Single Comment

I once did a Shogi adaptation of Smess, called Smegi, which added Shogi dropping rules to Smess. But a Smess adaptation of Shogi is more of a challenge. It cannot work as straightforwardly as a Smess adaptation of Chinese Chess, because the pieces are not so easily distinguished by types of movement. Instead, they are distinguished mainly by directions and ranges of movement. So what I would suggest is this. Add the rule that certain pieces may only move in forward directions, either vertically forward or diagonally forward. For this rule to work effectively, every space would need to have both forward and backward arrows on it, for one player's backward is the other player's forward. This would leave the forward moving pieces available directions to move in. As in Shogi, the Knight should be able to leap. This is important, because it is easy to build barricades in Shogi, and it sometimes takes the leaping ability of the Knight to get through them. With a vertical forward arrow, I would allow the Knight to leap as it does in Shogi. With a diagonal forward arrow, I would allow it to leap to either of the two spaces it could reach by moving once diagonally, then once orthogonally outward.