Hartwig Chess

Hartwig Chess is a free browser game you can play instantly on GamePop — nothing to download, no account to create. When you are done, browse the rest of our board games or the full library.

Hartwig Chess — Bauhaus Chess in 3D

Hartwig Chess is a two-player chess game built by Julian Garnier entirely in HTML, CSS and JavaScript — there is no 3D engine involved at all, just CSS transforms and a lighting model that shades every face of every piece as the board turns. The set is the one Josef Hartwig designed at the Bauhaus in 1924, where each piece is a plain geometric solid whose shape tells you how it moves.

How It Works

Drag a piece to move it. Moves are checked by a real chess engine, so only legal moves land, and check, checkmate and stalemate are all detected. The board rotates to face whoever is on move, and dragging the space around the board swings the camera. There is an undo button if you want to take a move back.

Key Features

• Two-player chess on one device, with full rules validation
• Four board themes — classic wood, marble, flat and wireframe
• A 3D board rendered purely in CSS, with real-time face shading
• Rotate the view freely and undo any move
• Free to play, and runs in any modern browser