Port-A-Chess

Augmented Reality Chess

Port-A-Chess is an augmented reality (AR) video game designed for Android devices with the Unity Game Engine. Triggered by the detection of a specific image, the app allows the user to play chess anywhere as long as they have the image on hand. Using a fantasy theme, the pieces include amusing sound effects for every move the player makes while retaining the timeless classic chess rules.

Additional Information

Role: Programmer

Game Engine: Unity

Built For: Android

Development Time: 1 month

Team Size: 9 People

Possible movement is displayed by shaded tiles.

Working With Vuforia 

To make the AR part of Port-A-Chess work, my team used the software Vuforia. Vuforia allowed the app to start the game when the device's camera detected a specified image. While useful in enabling the AR functionality, Vuforia did not always work nicely with Unity, causing my fellow programmer and I to spend many hours bug testing our builds before we were ultimately successful in creating a stable and working build.

A demonstration of the app being used on an Android phone.

Playable Status

Port-A-Chess is currently unavailable to be played by the public.