Review: NOVICA Hand Carved Combination Chess Backgammon Set

While Armchair Arcade is primarily known for its videogame, computer, and technology coverage, we occasionally like to branch out into areas that are of likely lateral interest to our audience. One of those areas is board games. As such, today I’m taking a look at the high quality NOVICA Hand Carved Combination Chess Backgammon Set.

How it arrives.

There are lots of layers of shipping protection.

The NOVICA Hand Carved Combination Chess Backgammon Set is a roughly 3/4 scale travel set that, as the name implies, plays both chess and backgammon. The first thing that you notice when you take this set out of the extensive protective packaging is the smell. It’s a light and pleasant one, and is due to the mix of sheesham and kadam woods.

What’s inside.

The bottom of the board.

What’s also interesting is that this is a certified fair trade product in association with National Geographic. Apparently NOVICA works with Khyali Ram in India to craft this product, and it definitely does have a masterfully crafted look and feel to it, so it’s not surprising there’s an association with National Geographic.

The interior storage area and backgammon board.

The top of the set is the chess board, while the sliding storage drawer for the pieces also doubles as the backgammon board. This is a great use for the drawer, because it can also help keep your dice contained if you want to throw them and you’re not in a convenient place to use them freely.

The bags of pieces.

Befitting the set’s size, the pieces are small, but also well detailed. Like the bottom of the chess board, there’s also green felt on the bottom of the pieces. Again, this is clearly designed with care. As a bonus, besides the felt, all of the pieces are also magnetic on the bottom, so they stay on the board. This is definitely something that would work in a moving vehicle or other unstable scenario.