Game Reviews (and other rated comments on Game pages)

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.

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.

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

Interesting variant, definitely looks wild and very dynamic.

(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.

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

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.

A very well designed variant, reminds me of Starcraft.

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)?

In the the diagram below White has five pieces on the board and a single Rook "in hand". All the other pieces belong to Black. Suppose White drops this Rook on (b2) and Black advances his Pawn to (c3). This "blockade stalemate" has resulted in a drawn game.

ATTENTION EDITORS: This Chessgi problem also provides an answer to the Patricia Stalemate Puzzle. I recently constructed another stalemate position with fewer pieces than this one and would like to add a suitable diagram to the puzzle solution page.

WHITE TO MOVE AND MATE IN EIGHT MOVES

If the Bishop was on (f4), placing all the pieces on the same board, this would be a simple mate in two moves. But I needed help from ChessV to solve the given problem. Apparently the trick is to move the White King from (b3) to (C2), effectively "wasting a tempo". Bishops cannot do this in Alice Chess - while the Bishop could travel from (F4) to (f4) in three moves, that is not actually the same square. ChessV 2.2 game record is given below.

Alice Chess
Player(White) = ChessV
Player(Black) = Human
FENStart = "16/16/16/16/2N10B2/1K14/16/1k14 w - - 0 1"
StaticExchangeEvaluation = false
Moves = {
F4g5 b1A1 b3C2 A1a2 g5H6 a2A1 c4D6 A1a2 H6c1 a2A1 D6e4 A1a2 e4C3 a2A1 c1B2
}
Result = 1-0 {White wins}

MOVEMENT DIAGRAM - White Chained Padwar (Elephant icon) and Black Chained Warrior (War Machine icon)

On an empty board a Warrior will attack the same squares as a Kylin - a Chu Shogi piece currently lacking a PIECECLOPEDIA entry. A Padwar attempts to reach the same squares as an Alibaba - the diagram shows a Black Padwar blocking the (e5) square from the White Padwar. Likewise, the Black Padwar is blocked from attacking the (b2) square.

The Chained Padwar in this game is called an (ordinary) Elephant in Shatranj Kamil X. Last week I added a comment there showing how a Knight and two Elephants can checkmate a lone King.

Thanks to all. But I agree to make Game Courier preset with another graphics also, such as Alpha or Merida, in settings.

The Dragon has an impressive 13x13 movement diagram on this page.

1. d3 Db6 2. Md2 Dxe3 is the fastest mate in Ryugi.

1. Nd4 c7 2. Nc6 Ne7 3. Nd8 does it with a Knight.

1. h3 g5 2. Kh2 Ll6 3.Ki3 Qj4 is a very foolish mate. If the type font is confusing, Black's second move is "ell-ell-six".

While the stated NBRQ values are suitable for a 10x10 board, the Bishop simply cannot attack as many squares on a 12x8 board. Bishop = 3.50 and Queen = 10 seem more appropriate for this game. I reserve judgement on the Elephants for the time being - currently working on a new game with "Wafflephants" on 12 columns.

M. Badii - J. Stranjakovitch, Paris 1989 reached the position in the diagram below after

1.e4 a6 2.d4 b5 3.f4 Bb7 4.Bd3 f5 5.exf5 Bxg2 6.Qh5+ g6 7.fxg6 Bg7 8.gxh7+ Kf8

The game continued 9.hxg8=Q+ Kxg8 10.Qe2 Bxh1 with a win by White after 24 moves.

I see no reason for rules that may prevent early pawn promotions in Grand Chess. Most of us want games that are more interesting, not less. And after all, there is no limit to the number of promoted pawns on the board in Shatranj.

[EDIT] I should have specified the rules that I was objecting to:

"5. A Pawn can promote only to a friendly piece that has been captured, and for which it is exchanged."

"6. If no friendly piece has been captured, then a Pawn may not move beyond the 9th rank."

The program is dead again .

Thank you by this advice.

(BTW if you want, I can request a Shako tournament with you someday. Site is Pychess (chess variants site written in Python), to play it, you have to create lichess.org (chess site with millions of players and open source code) account)

Very nice touchup of the page. You might have mentioned that in problems, there is more than one way to use the cylinder concept. The one here described is chess on a horizontal cylinder, which is the only form that is playable as a game. Other forms have appeared in problems: the vertical cylinder with the first and last ranks connected and the anchor ring both basically both a vertical and horizontal cylinder simultaneously. In the latter case, a1 is connected to both a8 and h1 (and in some version h8 as well, if you really want to go crazy). With rooks and queens instantly attacking each other and the kings in mutual check, we'd need special rules to play this, but a KBB vs K ending on such a board can be analyzed, as well as more complex problems.

OK I've edited that

I read on the wiki talk page for Tenjiku about the idea that jumping generals could have been intended to do more than just jump-capture.

The start position shows the generals in front of the Fire Demons, both straight ahead and diagonally. There is no opportunity for jumping generals to capture Fire Demons in the start position, which is intentional.

It doesn't seem right that there is so much protection for Fire Demons, yet in some versions of the game, the King could be threatened and captured without even being able to evade the attack, as it's boxed in.

(In fact, the Bishop General could just mate the opponent's King on the first move if there were no restrictions on jumping.)

If the generals could jump whenever they wanted as far as they liked, the game would become even more tactically sharp than it already is. However, it doesn't break the game.

The Great General can't jump two squares diagonally to threaten one of the Fire Demons as the Rook General would capture it.

The best the Bishop Generals can do is to manoeuvre and attack a Horned Falcon or Soaring Eagle.

The idea that jumping generals could capture all of the opposing pieces they jumped over in one turn is plausible. I don't know if the game would break, but the inventor(s) of Tenjiku weren't sentimental about pieces — allowing Fire Demons to punch large holes into positions — so having more pieces do the same seems logical.

The Great General could just capture the Vice General; Free Eagle; Queen; Drunk Elephant; and a Pawn on the first move (with check). This doesn't seem intentional.

One of the Bishop Generals could move to the edge of the board and threaten to capture a Soaring Eagle; Water Buffalo; Phoenix; Drunk Elephant; and a Pawn. The Soaring Eagle can leap out of the way, though.

Otherwise, everything is sufficiently well defended that jumping generals couldn't capture a total of anything worth more than themselves, as they are even stronger than their current form.

That could be why Fire Demons are so powerful — with burning and sliding and an area move — because they would be ecliped otherwise by the jumping generals.

The board size (16×16) and large number of pieces that do very little makes more sense if there were even more crazy pieces. The game might devolve into a capture-fest, but that might have been the intention.

Whoever had the imagination to create this game has to be admired. I consider this to be the most ambitious of all the historical variants as its construction is so delicately balanced, even with the ambiguity in the rules themselves.

This is a great idea. The bombs add enough chaos to make the game feel very different, but not too much.

Have we missed the fiftieth anniverary of Modern Courier Chess? The rules page for Reformed Courier-Spiel (2011) contains the sentence: "With this design, Begnis also intended to improve Modern Courier Chess invented by FIDE Master Paul V. Byway in 1972."

On his own website, Clément Begnis writes: "In this respect, I need to mention here that at first (in the 1970's), Byway had made an attempt to modernize the Courier game with more powerful extra pieces."

On his own website, John Savard writes: "Attempts have been made to modernize the game, one in 1824 and one in 1971. The one in 1971, Modern Courier Chess, changed the moves of several of the pieces. Even that of 1824 by Albers made a number of changes, although it was less radical."

The current address is: Modern Courier Chess. Meanwhile, the year when Byway finished creating his game remains a mystery. VARIANT CHESS No. 8 does contain the following game from the previous year - with the letters "F" and "C" standing for Ferz and Courier (Alibaba).

[Game 4]  R. Talbot - P. V. Byway, 10 xii 1991 
1.f4 f5 2.a4 c5 3.Ra3 Cc6 4.g4 fxg4 5.Rg3 h5 6.i4 
Ch6 7.e3 g5 8.ixh5 gxf4 9.Rxg4+ Fg7 10.Qj5+ i6 
11.hxi6 Ni7 12.Qi5 Ng6 13.Qxk7 Rj8 
[Diagram uses elephants for couriers] 
rn1bfqk1br2pp1pp1f2pQp2e3neP5p9P4pR9P8PPP3P1PPP1NEBF1KFBENR 
14.Rxg6 Bxg6 15.i7 Ri8 16.Qxj7 Fe6 (courier leap) 17 .Ch3 
Ke8 (two-move privilege) 18.Nj3 16 19.Ni5 Bxk2 
(suicidal) 20.Rk1 Bi4 21.Rk8 Resigns. (1-0).

Great idea to replace the Ferz with the Gryphon! This piece rarely gets a chance to dominate an "old fashioned game". The "Griffon" is actually one of the weaker pieces in Mark Hedden's Ganymede Chess . I offer some piece values for the 12x8 board, chosen primarily for simplicity:

Pawn = 1, Woody Rook (WD) = 3, Knight = 3, Elephant (FA) = 3.25, Courier = 3.50, Man (FW) = 3.50, Rook = 5.50 and Gryphon = 8 points.

Incidentally I value the Queen at ten points, the same as R+B+P. Ralph Betza once calculated the Gryphon's worth by multiplying the value of a Rook by 1.46 in Bent Riders circa 2002.

Thanks, can you publish it please?

Sort of Almost Chess - with a White Chancellor and a Black Queen - is kind of the best chess game ever invented on less than 81 squares. Skipping the usual long speech about making opening books obsolete and adding new tactics, I will simply state that the dreaded First Move Advantage is completely cancelled. Possibly "more than cancelled" - computer testing may prove interesting.

In the near future I will be promoting this variant to join the list of Featured Games. Maybe we could give Sort Of Almost Chess a more interesting name, like Carrera's Revenge?

Thank you. So I missed out one thing.

It was in the rules but wasn’t in the pieces desc. Read about King, you’ll find.

Note that in the setup of shogi (a Classic game) none of the knights there can move, either.

As far as I can see there is no rule that forbids moving the King back to the place where it came from (at least, when the King move wasn't motivated by escaping check). So a situation can occur where the two players just move the King between two squares in an endless loop and the game makes no progress.

A cute and cool variant!

Nice idea!

I fixed things about horse promotions, but quality of pieces’ images on the submission’s diagram is amazing in the worst sense of it.

I think that’s bug

I'm a bit surprised this variant hasn't been played much so far on GC. If people think there's too much power in the setup, maybe by switching the FIDE army of each side onto their 2nd ranks, directly behind their pawns, that then could help the game unfold a bit more slowly, if that's desired.

I fixed it, it's your turn. There is no castling here;)

TenCubed and Opulent were both entries in the 10 Contest.  David and I both decided to use the number 10 by having 10 piece types on an 10-by-10 board, so they are pretty similar.  Although Opulent has seen more play, I think TenCubed is probably the better game.  I have had a very difficult time getting a good opening array in Opulent.  It needs to change yet again ...

Spartan Chess has the Warlord and the General, together worth approximately three Rooks. These are solid performers that have been used in many variants. Worth noting that pieces like the Lieutenant with additional noncapturing moves are rare. My Shatranj Kamil (64) has Elephants with noncapturing Dabbabah leaps and ArchMage Chess by Cyrus Arturas has the Prince, a Commoner with noncapturing R2 moves (no mention of Dabbabah leaps). In the diagram below, a Warlord pins a Rook against the White King - winning the piece and the game.

WHITE TO MOVE AND LOSE

This is a nice game. It seems to have a theme of rook + weaker piece compounds. I wonder why the board isn't 15x10 to make room for another knight, and have a nice 3:2 shape like Courier Chess. An alternative enhancement would be a pair of camels on d1 and k1 and a camel-rook on i1. That would make more sense of the 10 rank board.

I played this on brainking.com many times and it is fun, even if the outcome is more dependent on luck than on skill.

Hi, David! Glad to see you back! This is a nice helpmate and looks like an interesting 'little' game to play - all that power in the corners and a weak center, on a small board! The central rook is a rare feature, or was, a decade or two ago. Who's used it besides Ralph, you, and me, any idea? I don't remember it in even any semi-popular game onsite aside from what you and Ralph have done.

Here is a Fairy-Stockfish variant file that I made for the variant. Despite the E and Elephant symbol, these pieces are still princes (princE). It might not be 100% accurate, but this should be incredibly similar to the actual variant, as there are essentially no differences between promoting the princes to kings to win (by getting them directly to the last rank) or merely getting the princes to the end of the board (the last rank) to win. This variant also has defined castling rules.

[chessii:janus]
startFen = rnbeqkebnr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBEQKEBNR w KQkq - 0 1
customPiece1 = e:WF
pieceToCharTable = PNBRQ............E...Kpnbrq............e...k
castlingKingsideFile = i
castlingQueensideFile = c
whiteFlag = *8
blackFlag = *1
flagPiece = e
maxFile = 10
archbishop = -
promotionPieceTypes = rnbq

This is meant to be used with https://fairyground.vercel.app/, and should be pasted into a file called variants.ini, before loading the variants.ini file into the website.

"This rule gets rid of zugzwang." 
 
More than sixty years ago I learned how to use zugzwang to win with King and Rook against the lone King. So how does Tony Berard deal with this problem? 
 
"The rooks, bishops, and knights now also move and capture like a king." 
 
Sixteen years ago I commented on Ultra Chess (by Ruggero Micheletto).  Here is a question for both authors.  Is the endgame King and Rook versus King and Knight even more likely to lead to a draw in your chess variants?

Back in [2018-03-04] Kevin Pacey mentioned "the pleasing possibilities of smothered ... mates".  My 12x12 variant Rose Chess XII has 96 empty squares, with ten Pawns each on the 4th and 9th ranks.  But Black can deliver a smothering mate with a circular Nightrider on the second move of the game.  A position so amusing that it earned a diagram at the top of the rules page.

Similar to Courier-Spiel, the game adds modern Bishops and improves the Elephants (called Couriers here). Switching the Bishops and Couriers in the initial setup will improve this game. While the b-file and h-file Pawns are now undefended, they are also no longer threatened by hostile Bishops. Jumping the Courier c1-c3 will help to shield the Pawn on (b2).

Some time before 1992, Paul V. Byway included the Ferz in Modern Courier Chess, placing RNCBFQKFBCNR on a 12x8 board. Ken Franklin also placed Alibabas in Leap Chess on 44 squares.

I'm not quite sure whether I want to rate this Good or Excellent so I'll go with the higher rating. This is a great way to enhance weaker pieces without making them too strong. An interesting variation of this idea might be to have all the pieces except the king and queen start without their non-capturing king moves and gain them by promoting on the last two ranks.

I cannot love Courier-Spiel, but I (heart) Shako.

Revising my [2006-08-12] comment:
Unicorn=10, Queen=10, Chancellor=9, Rook=5.5, Lion=5. Bishop=3.5, Knight=3, Elephant=2.75, Pawn=1 
are endgame piece values (for Shako and Unicorn Great Chess) which preserve some formulas I firmly believe in, namely Q+P = R+R and Q = R+B+P and R+P = B+N. The Cannon should be worth 4 Pawns at the start of the game, but decline to half the value of a Rook in the early endgame (2.75 Pawns). I consider short range pieces to have more value than Antoine Fourrière gives them in his Comment. Even the lowly Ferz should be worth 1.5 Pawns on a 10x10 board.

Fixed,

I like the idea, but perhaps a flaw in the game would be the unprotected pawn on a7. After 1 f4 Black has few defensive options and one would never arrive at "double king-pawn openings" since after 1...f5 2 Bxa7 already would drop and exchange in addition to the pawn. Maybe as in Schoolbook chess the Chancellor and Queen need to be out on the flank and the Archbishop deployed to the center.

Edited. Can you publish it please?

Are there no promotions in this version? Where is the prince and adventitious king?

No, it’s not easy win, black can easily block the path of check by 1.…Be7 or 1.…Qe7 after 1.Qe2

So it’s not required to add interactive diagram for THIS variant. But if it will be in online chess resource, thank you.

Sorry, but yellow X-es are captures!

I have an idea: you can turn Ox’s face to left in Stone Garden, as it was in my drawings, and make it different from Horizons. About Index it’s same. Please.

Points are accumulating. I’ve written this in the page.

One remark: can you watch Magician’s moves and make diagonal-based motion. And small Shielder’s regulation of replacing rules, but it’s not required for now.

Yeah, thank you very much!

I like the idea of this, although it seems possibly over-complicated with the momentum rules.

This is a great idea with those switches. Together with the twisting of the files it makes a very interesting board and game. The switches give instantly the game a dynamic tension which is enjoyable. And a very sophisticated solution that 2 squares together constitute 1 field on which there can only be 1 piece. There is no mentioning of pawn move/capture (maybe it could be helpful), but it must be implied that 'normal' forward movement and diagonal capturing are in place, that will often be first 'battle' around the switches.

What is better than 2 switches? That has to be 4 switches! The inventor, Gerd Degens, has also such a game, Chess69, which can be viewed through the link at the top, or for CVP members through the link in the comments. I will try to make a comment about it later. But I can only recommend to the editors that this game also is published properly. It is even more interesting because here the ranks are also twisted, very delightful for us fans of 'unusually shaped boards'. It already has a old post from 2003 here on CVP with a broken link in the Alphabetical Index and the Topic Index, so that will have to be displaced.

The premise for tri dimensional chess set's presence on federation star ships was to teach three dimensional combat tactics, which is something the Bartmess and Meder rules patently fail to do, by blocking circumventing moves.
The rules presented here, on chess variants, are not complete and lack rules for castling but also advocate inverted attack boards, which, if nothing else, are highly impractical.
Not only were the World Tri Dimensional Chess Federation rules written by a fighter pilot, to teach three dimensional aerial combat, which is more in keeping with the original theme, they also start the king and queen in the centre files and provide the most reasonable method for castling, as the attached images demonstrate.

King's side castling


Queen's side castling

Inspiring game, yet it seems the action may take a while to get going

I don't yet get how to mobilize in the opening smoothly when playing this CV, at least when I tried to do so in my first game (with White, no less). After I moved the pawn in front of my king two squares, for example, I wanted to develop my knights to my fourth rank, towards the centre, in natural fashion. Yet that would allow Black to develop his deves (camels) similarly, and then to take my knight(s) almost at will - perhaps clearly at least a slightly worse exchange for me, since my pawn structure might be compromised without sufficent compensation when I recapture, and by my valuations (though tentative) a Kt is worth more than a camel on 10x10 (maybe even by as much as a pawn).

As my game (with arx) went on, I found my gold and silver had a hard time being deployed usefully for quite some time - an issue since they can get in the way of other pieces. I also had mobilization issues with at least one of two of my bishops, especially concerning if assuming castling is desirable in general. The assassins I had a hard time valuing, but guessed one could be worth as much as a queen. Maybe the inventor intended that mobilization be slow in playing this CV, I don't know.

@arx: I've sent you a personal invite to a Sac Chess rematch, in case you missed it, and wish to play.

Hi Gerd, hope your fine and well. I'm sure you haven't upset or hurt anyone!! I understand what you said, and it is extremely interesting idea indeed how you describe your game about the board etc.

I don't want to go on about the pawns, but still, I have to say, the game would maintain your 'theme' even if the pawns remained pawns. However, the game as you have it must have a unique feel and play to it!

Would be fun to see the game in action.

Should play well, it's nice to see you didn't 'overpower' it.

I like the idea of making an army using various combinations of a few building blocks, though I do have two critiques.

1: Balance. A combination piece is usually wirth more than the sum of its parts (eg: a Queen is worth more than a Rook and a Bishop; a Mann is worth more than a Wazir and a Ferz) which means an army with A+B+C=7.75 is likely to be completely overpowered. For example, look at army 1:
BNW=10, NW=5.25, BW=5.25, W=1.25, B=3.25, N=3.25, BN=8.75 (total: 37).
This is over a full Rook stronger than the regular chess army.

The more equal the components are, the more powerful they are when they work together. For example, army 2 (where one component has most of the value) is only about 2 pawns stronger than the regular chess army. So, armies with wildly unequal component strengths will need to have stronger components than more egalitarian armies to compensate for this.

2: The components should be versatile enough to be fun to play with on their own. For example, an Alfil can only reach 1/8 of the board which is un-fun to play (both with and against). One solution to this would be 'ABCD' chess, with 4 components arranged like this:

By adding an extra component, one can eliminate the need for components to survive on their own, and can make weak components without having to worry about un-fun Alfil play.

Marsellais chess has a rule where each player moves 2 pieces in the same turn. Castling is considered a single move. All other castling rules apply.

Some Nemoroth pieces are 'color blind': they capture or otherwise affect friendly and enemy pieces in exactly the same way. The only effect of their allegeance is then which player is allowed to move them. But when they are petrified neither player can move them, and in effect they become neutral. An alabaster and an obsidian Leaf Pile are really the same piece, from a game-theoretical point of view, and that also holds for petrified Wounded Fiends. Likewise petrified Go Aways are all the same. And since they lose their special power on petrification, they are also the same as a Mummy. And they only differ from petrified Humans when we adopt the rule that petrified Humans promote to Zombie when pushed to last rank. Which would also make it necessary to distinguish petrified Humans by color.

Petrified Basilisks remember their allegeance because of the Basilisk's asymmetric move, which is preserved in the way it sees. Ghasts have a more severe effect on foes as on friends.

i think so

I think one thing the author may do until when and if this variant gets formally published here is to make a Zillions of Games implementation of it, then send an email to Ed van Zon to get the implementation published. There can be a long delay before a submission and its publication here, but Ed’s pretty good about publishing a submission within a week of its submission.

The hard part is taking all these rules and converting them in to Zillions’ quirky language. I enjoy doing it myself; it converts rules in to unambiguous machine-readable rules, and it allows people to play the variant themselves.

I would also change the name of the summoned pieces in to something like, oh, Dragon Horse and Dragon King, the Anglicized form of these pieces’ names in Shogi. I like the summoning tactic, but it’s an open question whether having it makes the White advantage overwhelming. People seem to enjoy Crazyhouse a lot over at Lichess, so I think this summoning mechanic can be very usable.

(I should also point out that Betza called what is the Jester here the “Waffle”)

The Heroine and Popess piece types in this variant arguably (nicely) complete the combination of compound pieces I used in my own (earlier) 10x10 Sac Chess variant.

On the topic of piece names, I've noticed that in some languages the name for a chess rook translates to ship (or to boat, also). Thus 'Admiral' (or my choice of 'Sailor', in Sac Chess) gets bonus points as a choice of name, perhaps (for the piece type in question, a promoted rook in shogi), i.e. a person who uses a watercraft's power.

Maybe there's a slightly related argument that a real-life knight, in the past, is a person who uses a horse (arguably knight is a more elevated title than horseman, which would also work).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(chess)#Name_translations

The Wolf is ranked higher (stronger) than the Dog.

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/鬥獸棋

象>獅>虎>豹>狼>狗>貓>鼠

Elephant > Lion > Tiger > Leopard (Panther) > Wolf > Dog > Cat > Rat

I played this since childhood. This is the proper ranking of the animals.

The confusion about Dog > Wolf happened because on some of the cheap chess pieces, the wood carving of the Dog and the Wolf are almost identical.

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