The pope moves the same as the king.
Let's invent some very weird pieces
Sort:
Jun 18, 2016
0
#23
The indicator: it is an object that is placed on a square but does not have any effect other than indicating that square for some other purpose.
It can be placed on a square already occupied by another piece but then it has no effect on that piece. If placed on an unoccupied square that square still counts as unoccupied, so for example an indicator on b2 would still allow Bc1-a3.
So the indicator has no meaning in itself, but I may need it while defining other pieces.
Jun 18, 2016
0
#24
The slow Amazon: moves like a Queen or Knight.
But it moves in two parts: it takes one turn to move an indicator to the destination square, and a second one to move the Amazon to the same square. Although it is not obligatory - once the indicator has been moved - to move the Amazon immediately in the next turn - if at all.
Anthony Dickins's 'A guide to fairy chess' published by Dover contains a compendium of a large number of strange pieces such as the Knightrider, the Grasshopper and the Diplomat. It also presents some interest board arrangements as well as Space Chess and a host of other chess oddities. I bought my own copy way back in the 70s but was recently looking for a copy for a friend on some of the second hand book sites and was astonished to see that it is now evidently quite expensive being fairly hard to find, I guess, and fairly desirable. Well worth trying to find though if you are interested in this topic.
Jun 18, 2016
0
#26
Karpark wrote:
Anthony Dickins's 'A guide to fairy chess' published by Dover contains a compendium of a large number of strange pieces such as the Knightrider, the Grasshopper and the Diplomat. It also presents some interest board arrangements as well as Space Chess and a host of other chess oddities. I bought my own copy way back in the 70s but was recently looking for a copy for a friend on some of the second hand book sites and was astonished to see that it is now evidently quite expensive being fairly hard to find, I guess, and fairly desirable. Well worth trying to find though if you are interested in this topic.
I can hardly imagine that that book would contain anything that is not already somewhere else on the internet.
I'm quoting McGoohan in another topic:
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/international-federation-of-chess-variants
There was earlier a chess variants society:
The British Chess Variants Society (or BCVS) was an association of chess variant players and developers active between 1997 and 2010.
http://www.mayhematics.com/s/s.htm
Variant Chess magazine: All 64 issues of the magazine, published 1990 - 2010, are available for download in PDF form here:
http://www.mayhematics.com/v/v.htm
Probably not but quite a lot of us still prefer to look at a book and Dickins's book does have a great deal of this all handily collected and collated in one slim A4 size volume.
Jul 22, 2016
0
#28
A common hand. A hand means available pieces that you can put on the board, like in Shogi or Bughouse. But a common hand would mean that these pieces are accessible for both players. Take a piece, it goes in the common hand, your opponent simply takes it back from there.
Nov 13, 2016
0
#29
After playing a nice game of Settlers of Catan it occurred to me that resources like gold, wool, lumber, grain and brick and iron could perfectly fit in a chess variant.
What could we make of this?
Capturing three gold would earn the right to promote a pawn to a queen immediately?
With this I would also like to introduce a city wall, something that can be on a square together with your piece, providing some extra protection ...
Donald Trump- Must always be protected by at least two pieces and moves like a king. After 10 turns without moving this piece and its guards can build a wall. Summon two extra pawns anywhere behind your furthest pawn down the board.
Dec 27, 2016
0
#31
@vickalan,
Would you like to play another game containing any of the ideas from this thread?
gerberk wrote:
The pope moves the same as the king.
A pope that moves as a king? There's already at least 23 names for pieces that move as a king, so this would be a new one! (see article I wrote here).
If this piece (with name of "Pope") is used in a game let me know and I'll update my notes with the 24th name!
evertVB wrote:
@vickalan,
Would you like to play another game containing any of the ideas from this thread?
Hi evertVB, yes, very much so!
I like your idea of a ring but I can't think of where to place it, or how to show a piece carrying it. But it made me think of the ability of a piece to transfer its powers. How about the King being able to transfer his royal powers to a guard? (In the game of Bulldog). It would indicate a King bequeathing his powers to an heir. The guard becomes King, and the King becomes an elder man (with powers still like a guard).
This probably wouldn't alter the game dramatically, but could allow an interesting shuttling of pieces (such as below):
My suggestion is to allow it only at the completion of a king or guard move when they're adjacent to each other. Notation would be for example Gg1=K, K=G. Let me know if this would be OK for you, or if you have any other ideas. (If you don't like this idea we'll keep thinking). I look forward to challenging you again soon!
Dec 27, 2016
0
#34
vickalan, forget the ring, but I'd like to play a game with a piece that I mentioned to you earlier: it is transparent for friendly pieces (they can jump over it even if they normally can't jump given their own movement abilities) - and it temporarily passes this transparency over to any piece that is adjacent in that position. Perhaps we could call it the witch.
We could combine it with your guard, siege tower and the king transferring royal powers to the guard.
I don't have much experience with creating board images, i'm afraid.
evertVB wrote:
...it is transparent for friendly pieces (they can jump over it even if they normally can't jump given their own movement abilities) - and it temporarily passes this transparency over to any piece that is adjacent in that position. Perhaps we could call it the witch.
OK, how about we add one piece like you say that is transparent to friendly pieces and makes adjacent friendly pieces transparent too. The "witch" or how about the "Joker"?
It moves like a guard (=king movement) and there's one for each side. They are on opposite files (b and i) and the queens are opposite too, rather than facing each other (as shown):
This is a quick proposal still subject to revision. Or instead the witches (or jokers) can move like bishops, or be placed somewhere else. Or two each instead of one? Let me know what you think!
Dec 27, 2016
0
#36
evertVB wrote:
Two pieces that move like rooks, but when and as long as those two pieces 'see' each other as rook they also have the knight's move.
What's the true benefit of the +Knight maneuver? When those two opposing pieces "see" each other, they are threatened for capture; more often then not when in that position, they will be.
The +Knight would hardly be used. Having said that, we already have a piece that moves like the Rook. It's called a Rook.
evertVB wrote:
Two pieces that move like knights, but as soon as only one of them is captured the other will also get the queen's move on top of that.
Isn't that a little too powerful and inefficient? Why would we want to double-punish the captured Knight-like piece? Capturing a piece is enough of a penalty, but then you want to make the captured player suffer even more by making his/her opponent all that more powerful, over a little insignificant capture. Surely, the opponent with this captured piece would want to resign there-after?
I give you applause for attempting some original pieces; on the other hand, as annoyingly harsh as my criticism may sound, I just don't see these as very viable chess variant pieces.
musketeerchess wrote:
is this piece wierd ?
Well, what does it do?
As far as design goes, it looks fine. Then again, I judge the head according to what it's called, and then I judge it's power according to its name.
Dec 28, 2016
0
#37
Hi vickalan, I already tried my witch OTB against myself extensively. (The name Joker is already reserved for another existing superchess piece.)
It makes ALL adjacent pieces (also enemy pieces) transparent FOR own pieces. The witch cannot capture herself, she can be captured. She gets the movement abilities of the amazon (Q+N compound). Even with on top of that the ability to jump if she moves exactly 2 squares orthogonally or diagonally. Only this way her influence on the total game seems to be only limited, but sometimes very nice tactical patterns come on the board.
Added later: castling through the own Witch is allowed, so the Witch is an exception to the rule that no pieces should be between a King and a Rook while castling.
Dec 28, 2016
0
#38
@BattleChessGN18, in both cases I meant two pieces from the same army, but maybe I didn't express that clearly. Thanks for the valuable input. As opposed to the behaviour of musketeerchess which is outrageous spam.
Dec 28, 2016
0
#39
Just play Shogi. Has some pieces with interesting movements. Also works like crazyhouse in that captured pieces can be redropped.
Many pieces get extra powers when they reach the last rank. For example, a bishop can take one step to the side thus changing its colour.
evertVB wrote:
The witch cannot capture herself, she can be captured. She gets the movement abilities of the amazon (Q+N compound). Even with on top of that the ability to jump if she moves exactly 2 squares orthogonally or diagonally. Only this way her influence on the total game seems to be only limited, but sometimes very nice tactical patterns come on the board.
OK, sounds great so far. On what board do you prefer (8 x 8) or (10 x 8) or other? Where does the witch start?
If it's OK with you I suggest a 10x8 board. We'll have two new files for extra piece(s). For example a witch on b1(i8) and a guard on b8(i1). I have these three "spare" piece icons which have not been played yet. Are any OK with you for the witch? (the "J" can be changed to another symbol, or I can start making an all new "witch" icon).
The Cannibal Pawn: Before the game starts, each player writes on a piece of paper which one of their pawns (A-H) is the cannibal, ie. having the ability to promote into a bishop after capturing an enemy pawn, without showing that paper to their opponent until time comes to go cannibal. The Centaur: If you reach a queening square with your knight, that knight gets promoted to centaur which has the moves of both knight and queen. That means you can win even if you have only knight and king left. The Ghost: This piece moves at the outer files and ranks of an (imaginary) 10x10 chess board where the inner 8x8 squares are reserved for normal chess. On each turn, you make one normal move and one ghost move. The Ghost moves one square at a time in the rim but is also able to hop straight across the board (for example from F0 to F10) if there aren't any enemy pieces blocking it on that file or rank. The ghost only affects the enemy king and while unable to mate, if it manages to give check to the enemy king on the rim, your ghost disappears and your opponent loses a turn (both normal turn and ghost turn). The ghost doesn't have any effect on opponent's ghost and they can occupy the same square.
As for the Cannibal Pawn, I don't like the luck factor, chess should be 0% luck. As for the ghost, I like the idea of designing a 'ghost' chess piece. But I don't understand how a piece could not give mate but could give check. That seems logically impossible.