Someone was actually playing Magic Chess in the subway car?

Friday after work, squeezing into Line 2, the guy next to me had this weird blue-violet glow coming from his phone screen. My curiosity got the better of me and I glanced over—there were actual flame effects flickering on the chessboard!

"Dude, what are you playing, some kind of special effects chess?"

He didn't even look up from his screen: "AnichessGame, the kind where you can use skills. Just now my knight got zapped by a lightning spell from the other side."

From People's Square to Jing'an Temple, I watched his magical match the whole way—

A knight's L-shaped move got intercepted by a lightning spell, the piece instantly turned to ash. In the corner of the screen, a -0.03 $CHECK popped up.

"This game burns tokens too?"

"Settled on-chain, every skill costs tokens, and wins and losses get recorded on the blockchain."

Before getting off, he made a comeback and burned the opponent's king with a wall of fire. He put away his phone and left me with: "Web3 chess is way more exciting."

Twenty minutes on the subway, and I got to witness a whole new way to play blockchain games.