Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Jason Wittman.

Evolution Chess

By

Jason D. Wittman

Introduction

Evolution Chess is a game created by Jason D. Wittman for the 42 Squares Chess Variant Contest. Previous variants by Jason Wittman featured on the Chess Variants Website are Knight Court, Mad Chess, and Equestrian Chess (which placed 3rd in the 41 Squares Contest last year).

Rules

The game is played on a board of six rows by seven columns. Each side starts with one king and seventeen knights. The white pieces start from the three left-hand columns with the King in the lower-left corner, while the black pieces start from the three right-hand columns with the King in the upper-right corner(in other words, the two factions approach each other from east and west as opposed to north and south, as is usual).

The game is called Evolution Chess because each time a piece is moved, it "evolves" into a more powerful piece (knights become bishops, which become rooks, which become queens). Once a piece evolves into a queen, it remains a queen until it is captured, or until the end of the game. Other than the above exceptions, all rules to usual chess apply. The object is to checkmate the opponent's king.

Zillions of Games

There is an implementation of Evolution Chess for Zillions of games. You can download it here:



Written by Jason D. Wittman.
WWW page created: November 16th, 2001.