Chess Variants

[Gervie]

Game: Sphinx Chess

Invented by V. R. Parton,
implemented by L. Lynn Smith, November 2001.

Sphinx Chess is played on nine 4x4 boards arranged in a 3x3 pattern.

BISHOP[B.] slide diagonal on its particular board or to the corresponding space on any diagonal board.
CENTAURA[C] leaps one orthogonal then one diagonal on its particular board, slides to the corresponding space on any orthogonal or diagonal boards.
KING[K] steps one orthogonal or diagonal on its particular board, steps to the corresponding space on any orthogonal or diagonal board.
PAWN[P] steps without capturing one forward orthogonal or captures any forward diagonal on its particular board, steps without capturing to the corresponding space on any forward orthogonal board or captures to the corresponding space on any forward diagonal board.
QUEEN[Q] slides orthogonal or diagonal on its particular board, slides to the corresponding space on any orthogonal or diagonal board.
ROOK[R] slides orthogonal on its particular board, slides to the corresponding space on any orthogonal board.


The game is won by checkmating the opponent King.

Download Sphinx Chess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Spiral Staircase Chess

Invented and implemented by L. Lynn Smith, July 2001.

Spiral Staircase Chess is played upon four 4x4 boards which are arranged in a spiral staircase pattern, rotating clockwise from the bottom, each overlapping by two ranks. The central 2x2 column, formed by this pattern and marked with a yellow dot, is called the 'elevator'. As you play the game, you'll discover the reason.
The Black Pawns climb up the Spiral Staircase, the White Pawns climb down. Upon each tier, each pawn will move, without capturing, orthogonally. They move orthogonally up or down to change tiers.
Upon each tier, each Pawn captures any diagonal space. The Pawns attack any diagonals to the next tier.

The other pieces move upon each tier in standard fashion, and change tiers according to each pieces' move pattern.

The Knight can move up or down an adjacent tier and two orthogonal spaces, or up or down two adjacent tiers, inside the 'elevator', then one orthogonal space.
The Bishop changes tiers by diagonal moves.
The Rook changes tiers by orthogonal moves.
The Queen combines the power of the Bishop and the Rook plus the triagonal slide.
The King steps like the Queen.

There is no castling. Pawns promote upon reaching the farthest tier.

If you are confused about how any piece moves, select the 'Empty Staircase' variant, choose to play both sides, insert any pieces and move them around.

Enjoy!

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[Gervie]

Game: Squadron Chess

Implemented by K. Franklin, August 2002.


Description:
These uniform variants highlight the many of the different chess pieces from the standard Chess and Fairy_chess Zillions zrf's. Castling has been disabled.

Object:
Either Checkmate the opponent's King by attacking so it cannot escape or capture it's entire existing Squadron.

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[Gervie]

Game: Stability Chess

Invented and re-invented over the centuries by many people (including Derek Nalls in March, 2003).
Implemented in April, 2003 by L. Lynn Smith.


This game was designed to minimize the first-move advantage by white, maximize fairness, abolish unnecessary, complex special moves and rules while preserving the familiarity and symmetries of the standard game. It is the best possible, future revision to chess.

It is distinct from standard FIDE Chess in 4 important ways:

Pawns may not perform an initial 2-step move.


There is no castling move.


The game shall proceed until one or both kings have been captured when
both players have made the same number of moves.
Capture your opponent's king without reciprocity on the same move to win.
If both kings are captured, the game is a draw.


The game can be lost by leading a 3-fold repetition.
So, keep the game making progress.

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[Gervie]

Game: Star Pool Chess

Designed by Peter Aronson and Tony Quinanillla,
implemented by Peter Aronson, March 2003

Star Pool Chess can be described as Fairy Makruk with a touch of Omega Chess.

Pawns promote to Sergeants on the line that the opposing Pawns start at. Sergeant's and Lieutenants promote to Captains and Generals respectively on the back rank or in an enemy Citidel. In addition to its normal move, a Wizard may swap position with an adjacent friendly piece.

The center square acts like it is not there for orthogonal movement. Diagonally, it is connected to the corner citidels (one-way), which are connected orthogonally -or- it may also be moved through as if it were not there. So a piece that can move diagonally `into` the center square can actually move two squares.

For purposes of passing through the center square, the Knight is considered to move one square orthogonally followed by one square diagonally outward, and the Wizard (when leaping) is considered to move two squares orthogonally followed by one square diagonally outward.

As well as being diagonally connect from (but not to) the central square, the corner citadels are connected to each other orthogonally.

A longer, more detailed description of Star Pool Chess can be found at http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/contest84/starpool/starpool.html.

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[Gervie]

Game: Stationary Chess

Implemented by Uwe Wiedemann, June 2001


The difference to usual chess is that the kings can not move.

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[Gervie]

Game: Stations

Invented and implemented by L. Lynn Smith, September 2001.

This is a two-player game played upon a hexagonal field. The playing pieces consist of discs, both marked and unmarked, of two distinct colors.

Each player makes a move in alternating turns. A move consist of translating the piece across the board and re-orienting it upon its destination. These two steps must be preformed in this order, translate then orientate. A player may choose not to perform the orientation step. A player must translate the piece at least one space in order to exercise the orientating portion of the move. The orientation portion may be performed whether the move is a simple translation or involves the the capture of an opponent piece.

Pieces are moved according to their markings. Such may move any number of vacant spaces and then capture any piece which is not oriented with one of its marks toward the moving piece's starting position.
Exception: The piece which has no markings, called the Station, may only move one space at a turn but may capture an opponent piece regardless of its orientation.

In order to win, the player must checkmate the opponent Station.

Updated 10/05/02
streamlined code

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[Gervie]

Game: Statues Chess

Invented and implemented by Karl Scherer, January 2001


Objective: Checkmate your opponent's King.

If you capture one of your opponent's pieces, it is stored outside the board.
Your opponent may reinsert it, but it will change into a statue: It can capture pieces in its normal range, but the piece will stay where it is.

To reinstate a piece, just click an empty square of the board. Statues are marked by a red dot.
When a statue is captured, it will be deleted and not be stored.

In the default variant, up to sixteen captured pieces can be stored.
In the Swap Variant, only one captured piece will be stored.

The re-insertion of pieces adds a lot of excitement and drama.


For more freeware as well as real puzzles and games see my home page http://karl.kiwi.gen.nz.

Download Statues Chess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Sticky Chess

Invented and implemented by Karl Scherer, January 2001


Object: Checkmate or capture the opponent's King.

If you move a piece that has an adjacent friendly piece to the South of it (for Black to the North of it), then the adjacent piece moves with it (given that its target square is empty).

Note that Pawns can be moved to the first rank!
Capturing a Pawn en passant is only possible if this Pawn has not dragged a piece with it.

Apart from this, standard chess moves apply.


For more freeware as well as real puzzles and games see my home page http://karl.kiwi.gen.nz.

Updated 01/27/01
promoting Pawn move corrected.

Download Sticky Chess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Sting Chess

Implemented by Uwe Wiedemann, November 2001


The game of sting is played as usual chess, but kings are scorpions, i.e., they have additionally the possibilities of grashoppers. Therefore the king moves diagonally any number of squares, but must jump and lands at the first square after the piece he jumps (either friendly or unfriendly). If that square is occupied by a piece from the opponent, that piece is taken, i.e., the king takes in the same way as it moves without taking.

Sting is an experimental chess variant. It was proposed in the British Chess Variant Society, and a brief article on the game by George Jelliss and Ian Richardson appears in the Autumn 1999 issue of 'Variant Chess'.

Download Sting Chess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Storm the Ivory Tower

Game and ZRF implementation by Fergus Duniho, Copyright © 2003


Storm the Ivory Tower is a synthesis of Smess and Chinese Chess. The name is modeled after "Take the Brain," the British name for Smess. The Ivory Tower is the sanctuary of the Brain, the royal piece in this game. It is the counterpart to the palace in Chinese Chess. The name also has a connection to the Chinese name for Chinese Chess, which literally means Elephant Chess, for ivory comes from elephants.

As in Smess, each space on the board is a square with arrows on it, and it is these arrows that determine which directions any piece may move. No piece is distinguished from others by which directions it may move. But unlike Smess, the pieces aren't limited to riders and one-step leapers. Chinese Chess has the distinction of using several pieces that are distinguished from each other by more than what directions they move. This allows for an easier adaptation to a Smess-type game. Storm the Ivory Tower draws from Chinese Chess to introduce distinctively new pieces to a Smess board. The Yahoo is based on the Horse, the Dumbo on the Elephant, and the Clodhopper on the Cannon. Due to the configuration of arrows in the Ivory Tower, The Brain and his Toadies move mainly as the General and his Councellors do in Korean Chess.


For more games by Fergus Duniho, goto http://www.duniho.com/fergus/games

Updated 09/15/03
image loading problem fixed

Download Storm the Ivory Tower Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: String Chess

Invented by Aaron Wall,
implemented by Matthew M. Burke, March 2003.


String Chess is a one-dimensional chess variant.
The object is to checkmate the opposing Queen.
You may capture your own pieces.

Please send any comments or bug reports to [email protected].

Download String Chess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Stroebeck Crisis Chess

Idea and implementation by Ingo Althofer, July 2003.

Stroebeck is called "The Chess Village" ("Das Schachdorf" in German) due to its famous chess history. In the year 1011 A.D., Bishop Arnulf II of Halberstadt was brought a Wendish duke by the name of Guncellin as a prisoner. Guncellin was incarcerated in the Stroebeck watchtower, where he was guarded by local peasants. Boredom tormented not only the noble prisoner, but his guards as well. Guncellin carved 32 chess figures and painted a chess board on the table. Then he taught the guards how to play the game. Chess thrived in the village and was passed down from generation to generation. It was played in families, in the village tavern and in the weaving shops. This was at a time when chess was normally restricted to the royal courts and monasteries. Despite the almost complete destruction of Stroebeck in the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648), the chess tradition has remained alive up to the present day.

In Stroebeck, chess games with living figures (see the screenshot) began in 1688. In Germany, Stroebeck is unique with respect to its school: Since 1823, chess is a compulsory subject in Stroebeck's secondary school. This tradition was never abolished, even not by the Nazis and also not by the communists in the GDR. But nowadays the German state ''Saxonia-Anhalt'' is so short of money that all secondary schools with less then 20 pupils per year shall be closed. And in Stroebeck for the new fifth class - to start in a few weeks after the summer vacation - only 13 pupils are expected. And administration has said that even 19 pupils would not be enough to save class five! So, Stroebeck's "Chess" School is in severe danger to die in 2003.

News flash July 26, 2003 (source: Braunschweiger Zeitung):

The (local) rural districts "Halberstadt" (to which Stroebeck belongs) and "Wernigerode" decided that from now on pupils from the nearby villages "Derenburg" und "Silstedt" are also allowed to go to school in Stroebeck...
This will lead to more than 20 pupils for the crucial class 5.
Rumor has it that the international Zillions publication of "Stroebeck Crisis Chess" helped leading to this decision.


"Stroebeck Crisis Chess" is almost traditional chess. But besides the normal mating and stalemating rules the game ends immediately if the total number of pieces on the board is reduced to 19. In this case the player with more pieces is declared winner.

See the websites http://www.stroebeck.org and http://www.stroebeck.org/english/eingang.html for more information on Stroebeck and its chess culture in German and English language, respectively.

Download Stroebeck Crisis Chess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Sudden Death Chess

Invented (April 2000) and implemented by Doug Chatham, April 2001


Sudden Death Chess is a variant I entered in chessvariants.com's 32-Turn Challenge (a contest to produce a variant guaranteed to end in 32 or fewer moves) in April 2000. Incredibly enough, it came in 3rd place.

The rules are the same as normal chess except:
1. When a player makes a non-capturing move, he must remove one of his pieces immediately after that move.
2. If a player is forced to remove his own king, he loses.

The ZRF also contains Sudden Death Extinction Chess, which is Extinction Chess except:
1. When a player makes a non-capturing move, he must remove one of his pieces immediately after that move.
2. If a player is forced to remove his own king or queen or his last pawn, rook, knight or bishop, he loses.

Download Sudden Death Chess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Super Chess

Created by Robert A. Kraus, September 2000


Object: capturing ALL of the opponent's Kings.

All of the rules of regular Chess apply EXCEPT for the following:

Pawns move forward ANY number of empty squares but they are not allowed to pass thru a square under attack by an enemy pawn.
Pawns capture just as in regular Chess, except there is NO en-passant capture.
Upon reaching the last rank, Pawns must promote to a King (no other choice allowed).
There is NO checkmate or stalemate - Kings can move to squares under attack and can be captured like any other piece.
There is NO castling.
You win by capturing ALL of the opponent's Kings.

Two Kings vs One King is a forced win.

Included is a random-start variant: the pieces on the first/eighth rank are shuffled before actual play starts).


Super-Chess was designed by Robert A. Kraus sometime during the 1970's with the idea of speeding up pawn moves and eliminating all silly, disgusting, and artificial rules. (Silly: Check and Checkmate; Disgusting: Stalemate a Draw instead of a Loss; Artificial: Castling, En-passant capture, Minor promotions.) The promotion to Kings instead of Queens compensates for the greater chances of promoting a Pawn.

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[Gervie]

Game: SwapChess

Invented and implemented by by Joao Pedro Neto in 1998 (www.di.fc.ul.pt/~jpn/cv/CVindex.htm).

Two players, Black and White, play Chess, but with the option of swapping pieces. Five variants are available, which vary when players can swap, how many moves to each side, and if a piece can swap more than once per turn. This download is a ZRF, and so does not need to be unzipped first.

Download SwapChess Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Symmetrical Chess Collection

Various games invented 2000-2003 by Derek Nalls.
Various games implemented 2000-2003 by Derek Nalls and L. Lynn Smith.

Special thanks to Ed van Zon and Jens Markmann along the way.


All of the chess-related games in this collection are played upon boards which, with the pieces for each of the 2 players set to their opening positions, maintain perfect bilateral symmetry.

I welcome thoughtful, constructive correspondence from anyone.

Please report any errors or inefficiencies observed or discovered thru playing my games or upon
examining their programming (*.zrf).

Derek Nalls
[email protected]

Symmetrical Chess Collection
www.symmetryperfect.com/shots

45 unique games
45 variants total

Diamond Chess I
Diamond Chess II
Butterfly Chess
Diamond Bottleneck Chess
Diamond Sculpture Chess
Ultra Diamond Chess
Wing Chess
Quad Corner Chess
ZZ Intersection Chess I
ZZ Intersection Chess II
ZZ Jackhammer Chess
Island Diamond Chess
Island Hex Chess
Double Hex Chess
Field Chess
Centrifuge Chess
Hourglass Chess
Skyscraper Chess
ZZ Skyscraper Chess
Parallel Chess
ZZ Perpendicular Chess
ZZ Drag Race Chess
ZZ Infinity Chess
ZZ I-Beam Chess
Diamond Bridge Chess
Diamond Quadrature Chess
Butterfly Quadrature Chess
Diamond Orbit Chess
Diamond Frame Chess
Butterfly Frame Chess
Diamond Iceberg Chess
Diamond Iceberg Bridge Chess
Diamond Iceberg Quadrature Chess
Butterfly Iceberg Quadrature Chess
Rooks-Grid Chess
Bishops-Grid Chess
Saber Diamond Chess
Saber Diamond Sculpture Chess
Diamond Ramp Chess
Diamond Dangerous Entry Chess
Diamond Vice Chess
Double Diamond Vice Chess
Diamond Portal Chess I
Diamond Portal Chess II
Diamond Spatial Chess
Updated 07/26/03
added 5 games

Download Symmetrical Chess Collection Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Take The Brain

© Parker Brothers
Implemented by Stephen Tavener, July 2000


Also known as "Smess", "Ninnie's Chess", and "All the King's men", this is a simplified version of chess. Like chess, the idea is to mate the opponent's king. In this case, however, pieces either move one space or an unlimited number of spaces in a straight line - with the square they are standing on determining their direction of movement.


You'll find more rules files for download on Stephen Tavener's web site at http://www.scat.demon.co.uk/free.html

You should extract from the downloaded zip file preserving path names.

Download Take The Brain Now!

 

[Gervie]

Game: Tauschach

Implemented by Uwe Wiedemann, November 2001


In the beginning of the game takes every player a piece (but not the king) from the board. Later he can as a own move exchange this piece with another piece. The piece which can be changed get there place in ower implementation on the golden fields on the right side. You can change as often you like.

The name of the game is a conglomoration of the german words `Tausch` and `Schach`. We could translate this name to exchanchess.

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[Gervie]

Game: Terrace

© Siler Ventures
Implemented by Stephen Tavener, July 2000


Win by capturing your opponent's T-piece, or moving your own T-piece across the board to the lowest square.

The board is tiered; high points are in the top left and bottom right corners, with lowest points in the top right and bottom left. I have tried to indicate this with the board graphics, but art isn't really my strong point.

A move is:

to any vacant space on the same level that can be reached without passing over an opponent's piece
straight up or diagonally up, to a vacant square (one level only)
straight down (one level only)
capture any piece of the same size or smaller by moving diagonally down (one level only)
In Terrace, you may choose to capture friendly pieces.

Terrace is (c) Siler Ventures; see www.terracegames.com for variants, ordering information, and more coherent rules.


You'll find more rules files for download on Stephen Tavener's web site at http://www.scat.demon.co.uk/free.html
You should extract from the downloaded zip file preserving path names.

Updated 8/26/00
Improved board graphics.

Download Terrace Now!