USCF Chess
Platform: Intellivision
Region: USA
Media: Cartridge
Controller: INTV
Genre: Board Game - Chess
Gametype: Licensed
Release Year: 1983
Developer: Mattel Electronics, Teletape, Inc.
Publisher: Mattel Electronics
Players: 1 or 2 VS
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Pit your wits against a friend or challenge the computer in USCF Chess!

Game features include taking back and redoing moves, rotating the game board 180 degrees, and setting up the chess board for special moves and instances. When playing against the CPU, players can also switch sides with the computer to make a move for the CPU. If the computer takes too long to make a move, the player may force the CPU to immediately make the best move it can think of, or cause the game to make an audible tone and pause before making the move.

USCF Chess allows 2-player gameplay or for 1 player against the CPU with 7 difficulty levels available.

CATALOG DESCRIPTION:

A great new way to play the ultimate game of strategy, whether you're a novice, intermediate or expert. Pit your skill against the computer or an opponent. Select from eight degrees of difficulty and a time limit on moves. Move up in skill as you improve.


PRODUCTION HISTORY:

A good Chess program was beyond the capabilities of the both the Intellivision hardware and the Intellivision programmers, but Marketing felt that it was a must-have title to establish the Intellivision as more than a toy.

Money was authorized to produce the Chess cartridges with 2K of RAM on board to bolster the insufficient 147 available bytes in the Master Component. No other Mattel Intellivision cartridge was released with onboard RAM.

The gameplay programming was farmed out to Teletape, Inc., a company with experience in Artificial Intelligence. In-house, Russ Ludwick programmed the on-screen display and user interface.

Although on the schedule from early on, the technical difficulties (including a record 19 weeks of testing and debugging) held up release of the cartridge until 1983. When finally released, it did receive the good reviews Marketing was looking for.

The program code was recycled in the Triple Challenge cartridge released by INTV Corporation.


FUN FACT:

Russ tested the program by playing countless games against the cartridge at all levels. He found that when playing at the highest levels, the cartridge was good, but slow. He got in the habit of making a move, then going home and letting the Intellivision think about a response overnight. Because of this, three features were added: (1) the normal Intellivision time-out feature was disabled, (2) a feature letting you switch to an easier level in the middle of a move was added, and (3) a warning that moves at higher levels could take hours -- or days --was put into the instruction book.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/intellivision/uscf-chess_
http://www.intellivisiongames.com/bluesky/games/credits/strategy.html#chess
