When most people hear “Web3 game,” they still think of two things: tokens and grind. Anichess is trying to flip that script by doing something much harder; building a game that people actually want to live in, then wiring it to an economy that rewards the people who help it grow.

The project started with a simple but ambitious question: what happens if you take one of the most “solved” games in human history, layer new mechanics and lore on top of it, and then give players and creators real ways to plug into that world, not just as speculators, but as co-authors?

That’s the bet behind Anichess and the broader Checkmate ecosystem: a spell-powered chess universe backed by Animoca Brands and developed with Chess.com, with world champion Magnus Carlsen and other top players attached as long-term partners rather than one-off promo faces.  

Now, with a full lore bible (“The Parchment of History”), an on-chain points layer (M8), and the $CHECK “strategy token” rolling out across staking, tournaments, and creator programs, the project is moving beyond “cool chess variant” into something closer to an expandable, on-chain strategy platform.  

Game first, rails second

Anichess still starts in the most conservative way possible: at the board.

The core ruleset preserves the foundations of classical chess—castling, promotion, en passant—and then twists one core objective: you win by capturing the king (“Kingslay”), with no check or stalemate. On top of that sits a spell system: once per turn you can spend accumulated mana to alter the position instead of moving a piece, changing how you attack, defend, or reshape the board.  

It’s free-to-play, runs in a browser, and doesn’t require a wallet to get started. From the outside, it looks like a slightly wilder cousin of the Chess.com interface: daily puzzles, streaks, rankings, cosmetics, seasons. For many players, that’s enough. They never have to read a tokenomics chart to understand whether a move is good or bad.

Only once that loop is established does the “on-chain” layer become relevant. The Checkmate ecosystem positions $CHECK as a strategy token that sits on top of working games—Anichess first, and other titles like the planned roguelike “King’s Gambit” later—rather than as a prerequisite to play.  

That ordering matters. It means someone can live entirely in the game layer, and only later decide whether they want to step into the economic or governance rails that run alongside it.

Turning time and skill into on-chain presence

Instead of paying out liquid tokens for raw hours played, Anichess uses an intermediate layer called M8 (“Mate”) — an on-chain points system that tracks participation and progression. M8 lives on Abstract, doesn’t trade on exchanges, and doesn’t require any buy-in to earn.  

In practice, that means:

• Players earn M8 by staking $CHECK or through in-game activity, depending on the season’s rules.
• Those points unlock progression perks, cosmetics, higher reward tiers, and eligibility for future rewards and airdrops, rather than acting as a direct “salary.”  

The philosophical shift is subtle but important: your identity in the ecosystem is defined less by how much you bought and more by what you actually did — how consistently you played, where you placed, what you helped build.

The same idea shows up in the Ethernals collection, a 960-piece genesis PFP set minted by early players. Ethernals function as long-term “proof of presence” inside the ecosystem, unlocking cosmetic and access perks plus a share of 10% of total $CHECK supply, with amounts tied to rarity.  

None of that changes how you move a bishop or calculate a tactic. But it does mean that the people who were actually there, solving Spell Chess puzzles in the early seasons, climbing ranked ladders, testing patches; have a visible on-chain footprint that follows them forward as new modes, titles, and reward structures appear.

From streamer overlays to spell-casting storylines

Where Anichess starts to look less like a closed game and more like a platform is in how it treats creators.

The official docs already ship with “Creator Assets”: logo packs, visual overlays, and brand guidelines that make it easier for streamers, tournament organizers, and content creators to build Anichess-native content without worrying about basic IP friction.  

On top of that, the Checkmate token design explicitly reserves space for creator and educator participation. Coverage from third-party analytics sites and tokenomics breakdowns highlight that $CHECK is meant to be used not just for tournament entries and ranked play, but to reward projects like educational tools, AI-assisted analysis, or community content that the ecosystem votes to support.  

The new Anichess lore drop—the Parchment of History, with its Void-dwelling Divinities, Mystra, and Arellium-forged orbs—fits into that same pattern. Instead of treating backstory as a static web page, the team is seeding a universe that can support multiple games, characters, and possibly community-driven expansions: comics, fan fiction, narrative quests, spell sets tied to specific tribes or deities, and more.

That kind of scaffolding is what many creators look for when deciding if a game is worth investing in. It’s easier to script a tournament storyline, a long-form video, or a campaign if the world has coherent rules and recurring figures, rather than being “just a chess reskin with a token.

Esports, partnerships, and the “real sport” test

On the competitive side, Anichess has been positioning itself less like a speculative NFT project and more like a hybrid esports title.

The game is incubated by Animoca Brands and developed in partnership with Chess.com, giving it immediate access to one of the largest chess audiences in the world.    It has also signed deals with high-profile grandmasters and streamers, including Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Sopiko Giri, David Howell, Dina Belenkaya, and others, integrating them into campaigns and special events rather than just banner ads.  

On the esports side, Anichess has linked up with organizations like Team Secret to explore competitive formats that sit somewhere between traditional chess tournaments and spell-powered arena matches, with on-chain prizing and performance-linked rewards.  

All of this pushes the project toward what you might call the “real sport test”: are people watching because they care who wins and how, or because they’re hunting a yield?

If the former dominates—if fans tune in for Magnus trying to navigate spell combos, or for up-and-coming players who specialize in specific Divinity styles — then the token layer behaves more like a prize pool and less like a payout schedule. Wins and losses matter first as sport, and only second as line items on a Dune dashboard.

A financial rail that doesn’t eat the game

None of this means $CHECK is risk-free, or that speculation disappears. It is still a tradeable crypto asset, with all the volatility and price cycles that implies. Coverage of the token’s launch has emphasized its multiple roles: tournament currency, staking asset, governance key, and ecosystem incentive, with a fixed 1 billion supply split across players, investors, team, liquidity, and growth.  

But the way Anichess is wired, players don’t start by buying it. They start at the board, or in puzzles, or in spell trials. Over time, the rails become visible:

• Competitive players can use $CHECK to enter performance-based events and stake for M8, unlocking higher reward tiers without guaranteeing any specific yield.  
• Long-term community members with Ethernals or high M8 totals accrue better positions in airdrops and future campaigns, aligning on-chain rewards with prior contribution rather than just fresh capital.  
• Creators and tool builders can potentially plug into governance and funding flows via Checkmate Improvement Proposals (CIPs), depending on how decentralized the ecosystem becomes over time.  

The result is a system where the economy is designed to sit alongside the game, not underneath it. You can ignore it and still get a full experience. If you opt in, you’re signing up for a mix of upside and risk that is explicitly tied to performance, consistency, and contribution rather than to pressing “auto-battle” on repeat.

That doesn’t magically remove all the old Web3 pitfalls. $CHECK can still be accumulated by large holders, markets can still over- or under-price future growth, and incentives can still drift. But the starting point is different: the rails are plugged into something that already looks and feels like a game, not a chart.

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