Rated Comments

I really like this variant. It's simple but adds something new to the game. I think it would also be interesting to add some optional rules:

• A friendly pawn behind its friendly pawn can bypass it by moving diagonally.
• The knight has an additional special move. Special move: The knight can move without capturing an enemy piece two squares horizontally or vertically, provided that there is a friendly pawn between the target square and the knight.

These are my thoughts on this variant. Overall, a very interesting idea.

Is chess [still] important? An older member of my chess club once opined in the new millennium that chess is no longer as important as before. I didn't ask what he meant. To me, chess reached its high mark in the 1970's, mainly with the Geo-political stakes involved in the Fischer-Spassky match, and later the Karpov-Korchnoi one. Chess was also important back then since it was seen as a test for AI whether a machine can beat a highly skilled human player at the game. Chess suffered to some degree because of what followed historically, in both cases.

In the TikTok era Chess is more relevant than ever. In a world were people are increassingly lacking concentration, playing chess can not only help people maintain focus, but also evade the modern insanity. 

Two of the pieces used here (Phoenix and Medusa) I will be using in my Titanic Chess but I'll have to use different moving and capturing abilities for that purpose. Since these are mythological creatures I have to disagree with the way they are used to move and capture in this game. But appart from that, this looks like a great game. 

A good concept, but it needs improvement. I don't like having only one Bishop, as it can reach only half the cells. It's a colour-bound piece, so we really need two. To avoid attacking non-pawns on the other side, perhaps enlarge the board and put a "hedge" of pawns around each army — I don't see that there needs to be only two of them.

Simplified form of Knight-Relay Chess

This i find a very good idea, 31 new symbols, but we could also use the lowercases for 31 new symbols for modifiers, like the different i's for different cases of initial, so that ii is not needed, for I maybe we could use different Imitators.

Examples of what I personally might assign to those letters include Ø as a null move, Þ for a Rose, Ñ for Quintessence, and Ê for Edgehog.

I like these ideas, outside of Rose, since they couldn't be (easily) written otherwise, we could do like ê as the Edge-Modifier (and possibly ë as the Limited Edge-Modifier). We'd also may need a symbol for relative halfling, i originally thought a lone h, but maybe one of these Windows-1252 symbols works better

Complicated problems most of the time have simple solutions. You could have put both Bishops on one side of the board, and both Knights on the other side. And the opponent will have them the other way around. Simple. 

Another solution would be to add an extra piece (A Shield Bearer/Scutier to protect the King) and make the board 10x8. 

What the flame with fonts on the site?!!

Four stars for the original chessboard.

This game was very popular almost two centuries ago and lots of famous people used to play it. 

I used these when I hadn't learned how to use morph
Edgehog
oabyaK(af)mpafoabK
Edgemover
(af)mpafoabKoabyasW
Limited Edgehog
oabyafympafmpabFmpabasmpabafmpabasoabyafympafmpabWmpabasmpabafmpabaz(af)mpafoabK

It's a shame that great ideas are buried and forgotten. This game has a great potential and I'm really impressed by such a simple idea. 

Also, this game deserves a better name. 

Like Half-Kyoto Chess. Remarkable.

Apparently, in China, the vao is called "弩", meaning "crossbow". So I think in English, it should be called "crossbow". I am getting this information from https://discord.com/channels/634298688663191582/894530740820262932/1209401956297351258.

No, normal. Like my Rocket)

Interesting concept. It might be more difficult to attack the enemy King from the flank because Bishops will have to travel in zig zag and Knights will be too powerful. But I like the idea. 

Here is my humble suggestion on how to improve this game.

Use a 7x7 board.

7x7 = 49. 

Add 4 extra squares on the corners.

49+4 = 53. 

Add a Jocker to the stack of cards and you are done. 

You can also give additional powers to the Jocker and the King cards. 

So, what do you think? 

Good news! You can play Scramble against Stockfish on Chess.com. 

You have no idea just how insane this game is.

Here is how to do it:

• Go to Chess,com
• Go to Learn / Analysis /Set Up Position / Clear Board
• Place pieces on the board according to the rules of Scramble
• Practice vs Computer
• Change Bot
• Play!

These are probably just a bunch of silly ideas. However, some of these variants might give somewhat nice strategic games. I hope I did not offend go players with my unusual description of their game.

This was a good attempt at mixing Chess with Go. However, in my humble opinion, in order to make this game work we need to keep the number of "liberties" to four, not eight, otherwise the game might become unecessarily messy and impossible to finish. 

A second rule should be to only keep pieces that move orthogonally only. This means that only  Rooks and restricted Kings (Kings that only move orthogonally) are allowed to join the game.

Alternativelly, we can also invent some pieces that move in zig-zag.

Knights can also be included with the restriction that they can only move along empty squares. 

This is a fun design. I've made a rules enfrcing preset in case anyone wants to try it.

I think this piece caled Sissa is great, but I would remove acute angles (45 and 315 degrees) and only keep obtuse angles (135 and 225 degrees). 

I would also remove the rule that both moves have to be of the same length. This will create a new piece that can make an absolute mess on the chessboard. 

I have not played this game personally, but I must say, for a multi-move variant, this game was very well-made.

Also, the new circle symbol in GC for past moves is very nice. However, this functionality doesn't seem to work with hexagonal boards (like Hex Shogi 91's).

An excellent experimental variant. Need I say any more about a concept so simple and brilliant that it works with any practically any board with an even number of ranks, and with odd numbers of ranks with some adjustment?

No other differences.

I have tried the game online, and it is really fun, especially on the normal version.

I don't think you need the word retainer in the sentence "Try to complete the King’s tour with the fewest retainer casualties as possible!".

Also, you should clarify that Pawns move upward, not downward, and that they can swap directly forward as well as diagonally forward.

Otherwise, this looks good enough to be approved.

I love it. There are a lot of nice, sophisticated and interesting chess variants out there, but not many variants that I see myself actually playing. But Lighthouse will definitely be in my collection of mini-chess games I play with friends and colleagues. This game perfectly blends fast pace, simple and understandable rules, accessibility and an opportunity to enjoy the special spirit of Shogi.

Great work, Lev.

Hey, does anyone know where i can find an online version of this, i wanna play it online with friends

I had not seen this page for a while. It is quite nice.

Just for information, I've seen 2 small typos: "sqaure" and "matnicore"

It is a very nice and creative take on the chess labyrinth kind of game. I tend to agree, that digital implementation could be the best way to make this game playable - cause it needs some algorithm that ensures that every starting position is solvable. Overall, I think it's a great minimalistic game that can be used in school tactical games clubs or as support material to teach the basics of chess.

Really cool. Didn’t seen these compounds.
Resonates with my idea of pieces with hopping parts (e.g. for my rocket board as well as for normal one).

P. S. I have a better-quality setup image.

If one were to utilize a four-color scheme for the Raumschach squares in order to visualize the unicorn's moves in the same way that the light and dark squares allow you to visualize the moves of the bishop, how would one do so? What would it look like?

Suddenly seen 18.5 years after (so cool that I’ve first seen Russian language version via random game page!) and I have an idea. There’s stated that same pieces can merge, what if they can be upgraded this way? Like Knight to Nightrider, Rook/Bishop to ranger+hopper hybrids, Guard to Torch (slip Queen) or Lion (area mover) ah he can’t.

I didn't notice the three black Bishops on c5. That was a good point, but still, the black player can't win the game.

I have to recalculate the points. Thanks.

That'd be nnNN, wouldn't it?

Astounding. I don't think I'll ever play something so complex, but the concept and work are awesome. The case, when reading about game rules and design, is almost as exciting, as the play itself.

As for myself, I’m not even sure this is a chess variant. Although it uses Chess equipment, it seems to be a very different sort of game than chess.

Though it’s rather good (at least at first glance). Idea is very interesting.

It's basically the idea of the piece Joker, invented by T.R.Dawson but with a lot more constraints. This might be better if there was motivation given for how the extra rules are beneficial. As it is, it occupies the term "Copycat" that might be given better meaning. Sorry.

Reusing the names of 8:3:n leapers for a Higgler hex coordinate could unite Cormorant and the 7 level moving Entrap rotation with cubic pieces with twice their SOLL (Octodont, Onlooker), allowing Octodont+Cormorant (Coypu?)/Goose/Gull/Bustard, Jaw+Chough (Jamaican?)/Gosling/Guillemot/Budgie and Onlooker+Entrap/Nosrap (Nosferatu) on hex-prism boards.

I like Cetran 3 more than the 8x8 versions. The piece variety makes it much more fun.

Very good article! I really like this variant in this interpretation.

This is a good idea but I would have included more randomness into it. We are talking about computers beating humans at chess. We need to make the chess game impossible for computers to analyse. If the chess pieces for this game were something Reversi like, where you can flip a piece and turn it into a completely different and random piece, that would flip upside down the entire strategy of chess, giving humans more advantage against computers.

HG Mulller's Grasshopper Chess

Cylindrical Chess but null move is allowed

And with shuffle.

I see that Bishop/Camel + Harvestman compounds (Evangelist and Imam) are also able to checkmate in K vs K + X endgame. (It includes the King move so can easily do that). OTOH Wildebeest (aka Gnu) is not able to do this.

I cannot call this game “bad”, but I agree with the British chess master William Winter that the standard Marshall-Chancellor and Cardinal-Archbishop pieces added to Chess obviate the Knights and Bishops to a great extent when combined with the Queen already existing. The Amazon arguably also obviates the Rook in addition to people being skeptical of adding it to Chess without adjusting the rules so it doesn’t overpower the game. Have you tried playing with Fusion Chess or Assimilation Chess rules with Men?

This is (IMO) quite a clever use of a Carrier type of piece. I'd love to see if that can be programmed into an Interactive Diagram; I think it'd be interesting to play.

Too bad that this GC has no rules enforced

Harvestman seems too strong for a Rook.
Color-switching approximately Rook-valued pieces that I know are NH, NW, Mao-Bishop, Trojan Horse.

Alright. I haven't many things to say. So I select "poor". Hope I'm not getting my votes down by some centivotes. :=)

This piece has the power of Queen. And I’ve found a checkmating tactic for the piece which controls the spaces around the files/ranks such as Aanca, Magician and one my piece I currently omit. This tactic appears in K vs K + piece endgames and is called wind tunnel (aerodynamic tunnel). Piece confines the King in a file/rank between its covered lines, and then your King drives it to the last rank, but to avoid stalemate, you should then cut off the previous-to-last line to avoid escaping of opponent’s King. But it’s better to firstly drive them as far as you can from board center and then confine into tunnel. For Aanca it’s possible on normal board, but less possible for Magician, though you shouldn’t forget that both these pieces are from games with 12x12 board.

Royal Ninny>Ninnyrider>Chinoise Ninnyrider>Yahoo>Ninny>Dumbo>Trapped Ninny

And this was how I learned that a couple of people had already made Beast Chess a Favorite. There's hope for me yet...  ;)

Interesting variant, definitely looks wild and very dynamic.

The GIF images are legacy, and should no longer be used for new projects.

I did not know that. I won't worry about that, then. Never mind. :)

(To author):

Реально свежая идея, которую можно развить в свои варианты. У меня есть похожая идея, но с другими доской|фигурами|правилами.

Замечательно!

Yes, I used Bob Greenwade's Dealers Chess set.

15 October is National Mushroom Day.

How does the Onion, the Garlic, & the Anchovy moves?

Halfling Combine might be too strong for a Queen.

I got the icon shown from pictures of actual high priestesses, so I'll do it the other way around: the one already posted is High Priestess (and it's already labeled as such in the filename), and I'll use this new flipped one for High Priest.

Like so:

Oh, and for most purposes I actually prefer to call it High Priestess. It's just that High Priest fits better for what's happening with it in this particular game.

By the way, your use of High Priestess is the only FAN on the Wikipedia page on fairy chess pieces, and I haven't been able to find any other name for that move combo anywhere.

PS: It's the High Priestess in the Dealer's Chess Expansion Set #1.

Another in a line of Fergus' concept CVs re: fission or fusion.

Symmetric Sissa is a nice compliment to this original CV with the use of Sissas.

Thx for the layout! I’ve recently refreshed some text and carried the Rules section out of layout. So I want to say: Chess on the Rope are READY!

Also some my other variants are ready (I’ve updated Fluidity this week and ChBrTi today), so you can look at them also. Please

Just like against the Avians, the Clobberers must use their alternate setup when playing against the Cutters.

Shogi is perhaps one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. It's drop rule lets players come back much more easily, while the forward bias negates the advantage to defense such a rule would normall imbue. However, it is not without it's problems. The biggest one is easily the fact that the vast of the pieces promote to a Gold equivalent. Although this is a very rare situation, when a lot of Gold/Gold equivalents appear on thee board, it can easily turn Shogi into a very drawish Checkers game, and if an impasse occurs, this amplifies the problem even more.

Seireigi fixes the aforementioned problem to an extent by making all promotions unique. This also helps mitigate impasse situations, as more pieces are capable of stopping a King from reaching the opponent's camp. However, this comes at the cost of having more moves to remember (14 in total).

My first thought was that the stalemated player is usually "Low" and will lose the game in fifty moves. My second thought was: What about my [2023-04-18] Comment to Grander Chess? A few minor changes resulted in the diagram below, where both Kings are equidistant from the centre.

WHITE can play 1.Bc8 and BLACK is stalemated (but still wins the game).

Grant Sinclair writes: "Black’s height advantage, which makes Black High when both Kings are equidistant from the centre, has been designed to balance White’s first-move advantage." This statement is unconvincing. In fact, White’s advantage could be even greater in High Chess.

However the Sparrow (mQcK) is Duke from Dan Lee's asymmetric Empire Chess (which is playable on Pychess)

Contravention, Linkage, Submission and Triple Check seem interesting)…

I think the Heroine is very aptly named, but I agree with you that the Popess name is awkward (serviceable, but awkward). Could "Abbess" work?

Your current set-up can be described as the following: an architect’s plan for a four story building, and there are four such buildings. My question is this: imagine these four buildings lined up next to each other as they would be in the 3D modeling of your game, in addition to this, could we quadruple the entire set up so that there were, for the sake of example, 4 rows of 4, four-story buildings? If we did create what would be 5D spatial chess, what would the initial board set-up look like? What would the new 5th dimensional piece be called? Thank you so much for your effort on these variants.

The link section should mention that Chu Shogi is playable on https://lishogi.org now as well.

It's very nice seeing the Zebra compounds! I can use the Zebra/Rook for my Kuhani, and Zebra/Bishop for my Mtawala. I'll still need a Zebra/Queen for the Malkia, though (and a Camel/Queen for the Sultana would be a good sight).

Likewise, Zebrariders, Gnuriders, Bisonriders, and Buffaloriders are a "thing" (though I personally use them rarely).

Of course I have dozens of other pieces that I'd love to see symbols for, but asking for even a large share would be unreasonable. A couple that I would like to have, though, are the Bodyguard (from Hiashatar) and the Friend.

16x16 is 256 cells not 196.

I created almost exactly this and was doing some research too see if it has been done before; I came across this website and found out it had except that I called it Four Kings Chess.

You can play this variant online multiplayer at: https://chess.oggyp.com (you will need to make an account though)
You can just test it out here without an account here: https://chess.oggyp.com/analysis/

https://git.oggyp.com/OggyP/chess-client

Very insightful and your apps are really helpful and instructive. Thank you!

I really like this! The "leap-and-slide" pieces take "ski" moves to a new dimension, and are quite innovative (at least, I don't know of any earlier incidents of that; but then again I'm a relative newbie at CVs). I probably will "borrow" the Tiger and/or Astrologer for a future variant (I've even gone so far as to design pieces for them on Thingiverse).

I'll agree (though not vehemently) with the assessment that the 8x8 parts are basically Chess With Different Armies. But the 9x9 parts are their own variant, and arguably deserve their own page.

I also agree that this needs a better name; I found this while looking for an article to explain the drop rule.

But the only real complaint I have is the lack of any diagrams to show what order the back-row pieces are set up in; on that point I don't have a clue. Diagrams showing the various Pawns' moves would be helpful too.

I rather like these, especially the Top Heart and Bottom Heart.

If you want to break the colorbound nature, what if you were to make the Bottom Heart's moves orthogonal instead of diagonal? It's furthest range would be a Knight's move instead of a Camel's, but it could reach every square on the board. (Or, you could use this idea to replace one of the other hearts.)

PS: Try Musketeer's Board Painter and see how it suits you for making diagrams.

A very well designed variant, reminds me of Starcraft.

Charles, I really like this series of articles, at least in principle; the main problem is that I find many of the long, run-on paragraphs very hard to wade through.

Would you mind terribly if I were to take the text and play "Editor" on it, formatting it into an easier-to-read (and comprehend) document? I could just email the result to you, and let you take full credit if you like.

If you'd like I could even put it together into a PDF file (again, emailed directly to you), suitable for self-publishing somewhere like Lulu, Amazon, etc.

I made a chess set out of Sculpey, where all the pieces looked human-like. When I made this piece, I had it be an archer instead, to keep with the ranged-weaponry theme. Maybe for the Leo/"Queen-cannon" I'll have it be a bazooka instead?

Clearly, there's a bit of a backlog. :)

So I don’t understand. Bishop is just a Nightrider (repeats knight steps) or knight jumps OVER two squares to third one (by this it can reach all the squares in Tape chess)?

As noted in the text, the lowercase w is still unused. Could that be made to indicate a withdrawing capture? If it has to be coupled with the c, then it could still be usable for other things by itself or with other modifiers.

Or is there already another way to indicate a withdrawing capture?

It's worth pointing out that House of Staunton no longer sells these, either directly or through Amazon. The Chess Shop of North Carolina, care of eBay, does still have them, including some newer sets (among them, much to my delight, a few packages of 16 alternative pawns).

I tried this out on the Jocly board. It's quite interesting and fun! I think I'd enjoy playing a physical game.

A small note: The text description of the opening layout is just a little bit unclear (especially with two of the lines on the list broken up), and doesn't quite match the illustration, which in turn doesn't match what's on the Jocly board (the Lion and Eagle aren't shown on the illustration). It should only take a couple of quick edits to fix, though.

A much better player than Zillions. I notice that version 2.2 is scriptable, and the scripting language looks easier than Zillions' Lisp-based scripting language (which is a monumental pain in the a** to debug--all those nested parens). Does ChessV have a scripting reference? I'd love to see it rather than ask a thousand questions in this thread.

I have remade some pieces and I can send it here