Andy Robertson runs Family Gamer TV and his Family Gaming website.
 
A great way to enjoy time with nephews and nieces is to make up your own entertainment. However, with so much prepackaged fun to be had with the likes of Skylanders Giants and upcoming Skylanders Swap Force, it can be difficult to get the kids away from the video-game screen.
 
Recently, with my kids, I stumbled across a neat way of teaching them a classic board game while at the same time having fun with our Skylanders figures. As you can see in the video below, they invented their own version of chess involving Skylanders characters rather than wooden chess figures.
 
But Skylanders Chess is not only a novel use for the toy figures but it also finds a new use for the Giants and Spyro’s Adventure portal that will soon be redundant when Swap Force is released. You see, they place the Portal under the board so that when particular figures are over it, they magically light up. In the game, they’ve added rules to say that illuminated pieces can’t be taken for two goes.
 

 
The exact rules are still in flux, but here’s a basic set of rules they use:
 
Two sides are set up on the dark squares of a checkers board, and each player picks two elements to use as their chess pieces. Each side needs at least seven pieces—although this can be supplemented if necessary. The following pieces have special abilities, otherwise the game proceeds like checkers:
 
-Flight: Winged figures like Spyro can move two squares in a straight line.
-Giants: Can move two squares in and turn corners.
-Shoot: Figures with guns like Trigger Happy can eliminate another piece (in line of sight) rather than moving.
-Bomb: Area effect character like Eruptor can eliminate all pieces around them in a two-square radius.
-Light-Core: When they are illuminated, they are safe for two rounds.

Photo: Courtesy of Andy Robertson
Published: March 6, 2013