Lenovo Offers Holochess For Free

A few times last year we mentioned Lenovo's AR game, Star Wars: Jedi Challenges. The game included a headset, a sensor, and a lightsaber controller. 3 different modes were included for $199, Lightsaber Battles, Strategic Combat, and Holochess. The price for the set has since dropped to $149.

In an apparent attempt to spread the technology and generate more buzz, Lenovo has ported the Holochess mode directly to their mobile app. Now you can play Holochess on your Apple (you need iOS 11, supposedly) or Android phone or tablet.

The app is needed to interact with the original hardware, but you can play a version of Holochess for free, and without the equipment.

Once you download the app, you can go straight to the "ARKit" option at the main menu to get started. (Make sure you grant the app permission to access your device's camera.) Then you move your camera until you have a flat surface in view, and then tap the screen to plant the AR Dejarik board into the room in front of you.

The game is worth a few minutes of diversion, while you are moving the dejarik pieces around and watching them beat each other up. It won't exactly captivate you for very long (if at all) and the interface is hard to read on a phone (maybe better on a tablet) because this ported version is not well-optimized for mobile devices so some of the text is very, very small. I played for a few minutes yesterday evening, and it worked well enough. Basically, you move your pieces around the board to confront other pieces. It behaves kind of like an RPG where creatures have health and hitpoints, and you take turns against the AI until someone becomes last man standing. You can unlock locations and beasts. It's silly but..whatever.

You can at least get a taste of AR technology if you've never tried anything like this before. Through your mobile device, a virtual game board is placed in your room. If you allow yourself to get lost in the moment, you might actually think the game board is really there in front of you.

Here are a few screen shots:

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