

Pin
Share
Send