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LEGO Chess is a LEGO Licensed Game released in 1998 for Windows. As its name implies, it is a game centered around playing chess, with three different modes: Tutorial, Story, and Versus.

  • In Tutorial Mode, The King teaches you the basics of how to play chess, and a couple of moves like castling and en passant.
  • Story Mode has two different sets, a Western story featuring a sheriff trying to capture three bank robbers, and a Pirate story, featuring a Naval captain finding a treasure map and a pirate captain trying to steal it from him. Having pieces take other pieces allows for some cartoony shorts to play to show exactly how these pieces took each other.
  • Versus mode allows players to play against each other using either generic pieces, or the players' choice of the Western/Pirate sets, though if you attempt to play Western vs Pirates, unfortunately no cartoony scenes will play.

In many ways, LEGO Chess served as something of an early indicator of the style of game and humor that future LEGO games would go on to feature. While the game is certainly rough, given it was made for DOS machines in 1998, it was a modest success, and its cutscenes live on in the memories of many players who grew up with the game.


Tropes present in the game:

  • Abhorrent Admirer: In the Pirate King takes Queen scene, the king falls head over heels for the queen when she tries to stick him up, and ends up chasing her away to end the scene.
  • Androcles' Lion: The parrot in the Pirate Rook takes Knight scene, which is being fed by the rook, and protects him from the enemy knight by stealing his cutlass away.
  • Banana Peel: Actually, the entire banana does the trick in the Pirate Queen takes Knight scene. The queen throws one in his path, he slips, and he falls on his butt.
  • "Bang!" Flag Gun: In the Western Rook takes Pawn scene, the cannoneer scares off the pawn with one of these as his cannon.
  • Bank Robbery: The Western story begins with one by three robbers. The story involves the sheriff chasing them down.
  • Braids, Beads and Buckskins: The Native Americans in the Western story seem to just be generic native figures, who live in tipis, dress with feather hats, and so on. It's not meant to have much in the way of complexity.
  • Briar Patching: The Pirate Knight takes Pawn scene has the knight pleading with the pawn not to kick down his sand sculpture of a crocodile. The pawn does so... revealing a crocodile under the sand, which chases the pawn away, much to the knight's amusement.
  • Built with LEGO: Naturally.
  • Coconut Meets Cranium: Weaponized by the Pirate queen in the Queen takes Pawn scene, where she has her pet monkey drop coconuts on the pawn's head.
  • Cool Boat: The Naval ship, a blue and white ship with the Naval crew all aboard as they search for the buried treasure. The pirate ship also qualifies, given there's a skull carved into its back.
  • Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: It's chess in video game form with a LEGO theme, as well as an added Story Mode.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The King is voice-acted, something that later LEGO games wouldn't have. However, the other characters all mumble and grunt, like later games would.
  • Epic Fail: One of the Western Defeat cutscenes has the sheriff accidentally lasso himself while attempting to wrangle a thief.
  • Eye Patch Of Power: The Pirate Captain has one of these on his left eye. The Pirate set's pawn, knight, and king have one as well.
  • Family-Friendly Firearms: Cannons fire much less quickly, guns don't seem to be used for shooting, tomahawks are extremely unreliable, etc. Oddly enough, however, the Pirate rooks have rifles that do fire and do damage, like causing holes in lifeboats and such.
  • Finger In The Barrel: Not literally, given the LEGO figures don't have fingers, but in the Western Rook takes Rook scene, the cannoneer will shoot a ball into the other cannoneer's cannon, plugging it and causing it to explode. In the Western King takes Rook scene, the marshal plugs the cannoneer's cannon with a giant cork to the same effect.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: The Pirate queens apparently have friendly fishing contests.
  • Hook Hand: The Pirate Captain and Pirate king pieces sport these.
  • Jump Scare: The Pirate pawn takes pawn scene features a fake treasure chest getting stolen with a skill set in one of these to scare the thieving pirate.
  • Magical Native American: The Western bishop is a shaman who can use magic spells.
  • Mischief-Making Monkey: The Pirate Queen has some of these carrying her around. She's not afraid to use them.
  • Not-So-Abandoned Building: Zig-zagged in the Western, because the sheriff knows the robber is in the abandoned fort somewhere, but no soldiers can be found. The bandit has tied them all to barrels, and if he wins, he leaves the sheriff tied up with them.
  • Pirate Booty: The MacGuffin of the Pirate story, naturally.
  • Pirate Parrot: The Pirate rook is feeding one in the Pirate Rook takes Knight scene, and it protects its feeder by stealing the knight's cutlass and flying off with it.
  • Pit Trap: In the Western Queen takes Pawn scene, the pawn sets one of these. Unfortunately, he sets it too well, and the chieftess is able to walk her horse right over it. The pawn has to jump on it a few times to get it to give.
  • Recoiled Across the Room: In the Pirate Knight takes Rook scene, the rook fires his rifle, sending him flying into the ocean out of his rowboat.
  • Seadog Peg Leg: The Pirate king pieces each have one. Apparently it can expand and retract, as seen in the King takes Pawn scene.
  • Silly Simian: The Pirate queen has her monkeys get up to crazy antics to take down several of her enemies.
  • Squashed Flat: Some of the Western victories feature their taken pieces getting squashed flat by something massive.
  • Stock Sound Effects: The game makes use of the Hanna-Barbera sound effects library to great effect, considering most of its cutscenes are Looney Tunes-esque.
  • Tipis and Totem Poles: Literally. In one cutscene, the bishop runs right past a group of tipis and climbs a totem pole to get away from the pawn.
  • Treasure Map: The Naval Captain fishing one up kicks off the Pirate plot.
  • Trojan Horse: The Pirate Knight takes Bishop scene, where the knight leaves a gift for the bishop, which the bishop opens to reveal an angry crocodile.
  • Walk the Plank: The defeat cutscene of the second pirate level has the Naval Captain be forced to swim with the fishes. The victory scene from that same level has the Pirate Captain walk it instead. As this is a kids' game, both manage to float to the surface seconds after and gets rescue by their respective crews. Turned on its head in the Rook takes Queen scene, where the rook bounces on the plank and sends the queen overboard. In the Queen takes Rook scene, however, the Rook dives headfirst into a sandbar.

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