Vortex chess is a chess variant I wrote for Zillions after being
highly caffeinated and kept awake for over 24 hours. :)
The setup and rules are basically the same as standard chess, but
there is the inclusion of one new piece on both sides: The Portal, or
Vortex. (It can be called both, because the game is called Vortex
Chess, but the piece-name I put in for the vortex itself was "Portal",
and I didn't notice it at the time due to my caffeinated state. :P)
The setup is as above, with white's vortex (the blue one) on the fourth
rank on the far left, and black's (the red one) on the fifth to the far
right.
The effect of the vortex is as follows: Any piece that would otherwise
land on the space occupied by the vortex, its path is transplanted onto the
space in that same direction from the other vortex.
For example, from the opening move, the leftmost pawn of White can move
to the sixth rank on the far right, because it has an opening move of
two.
The movement of the vortex piece is simple - it can move to any unoccupied
square. At first I thought this might make it too easy to defend a King
in check, but upon seeing Zillions' response to this tactic, I realized
that the portal can only defend the King if there is only one space between
the King and the attacker, as the opponent can always place their portal
next to yours, in effect nullifying it.
Knights take a little getting used to in Vortex Chess, depending on how
you remember how they move. A Knight can leap over a portal, but if it
lands on one, it moves diagonally from the other, not orthogonally, which
is what a person might think if they use the L-shape movement for ease
of remembering. :)
I have not included the ZRF file for this game in my submission, as I'm
still going over bugs and the like, but if you want a copy, just
e-mail me and I would be happy to
give you a copy.
This ZRF has two variations - the default allowing movement of the portals
only once every other turn, by alternating sides. The variant allowing
movement of the portals during each turn by both sides.
Written by Robert LeRoy.
WWW page created: March 6, 2000.
