You could design a board game to be so compact that it folds into practical nothingness when not in use… or alternatively, you could turn it into an object of art that disguises the board game as home decor. Ferbrick1’s Tower Chess LEGO build takes the latter approach. The cleverly designed chess board morphs into a castle tower when not in use, storing the chess pieces in built-in racks, while the board wraps around to become the tower’s brick facade. Nobody would guess that an entire chess set is hidden underneath, but the minute you open the setup, it’s guaranteed to drop a few jaws and elicit some audible gasps!
Designer: Ferbrick1
An incredibly clever entry into the LEGO Ideas forum, this particular build comes from the mind of LEGO creator Ferbrick1. Designed to look like the tower of a castle or the ‘rook’ chess piece in the game, it fits all the players inside its hollow design and has the LEGO board wrapping around it to conceal the pieces. When you want to play a game, unwrap the board and lay it on a flat surface, before taking the pieces off their individual racks. Once a piece is killed off in the game, it can be placed back on that rack to keep the entire game organized.
The kit transforms into a standard chess board with 64 squares and 32 chess pieces
The Tower Chess Set’s beauty lies in its biggest constraint – it’s made ONLY out of LEGO bricks that have been assembled ‘legally’. That means no gluing pieces together, no wedging them into one another, and no using non-LEGO pieces to build the set. Ferbrick1 hasn’t fashioned us with any details about the number of pieces or the overall dimensions, but his entry into the LEGO Ideas forum does have over 6,000 votes from the LEGO community. If it does get to the coveted 10,000 mark, it’ll be reviewed by LEGO’s internal team before being turned into a retail box set. If you want to see that happen, I’d recommend giving the Tower Chess your vote!
