Dejarik

Dejarik or holographic chess or holochess is a fictional board game appearing in the "Star Wars" space opera franchise that uses holographic figures as pieces. The game has been roughly described as that universe's equivalent of terrestrial chess since it is played on a board with a chequered pattern, each piece has a specific way of moving and attacking, and if it lands on a spot occupied by an opponent, it destroys the other piece. As of 2021, no single, official rule set for the game has been released, and instead, a number of different rule sets (mostly designed by fans) for the game co-exist. Even the number of figures used in the game is unclear (although the best known variant uses eight).
The game debuted in the 1977 film "Star Wars", in a scene on board the "Millennium Falcon". It is notable as one of the classic, early examples of holograms, 3D and AR in fiction.
Origins and history.
The first version of the game shown on screen in 1977 in "Star Wars" (later retitled "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope"), lasting about fifteen seconds, when on board of Han Solo's light Corellian space freighter, the "Millennium Falcon", travelling from Tatooine to Alderaan, the Wookiee Chewbacca plays the game with the droid R2-D2. When R2 seems to be winning, Chewbacca rages, to which C-3PO comments on his useless anger. Han Solo then sarcastically comments on how it is better not to be against Chewbacca and make him nervous, since Wookiees are famous for ripping their opponents's arms, at which point a scared 3PO suggests that R2 "let the Wookiee win". The dejarik board later appears when the starship is flying from the Death Star to Yavin IV, as Luke Skywalker sits in front of it, mourning Obi-Wan Kenobi's death at the hands of Darth Vader.
The movie prop representing the game used in the scene was designed and created by Phil Tippett and Jon Berg. The game would later make appearances in 2015's ' (during which the "Falcon"'s board is briefly activated by Finn) and 2018's ' (as characters play aboard the "Falcon"), as well as in the TV series "" and "Star Wars Rebels", among others.
In the "Star Wars" Universe.
Dejarik is a popular holographic game in the world of Star Wars, installed, for example, on the decks of starships in order to provide entertainment during long flights through hyperspace. A typical game station consists of a hologram generator, usually placed in the cylindrical base of the set, on which there is a board made of three circles filled with alternating white and black fields. When launched, colorful, three-dimensional characters are generated. These characters are controlled by the player using a keyboard built into the table. Each piece has its own specific abilities that can be used during the game. When two characters take the same place on the board, they fight each other.
The game shown in the 1977 movie had eight characters, but the version shown in the film in 2018 has ten. This was because ten figures were originally designed in 1977, but George Lucas preferred the visually "less cluttered" version with eight; in the 2018 film an in-universe explanation was provided: the projector in the "Millennium Falco"n was damaged by Chewbacca before the events of the 1977 film and therefore in the chronologically later version from 1977 there are only eight figures on the screen. This implies that the full version of the game should have ten, not eight, figures.
Rules.
The detailed rules of the game were not described in the film or other official media, and due to a lack of an official, licensed release of the game, a number of fan-created ruleset variants were created over the years. More official rules were created in 2017, when the first licensed computer game implementing dejarik ("") was created; in 2019, a licensed board version ("Galaxy's Edge: Dejarik Board Game with Checkers", as it also allowed to play standard checkers if the board was flipped) was also created, but with different rules than the computer version from 2017; a 2020 official caption for a screenhot of "Star Wars Rebels" at StarWars.com stated that at some point Lucasfilm developed gameplay rules for dejarik, but they were never publicly released. All known rules so far (as of 2021) are for the version with eight figures.
Significance.
A number of licensed merchandise products as well as fan-created works featuring the dejarik game has been released over the years and a theme-park replica of the game has been created in 2017 in themepark.
Dejarik has been the subject of scientific research in the field of human–computer interaction and has been identified as one of the classic, early examples of holograms, 3D and AR (augmented reality) in fiction. It has also been credited as an inspiration to create physical devices that would imitate the effect seen in the movie, from older products such the 1983 computer game. to more recent ones such as those designed by Voxiebox.