Hi!
To my point of view, there's two aproaches to the question 'Is there a
Universal/Standart Chess variant'?:
1- Theoretical: to me, the answer is: 'Non'!(Marcel Marceau in 'Silent
Movie') I even dare to paraphrase what Harry Kursh said about franchising
contracts: 'There is not now, never has been, and probably never will be
anithing resembling a 'standart', or 'average', or 'typical' chess
variant'. (Just take a look at the pages to see it, it is intuitive).
2- Comercial: this is an entire different ball game! Taht takes seroius
considerantions:
i-Is there a market? My answer is yes.
ii- How big that market is? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that it
can grow fast if well managed (perhaps the people that plays wargames and
miniature games, like Warhammer 40k, gets some interest).
iii- How to present the product? The starter set and expansions looks
fine to me, but a selling of individual pieces, board tiles and frames to
replace lost and broken itens would be nice.
iv- What should contain the starter set? A rulebook teaching to assembly
the board and the game rules, two boxes, one for the tile set other for
the pieces, a tile set
(http://www.chessvariants.org/crafts.dir/construction-set.html), a frame
to keep the tiles togheter (2 or more, each for game), a set of plastic
pieces to play the variants (I'm nice with the molded plastic discs, my
personal favorite would be an Estrategolike piece, just rememember to make
the pieces 0.2 inches tall to make easier to handle, without mandarin
nails, to see what I'm talking about try to get quarters from a flat
smooth surface and then aks a long nail woman to do it, see the
diference).
v- What should contain an expansion set? The rulebook, tiles (if needed),
frame and pieces.
vi- Wich variants should be in the starter set? No idea.
vii how much would it cost? No idea again, but I hope that the starter
set should be around US$40.00 and expansions around half, more or less,
after all some will have more pieces, tiles and frames, others not.
A final reminder: some pieces have lifes of their own, like all atoms,
independent of the variants so, could be for sale even whithout a chess
game to them.
Hope I helped. I just took the idea from my hobby set and tried apply some
raw economics and organized structure.
HUgs and pinsts 4UAll
