FRONTIERS — War without tears

THE GAME OF KINGS

About three thousand years ago, in a time when kings ruled the land and borders were drawn by the sword, two kingdoms stood on opposite sides of a small valley. It held no treasures, no great river ran through it, and its soil was not especially fertile. Yet both kingdoms claimed it as their own. No one could remember how the conflict had begun. Generation followed generation, king succeeded king, soldiers died and villages burned in a war that had started before any of them were born. At last, both kings had had enough of bloodshed. They entrusted the dispute to their sons, the heirs to their thrones: if they could find a solution, they would prove themselves worthy of the crown. If they failed, the war would begin again.

Kfir was a big, powerful boy, tall and broad-shouldered. From an early age he had trained alongside his father’s warriors in martial arts, wrestling, and swordsmanship, and few boys his age could stand against him in combat. He was not cruel. He had simply grown up in a world where strength was a natural way to settle a dispute. Nevo was red-haired, agile, and self-assured. He was not as strong or as well trained as Kfir, but he was certainly no boy to underestimate. His greatest strength was his mind. While Kfir trained with warriors, Nevo read the writings of the sages and sought out the very problems others considered impossible to solve. A problem no one had ever solved was, to him, an invitation. One thing the boys had in common: each knew with absolute certainty that the valley belonged to his father’s kingdom.

When they first met, both were surprised. The enemy they had heard about all their lives was, after all, just another boy. They sat facing each other and began to talk. It did not take long for the conversation to become an argument, and the argument a fight. You’re just afraid to admit the valley is ours, Kfir snapped. Yours? Based on what? Nevo asked. Based on the fact that we can take it. Then take it. Kfir lunged. Nevo fought well, but against years of combat training he had little chance. Within moments Kfir was behind him, his arm locked around Nevo’s neck, holding him fast. Say the valley belongs to my father’s kingdom. No. Kfir tightened his grip. Say it, or I’ll break your neck.

Nevo stopped struggling, and in that moment he saw the solution. You win, he said. The valley is yours. Kfir smiled and released him. Until next week, Nevo added. Kfir turned on him angrily. What do you mean, until next week? Next week I’ll win. You? Beat me? Nevo smiled. In a fight? Probably not. You’re stronger and better trained than I am. But in war, the truly stronger army isn’t the one with stronger soldiers. It’s the one that fights more intelligently, that knows when to attack, when to retreat, and how to use its forces. And what makes you think you can do that better than I can? Kfir asked. Nothing, Nevo replied. But you have no proof that you can either. Kfir fell silent. You want to be a king one day, not merely the strongest warrior in the kingdom, don’t you? Nevo smiled. Then let’s see which one of us can think like a king.

He knelt on the ground, cleared away a few stones with his hands, and spread out the sheet of leather he used to write down his thoughts. With a small stick of charcoal, he sketched the two provinces of his kingdom and the valley. Kfir knelt opposite him, took the charcoal, and added the two provinces of his own kingdom. Only then did they see the complete picture: four provinces surrounding the territory at the center, two kingdoms, each with two frontiers, and the valley between them. Nevo picked up a small stone and placed it on one of his kingdom’s provinces. Let’s say this is my army, he said, moving it toward the valley. I enter from here. Kfir studied the stone, picked up one of his own, and placed it in Nevo’s path. And I stop you here. Nevo smiled. Then I’ll attack from here, he said, placing another stone. Kfir countered, Nevo responded, and Kfir moved again. Another stone appeared on the map, then another. Their quarrel had not disappeared. It had simply moved from their hands to their heads. Sometimes their heads even hurt, but now it was not from blows. It was from thinking.

By evening, they had given the stones different roles and marked them to show how each force was allowed to move. Whenever they disagreed, they made a rule. Whenever they discovered a move that seemed unfair, they changed it. Each kingdom had two frontiers, each frontier had its own force, and above them all stood the king. Kfir had won the first battle of the day. His strength, agility, and years of training had defeated Nevo within moments. But in the second battle, fought on the sheet of leather, everything was reversed. Here, Kfir’s powerful arms gave him no advantage. Nevo saw moves before they happened, misled him, attacked on one frontier and surprised him on the other, and in the end, Nevo won.

Kfir did not like losing, least of all to Nevo. But what troubled him even more than the defeat was the discovery that his strength had been of no use to him. For the first time, he had encountered a battle in which becoming stronger meant thinking better. He demanded a rematch. Nevo smiled. One week. And so their next battle was set. This time there would be no fists and no swords, only the leather board, stones representing the movement of their forces, and the understanding that the greatest power of all was the power of the mind.

Kfir trained throughout the week. He replayed the battle in his head, tried to understand where he had gone wrong, and searched for moves Nevo would not expect. When they met again, they immediately spread the leather board on the ground and began their battle simulation. The second contest was harder because both were already thinking more strategically. Then came a third, and a fourth. The more battles they fought, the better their moves became. Sometimes Kfir won, sometimes Nevo, and new ideas and rules were born at every meeting. Without intending to, the two boys had transformed their fathers’ war into something entirely different: they could attack without wounding, lose without dying, win without killing, and return the following week to try again. A war fought on two frontiers, at the end of which there was always a victor. And still, no blood was spilled and no one suffered pain. At least, not physical pain.

At last, the two boys returned to their fathers carrying the sheet of leather and the stones. From that day on, so the legend tells, the kings met once a year on neutral ground. Instead of sending their armies into the valley, they spread out the leather board and fought for it themselves. The victor ruled the valley until the following meeting. Even the people of the valley grew accustomed to the idea that life went on when their ruler changed. The years passed, and the valley changed hands many times, yet not another soldier lost his life and not another village burned because of it. Word of the Game of Kings spread. Rulers of distant kingdoms asked to learn it, military commanders used it to sharpen their minds, and fathers taught it to their sons. For generations, countless wars were fought upon sheets of leather without spilling a single drop of blood. Then the kingdoms vanished, the names of the kings were forgotten, and the game itself was lost.

Centuries passed. Some say that among the scrolls discovered in ancient jars in the caves of Qumran was one piece of leather unlike all the others. It was not a written scroll, but a flexible sheet of leather covered with a structured design and mysterious markings, resembling a map with four provinces surrounding a central territory. Beside it, they say, was a sealed leather pouch containing a collection of small stones, each engraved with a symbol. Researchers noticed that some of the symbols repeated and appeared to represent directions of movement, and perhaps even power and rank. This raised an intriguing possibility: perhaps it was not an ordinary map at all, but the board of an ancient strategy game, and the stones found beside it were its playing pieces.

No one knows for certain. Some claim that the leather board and stones disappeared among the hundreds of scrolls found rolled inside the jars of the caves. Others insist they were never found at all. When the story eventually reached the man who revived the game, known by his Renaissance name, Leonardo da Gvishi, he decided to remain as faithful as possible to its ancient design. He made the board from leather and experimented with playing pieces made from stone and even marble, before finally choosing to cast them in metal. The spirit of the ancient name survived as well: Hazitot — Frontiers — known to the world as

FRONTIERS

Truth or legend? It is difficult to say. But there is at least one thing you can discover for yourself: on the Limited Edition page, you can still become one of the few people in the world to hold the Game of Kings in your own hands.

FRONTIERS

THE CLASSIC GAME OF FUTURE GENERATIONS*

THE STORY OF THE GAME

I invented FRONTIERS back in 2002, when my father retired from his work as a physicist at Rafael.

My father, Dr. Moshe Gvishi, was an amateur chess player. As a teenager, he won several chess tournaments and was considered to have a very promising future in the game had he chosen to pursue it professionally. Instead, he focused on mathematics and physics, eventually becoming one of Israel’s leading physicists and even leading significant research for NASA.

So when my father was 67 and I was 34, we started playing chess together again, just as we had when I was a child.

There was only one problem.

It did not take long for both of us to return roughly to the level we had reached at fourteen. My fourteen-year-old level was somewhat above average. His fourteen-year-old level was that of a gifted chess player who could remember complete games by heart and who had even defeated Cherniak, an Israeli champion and at one point one of the world’s leading players, in a simultaneous exhibition.

I had no chance.

But I could not accept the idea that my father was simply more talented at chess than I was, because that might suggest he was simply smarter than me. That may still be true, but that is beside the point. 🤣

My conclusion was much more convenient: my father was beating me because almost every position we reached was a position he had effectively encountered before, while I had not.

So I had two choices.

I could close the gap: read grandmaster books, join chess sites and play thousands of games.

Or I could change the rules of the game in my favor.

I chose option two.

I tell this story in some detail because the reason I invented FRONTIERS is still relevant to millions of people today. Many people do not play chess because they have little experience with it, or perhaps do not even know all the rules. Chess knowledge is often passed down inside families, from father or grandfather to child. And people generally do not enjoy sitting across from someone who has years of experience and immediately feeling stupid or less intelligent.

Years later, after watching many serious chess players play FRONTIERS and love it, I reached another conclusion: the fact that everything is new is itself an enormous advantage.

You do not need years in a chess academy before you can enjoy FRONTIERS. You can enjoy it from your very first game.

So, back to the invention.

I had decided to change chess. But how could I change it without going so far that my father would simply look at me and say, That isn’t chess anymore?

My first move was to change the shape of the board from a square to a cross, with each player controlling two armies, or fronts.

But I did not want the commander to control too many pieces, and I also wanted to avoid having two bishops operating on the same color. So I reduced each front to one bishop, one knight and six pawns. That created a front of twelve pieces instead of the sixteen pieces in traditional chess.

But because each player commands two fronts, each player actually controls an army of twenty-four pieces.

Then came the second idea, which was at least as radical and ultimately created much of the magic of FRONTIERS:

The commander gets two moves per turn, one on each front.

Think of beach volleyball: one player sets, the other spikes.

The two fronts have to cooperate. One creates the opportunity; the other exploits it. In that sense, FRONTIERS begins to resemble modern warfare, where success depends on coordination between separate forces.

By April 2002, I had built the first physical prototype and brought it to our family Passover gathering. The reaction was immediate.

My father, who had always respected my ability as an inventor, looked at it and said:

You’ve got something here.

Through the chess community, he helped me make my first connections. One of those connections eventually led me to Grandmaster Alon Greenfeld, former captain and coach of the Israeli national chess team and, around that period, a leading coach on Garry Kasparov’s chess platform.

Greenfeld was also closely involved with Junior, the world-champion chess program developed by Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky.

Through Greenfeld I reached many of the leading figures in Israeli chess. The response to the invention was extremely enthusiastic.

But enthusiasm was not a business.

I realized that if FRONTIERS was going to become a real product, it needed a digital version.

I recruited a childhood friend who was himself a chess fanatic, loved chess variants and also happened to write code. Together we created the first playable digital version using the Zillions of Games platform.

Again, the response was excellent. People played. We received a great deal of feedback.

But time passed, and I still could not see a business emerging from a successful game that people were playing online for free.

Then, during 2005, I began seeing publicity for the Israeli version of the television program The Sharks.

I applied and made it onto the show.

FRONTIERS was a hit there too. The Sharks competed over who would get to invest in me and the venture. The winner was Zeev Holtzman, then CEO and Chairman of Giza Venture Capital.

And just like that, FRONTIERS entered Giza’s portfolio, with the ambition of becoming its path into the emerging virtual world.

After an investment of $225,000, however, we still did not have a stable product. The website kept crashing, and at the time it was far from obvious to the fund how an online game could actually make money.

My own insistence that the game should run on a server and be playable from different devices was also rather ahead of its time. It certainly did not help the stability of a system that effectively needed a server farm just to stay alive.

After two years of development, by the end of 2007 the fund had had enough, and we separated on good terms.

There is a formal separation agreement, and everything stated here about that period is my responsibility alone and does not represent any future partner.

Then came the 2008 financial crisis.

That combination was disastrous for the venture. Private investors were hardly eager to enter a project that a half-billion-dollar venture capital fund had just exited.

And so FRONTIERS went into hibernation.

An extraordinary product that had still never truly reached the world.

Now, twenty years later, I am back.

This time I returned essentially on my own, with AI coding agents and some help from friends, to finally realize the potential of FRONTIERS.

And today the website is live.

The next stages are multiplayer at scale, an AI engine capable of reaching superhuman strength, and competitive play for money.

Which brings us to why you are reading this.

If you want to become part of the history of how FRONTIERS became THE CLASSIC GAME OF FUTURE GENERATIONS, talk to me.

And transfer the appropriate amount of money into my bank account. 😜

But seriously, there is something I would value from the right partner even more than money.

Experience.

Experience building and scaling a business in the games industry, and the ambition to turn an already proven game concept into a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Because the largest expense twenty years ago was development.

Today, development costs me a fraction of what they once did.

And there is one final irony.

Twenty years ago, the Chairman of Giza told me that FRONTIERS could conquer the world like Sudoku. He estimated that even in a minimum-success scenario it could be worth $50 million.

So why did he eventually leave the project?

At the time, he simply could not see how you make money from a game on the internet.

Twenty years later, that might be the funniest part of the whole story. 🤣