Released back in 1978 for the Atari 2600, Video Chess pits you against a computer with eight difficulty levels, the easiest being Level 8. It's kind of incredible that this game even works on the 2600 at all.

Once you move the cursor, you can only move the cursor again after 33 frames have passed. Once you pick up a piece, you can immediately input a move on the frame after. Here's where the weird stuff comes in. Moving the cursor while holding a piece takes longer. However, the amount of frames before you can move the cursor seems inconsistent. At first, it seems to be a range from 57-60 frames, and then on the final move, it throws that out of the window and starts being 66-70 frames. No idea what's going on with that.

Update: Saved 270 frames by using better cursor movement and switching two moves that result in less cursor moves. Please see user files for replacement.

This more or less just copies the moves in ShesChardcore's RTA WR, with two of the moves switched. RNG can be manipulated in this game, but I haven't been able to find a way to trick the CPU into being Fool's Mate'd. So for the time being, I believe that this is the fastest you can win on Level 8. Like other board games released for the Atari, computer thinking times are present, but for this TAS, they're essentially negligible.

It would be my dream come true to make a TAS for Level 7, the hardest difficulty. It is notorious for many reasons. For starters, according to the manual, the average move time is 10 hours. I once started a game, moved a pawn, and the CPU moved 30 minutes later. Level 7 is so hard that only ONE PERSON has beaten it! Level 7 is a behemoth that I would love to conquer. It would cement itself as the longest Atari2600 TAS on the site. Unfortunately, not only do I not have a plan on how to accomplish this, but it seems that every time I make my first move against Level 7, BizHawk crashes. It might just be my friend's laptop, I hope. The good news is that the entire game has been disassembled and commented by nanochess, so maybe this could be done after all. I can dream.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading my submission notes and the TAS! - Walgrey

nymx: Claiming for judging.

nymx: It really blows me away to see that 'Level 8" is classified as "Easy". Oh well, doesn't really matter...what does matter is this run beats the RTA record, held by ShesChardcore, by roughly 4 seconds.

In regards to optimization...the 3 move mate is very common and exploits the CPU's weakness to stop it. Unlike other 8-bit consoles, where weird things occur, this version seems to have better coding. In fact, it has been reported that only one person has beaten Level 7 (The harder level, also mentioned in this submission)...which says a lot about the ability of this game. After reading the atariage article, I see that the CPU broke down on a sacrifice; however, it did give a valiant effort as it took a long time to perform the calculations.

Accepting.

nymx: Got a message from RetroEdit about an improvement. Unless I'm blind, I didn't see it on the thread or submission. Since my new job is consuming me during the day, I don't have the time to monitor the site, as I have earlier this year.

File has been replaced.

fsvgm777: Processing.