Twitter games are the best use of the new 280 character limit

Some genius Twitter users are already using the expanded 280 character limit on Twitter in the best way: by playing games using emoji.

Bryan Menegus of Gizmodo and Jack Crosbie played what might be one of the first full games of chess entirely on Twitter (Menegus won with a checkmate). The grid and pieces were represented by Unicode characters roughly analogous to a grid board.

check and mate. (also is the first full game of chess played entirely on twitter?)
♝♞♞♟♟♝
–
☖☖☖☖☖♖♔☖
♙☖☖♜☖☖☖♛
☖☖☖☖☖☖♙☖
☖☖☖☖☖☖☖☖
☖♟☖☖♙☖☖☖
☖☖☖☖♟☖♟☖
♟☖☖♟☖☖☖♟
☖☖☖☖♚☖☖♜
–
♗♘♖♗♙♙♙♕♙♙

— Bryan Menegus (@BryanDisagrees) November 10, 2017

Other people are playing Connect Four:

People are literally playing Connect Four on my timeline now.

280 characters was a mistake. pic.twitter.com/unO16YgPlm

— Jdawg @ ????????? (@Jdawg926) November 8, 2017

And of course checkers:

let's play checkers

⬜?⬜?⬜?⬜?
?⬜?⬜?⬜?⬜
⬜?⬜?⬜?⬜?
⬛⬜⬛⬜⬛⬜⬛⬜
⬜⬛⬜⬛⬜⬛⬜⬛
?⬜?⬜?⬜?⬜
⬜?⬜?⬜?⬜?
?⬜?⬜?⬜?⬜

— SuperBluey2749, Connoiseur of the Blue (@SuperBluey2749) November 9, 2017

I’m no good at anything except a brisk game of checkers, so I wouldn’t have the patience to do something like this. But it’s fun seeing how creative other people can be.

Other popular uses of the new character limit include single-character lines to give the impression of longer tweets — like this example from the Kansas City Chiefs, which stretches the tweet to look like a wall. At least it’s not a site-breaking 35,000 character tweet.

I look forward to seeing what else creative people can do with the new limit. I’m curious to see if anyone can make a primitive Match-3 game, honestly. Consider that a challenge, Twitter.

h/t Bryan Menegus