Big Bang Chess: Playing by email with Mail.app
Freeverse, the company which makes the iChat transcript manager for Mail.app Chatalog 
also make a clever little chess app that integrates with Mail, Address Book, iSight and more for the full iApp chess experience.
The game interface is striking.
It presents the two players hovering over a board which comes with “fantasy” and “traditional” pieces:
If you choose the “play by email” option (solo and network play are also available), it sends each move and any comment to a Mail.app message.
Your opponent clicks on the attachment and his or her copy of Big Bang Chess opens to show the new move and to allow the counter move.
The email keeps a reference of all comments through the game:
(Playing with yourself, while fairly common in the blogosphere, makes for a less than riveting game.)
Address Book, iChat and iSight integration offer further ways of enhancing the traditional play-by-email exchange.
Freeverse’s Big Bang Chess is part of a games package that also includes Checkers (a.k.a. Drafts), Reversi, Backgammon and Tic-Tac-Toe (a.k.a. Noughts and Crosses).
The Big Bang Board Games Suite costs USD 24.95. A demo is available from the Freeverse web site.
Tags: Address Book, Apple Mail, chess, clever, games, iChat, isight, mail.app, play-by-emailRelated posts
December 7th, 2006 at 3:14 am
It’s worth noting that Big Bang Board Games comes bundled on all Intel iMacs.
December 7th, 2006 at 6:33 am
It also works via iChat. Just make sure the right ports are open and you can play over the ‘net. On a local network, Rendezvous/Bonjour will take care of it for you.
December 7th, 2006 at 8:45 am
Ah, I didn’t know that, having only ever bought PowerBooks. Thanks.