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Knight-Tac-Toe

This is a simple game I designed to test the flexibility of game creation in a product called "Zillions of Games". The idea is to either checkmate the opponent's king, or arrange your pieces to form three-in-a-row in the center 3x3 area (just as in tic-tac-toe). The normal rules of chess still apply (eg. the king may still not move into check), and the pieces move just as they do in orthodox chess.

Oddly enough, it seems that black has a distinctive advantage. However by changing the starting positions, the game can be made more balanced.

Picture of the board and initial setup
Screen capture of the game as it looks when running under "Zillions of Games".

+---+---+---+---+---+ | n | n | k | n | n | +---+---+---+---+---+ | n | . | . | . | n | +---+---+---+---+---+ | | . | . | . | | +---+---+---+---+---+ | N | . | . | . | N | +---+---+---+---+---+ | N | N | K | N | N | +---+---+---+---+---+ ASCII diagram of the board and initial setup

The 3x3 zone in the center (the squares with the dots on them in the ASCII diagram) is the tic-tac-toe board. The object of the game is to get three of your pieces in a row (with horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) in this area. Or you can win by checkmating your opponents king.

Here is a link to the Zillions of Games "rules" file for this game. You may download it, distribute it, or modify it however you like.

Note: you must have the Zillions of Games product installed on your system to be able to use the Knight-Tac-Toe rules file. You can find the Knight-Tac-Toe rules file from `Zillions Index' file of the Chess Variant Pages.

For a review of "Zillions of Games" see the review page.

Written by David Howe.

WWW page created: January 4, 1999.

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For author and/or inventor information on this item see: this item's information page.
Last modified on: September 29, 2001.

Knight-Tac-Toe

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