WHITE COURT
Emberglass
Warm, faceted, lantern-gold forms with a confident forward poise. Its fire belongs to the performance, never the rules.
PUBLIC LOCAL-TABLE BETASTANDARD CHESS
LANTERN CHESS · WORKING TITLE
Two courts.
One immutable law.
Standard chess becomes an inhabited table: warm at rest, alive at decisive moments, and always governed by the position—not the performance.
2PLAYERS1DEVICELOCALSAVE + REPLAYNOACCOUNT REQUIRED
Working title · original vertical slice · not a trademark-clearance conclusion
I
THE PLAYER PROMISE
Chess first. Character at the moment it matters.
Every move resolves and saves through one deterministic rules layer. Animation can be skipped, reduced, interrupted, or ignored without changing the position, result, or replay.
THE FIRST TWO COURTS
Equal on the board. Opposed in temperament.
BLACK COURT
Moonstone
Measured, rounded, silver-blue forms with quiet gravity. Its cooler presence carries exactly the same information and timing.
THE FIRST CAPTURE PERFORMANCE
Lantern Crossing
A legal capture resolves first. Then a brief court-colored crossing acknowledges the decisive moment before the board returns to stillness.
- Full motion
- 620 ms
- Reduced
- 160 ms
- Skip
- Immediate
FIELD GUILD ASSIGNMENT
What should I test?
Play one complete match if you can. Specific observations matter more than a rating.
Rules trust
Do castling, en passant, promotion, check, checkmate, stalemate, resignation, and draws behave exactly as expected?
Board clarity
Can you identify every role, selected piece, legal destination, capture, check, and last move without relying on color alone?
Court character
Do Emberglass and Moonstone feel distinct while remaining competitively equal and easy to read?
Motion control
Is Lantern Crossing satisfying at full motion, immediate to skip, and complete in reduced motion?
Match recovery
Does save, refresh, resume, move history, and deterministic replay make the position feel trustworthy?
Return desire
After one complete match, would you sit at this table again—and what would you want refined first?
BEFORE YOU PLAY
A public beta for one shared table.
The safe public build is the complete local two-player game. Private online invitations remain in closed testing.
- Use a desktop first.Keyboard and pointer are the strongest-supported starting point; touch remains part of the review.
- Your match stays here.Save and replay live only in the current browser. Lantern Arcade never owns chess state.
- No account is required.There is no cloud save, matchmaking, rating, chat, telemetry, or paid content.
- Expect revision.Court art, pacing, and wording may change. Standard chess authority may not.
THE TABLE IS READY
Choose a side. Trust the position.
When the match ends, tell us where the court disappeared into the chess—and where it got in the way.