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Realtime 3D Chess, Multiplayer or bots and customisable ♟️

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Realtime 3D Chess, Multiplayer or bots and customisable ♟️

By FunkyMonkey95

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A chess table with real 3D pieces. Play a friend or a bot (five levels), point at a piece to see its moves, and pick from seven boards and seven chess sets, including marble, gold, sci-fi and fantasy.

Mod Loaders
Minecraft
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About

Description

3D Chess

A chess table for Minecraft with real 3D pieces. Sit a friend down across the board, or play a bot if there's nobody about.

There are no menus to move pieces. You play on the board itself. Point at one of your pieces and the squares it can move to light up. Right-click to pick it up, then right-click where you want it to go. Pieces slide across the board, knights hop, and anything you take flies off and lines up beside the board.

Getting started

Item Recipe
Chess Table White carpet, black carpet, white carpet along the top, three planks across the middle, and a stick in each bottom corner

The table is 4 blocks wide and 3 deep. Place it from where you want to sit as White: the board runs away from you with your pieces nearest. It's in the creative menu too.

Setting up a game

Right-click the edge of the table to open its menu.

  • Press Join to sit as White or Black.
  • Want to play the computer? Pick a bot level in the other seat's list.
  • Choose a board, a chess set and a clock from the drop-down lists. Hover over a set to see it in the preview.
  • Press Start.

Playing

  • On your turn, point at a piece. The squares it can reach light up faintly.
  • Right-click to pick it up. Everyone at the table can see which piece you're holding.
  • Right-click a lit square, or the piece you want to take, to move there.
  • Changed your mind? Right-click the piece again, or left-click, to put it back down.
  • When a pawn reaches the far end, you choose what it becomes.

All the rules are in: castling, en passant, promotion, check and checkmate, stalemate, draws by repetition, the fifty-move rule, and running out of time. The panel in the top left shows both players, the clocks, whose move it is and the last few moves.

You can also offer a draw, resign, or (against a bot) take your last move back.

The bots

Bot
Novice Just learned how the pieces move. Leaves things hanging.
Easy Thinks a couple of moves ahead.
Medium Spots simple tricks and doesn't give much away.
Hard Thinks for about a second and plays its best move.
Expert Takes its time. Good luck.

Bots take a moment over each move, so they never slap one down instantly. You can even sit two bots down and watch them play each other.

Boards and chess sets

Seven of each. Mix and match however you like.

Boards Chess sets
Classic Walnut Classic Staunton
Rustic Planks Carved Wood
Marble Marble
Gold & Onyx Gold & Silver
Sci-Fi Grid Sci-Fi Hover (glowing pieces that float)
Fantasy Ruins Fantasy Figures (dragons, wizards, castle towers)
Tournament Blocky

Good to know

  • For Minecraft 1.21.1 with NeoForge. You don't need any other mods.
  • It needs to be installed on the server and on everyone's game.
  • Works with Sodium and Iris.
  • The bots think in the background, so they don't lag your server.
  • You're welcome to use it in modpacks.