Why do my unicode characters look different to what I expect?

Question

I'm adding chess pieces to a board and I'm using their unicode characters. However, I expect them to look like these ones from wikipedia:

But they are displaying like this instead:

The code I'm using to display these is as follows:

- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect
{
    NSMutableParagraphStyle *textStyle = [[NSMutableParagraphStyle defaultParagraphStyle] mutableCopy];
    textStyle.alignment = NSTextAlignmentCenter;

    NSDictionary *attrs =
    @{ NSForegroundColorAttributeName : [UIColor blackColor],
       NSFontAttributeName:[UIFont fontWithName:@"HelveticaNeue" size:_squareSize],
       NSParagraphStyleAttributeName:textStyle
       };

    [[self getStringForValue:_squareValue] drawInRect:rect withAttributes:attrs];

}

- (NSString*)getStringForValue:(int)value
{
    NSString* piece;

    switch (_squareValue) {
            // white pieces
        case 1:
            piece = @"\u2659";
            break;

        case 2:
            piece = @"\u2658";
            break;

        case 3:
            piece = @"\u2654";
            break;

        case 5:
            piece = @"\u2657";
            break;

        case 6:
            piece = @"\u2656";
            break;

        case 7:
            piece = @"\u2655";
            break;

            // black pieces
        case 9:
            piece = @"\u265F";
            break;

        case 10:
            piece = @"\u265E";
            break;

        case 11:
            piece = @"\u265A";
            break;

        case 13:
            piece = @"\u265D";
            break;

        case 14:
            piece = @"\u265C";
            break;

        case 15:
            piece = @"\u265B";
            break;

        default:
            piece = @"";
            break;
    }
    return piece;
}

Why do the pieces look different to wikipedia? Is it down to the font? If so, which font should I use? I've tried several fonts but each time the characters look the very same.

Answer 1

The Unicode standard does not specify how a character is rendered. Judging from the Character Viewer on OS X, what you expect is "Arial Unicode MS":

and what you get is "Menlo Bold":

According to the iOS 7: Font list, apps can download "Arial Unicode MS". So you can take that font from your Mac and add it as a font resource to your app.

Answer 2

Unicode characters only determine what the charater is supposed to represent. Fonts then implement the unicode characters. Every font will do them differently.

Try different fonts if you want, but I would recommend figuring out how to use images in your program. That is the only was to control how it looks perfectly.