Revisions

The game requires a 9 x 9 board. The pieces change depending on the color of the square reached or the rank achieved.

Setup

Pieces

Standard set of pieces - plus archbishop, chancellor, amazon and dragon horse. Details in the rule section.

Rules

Except for the following changes, the Fide rules apply.

There is no capturing en passant, castling and promotion of pawns takes place.
Bare king loses.
Stalemate is a win.

With the exception of the pawns, pieces are played as in standard chess - regarding archbishop, chancellor, amazon and dragon horse see below.

In Morphomania pieces change their appearance and function depending on the color of the squares they reach or the rank they achieve.
The king is excluded from this.

The rook mutates from black to white to a chancellor and back again from white to black to a rook.

The knight mutates from white to black to an archbishop and vice versa.

The queen becomes an amazon when changing from white to black; the amazon becomes a queen again when changing from black to white.

The pawn moves one or two squares forward and captures opposing pieces; it does not jump over pieces.

Castling: This is a move of the king and either rook of the same colour along the player’s first rank, counting as a single move of the king and executed as follows: the king is transferred from its original square three squares towards the rook on its original square, then that rook is transferred to the square just next to the king.

Notes

Play it !

files=9 ranks=9 promoZone=1 promoChoice=NBRQHACZ maxPromote=2 graphicsDir=/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/ squareSize=50 graphicsType=png stalemate=win baring=0 royal=K pawn:P:fWfcnD:pawn:a2,c2,e2,g2,i2,,a8,c8,e8,g8,i8 morph=/.S.S.S.S./S.S.S.S.S/.S.S.S.S./S.S.S.S.S/.S.S.S.S./S.S.S.S.S/.S.S.S.S./ speedpawn:S:fWfnDfcnH:chinesepawn:b2,d2,f2,h2,,b8,d8,f8,h8 morph=/P.P.P.P.P/.P.P.P.P./P.P.P.P.P/.P.P.P.P./P.P.P.P.P/.P.P.P.P./P.P.P.P.P/ knight:N:N:knight:b1,h1,,b9,h9 morph=ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA bishop:B:B:bishop:c1,g1,,c9,g9 morph=BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB dragon horse:H:BW:promotedbishop: morph=BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB/HHHHHHHHH/BBBBBBBBB rook:R:R:rook:a1,i1,,a9,i9 morph=RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR queen:Q:Q:queen:d1,f1,,d9,f9 morph=ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ archbishop:A:BN:cardinal: morph=ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA/NANANANAN/ANANANANA chancellor:C:RN:chancellor: morph=RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR/CRCRCRCRC/RCRCRCRCR amazon:Z:QN:amazon: morph=ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ/QZQZQZQZQ/ZQZQZQZQZ king:K:KisO3:king:e1,,e9

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Comments

Morphomania. Morphing wherever you look. (9x9, Cells: 81)

💡📝Gerd Degens wrote on Wed, Jun 5 02:19 PM EDT in reply to Bn Em from 11:16 AM:

I can understand the changes/restructuring you have made. I am confident that a human player will be able to cope with the current description of the game. Incidentally, I think we have already spent enough time making changes, so I kindly ask you to publish the current status. Thank you for your efforts.

Bn Em wrote on Wed, Jun 5 11:16 AM EDT in reply to Gerd Degens from Sat Jun 1 02:32 AM:

I've restructured the page to flow more consistently: the pawns are still the last of the non‐royal pieces discussed but are now grouped with the other colour‐dependent morhpers, which means the Bishop is now described first; the unorthodox moves are now all described in a single block at the end of the page; both (down from all three) morphing tables are in the condensed form describing square‐dependent states rather than transitions.

I've left most of the other text intact (except a typo ‘Kight’ and the description of the DH's move, which is more in line with the others but feel free to adjust it if you prefer to express it differently).

Please tell me if you're happy to go with the edits I've made; if so (and subject to any other adjustments you may wish to make — e.g. to the description of the DH or if you want to have the tables as images similar in style to the ones you made previously) I'm happy to publish

🔔Notification on Wed, Jun 5 11:03 AM EDT:

The editor Bn Em has revised this page.

💡📝Gerd Degens wrote on Sat, Jun 1 02:32 AM EDT in reply to Bn Em from Fri May 31 04:59 PM:

You're quite right - I'm guessing at what you mean. I am therefore grateful for your offer to change the page as you mean it. Sorry you have the work now, wasn't my intention.

Bn Em wrote on Fri, May 31 04:59 PM EDT in reply to Gerd Degens from 03:51 AM:

I didn't expect a screenshot of my comment ;‌) Assuming you still prefer to chenge them, ideally either something similar in style to your existing images or outright HTML tables would be better

Also (perhaps more importantly) I'd assumed it to be implicit that the other tables would match in style ;‌) And arguably the pawn could be included in the picec table as the conditions on its morphing are the same; only the bishop strictly needs a separate table (though if you consider the pawns to be fundamentally different from other pieces I guess you wouldn't be alone). Only reason I didn't do it is because the alfaerie Diagram Designer set seems to lack the Speedpawn image.

As to the structure: the Dragon Horse diagram is next to the other unorthodox non‐pawns now, but the pawns are now awkwardly between two different kinds of non‐pawn piece and the order of exposition differs between the ‘general’ and ‘detailed’ sections

If you prefer, I can edit the page myself to show what I mean, and you can tell me if you disagree with the proposed presentation; thus might be more efficient than trying to explain verbally and would save you unnecessary busywork guessing at what I mean

Morphomania

By Gerd P. Degens