Games Gallery
This page showcases my newest games, so that they don't get lost among my other games.
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Grotesque Chess belongs to the same family as Capablanca's Chess, Bird's Chess, and Carrera's Chess. Unlike these games, it leaves no Pawn unprotected in the initial array, and it has a more flexible castling rule. |
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Kamikaze Mortal Shogi applies the same idea behind Mortal Chessgi to Shogi. Each of the regular Shogi pieces demotes to a lower ranking piece when captured. A captured Pawn demotes to a Kamikaze, a piece that dies when it captures or gets captured. This piece leaps forward two spaces. Kamikazes through Silver Generals may promote to any higher ranking piece up to a Gold General. I consider this game as good as Shogi, if not better, and overall one of my finest games. But I can't take all the credit for it. Roberto Lavieri came up with the idea for Mortal Shogi, the immediate predecessor of this game, and we collaborated on its rules together. Extended thanks go to Karl Scherer, whose Hydra Chess gave me the idea for Mortal Chessgi, which gave Roberto the idea for Mortal Shogi, which gave me the idea for Kamikaze Mortal Shogi. |
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Eurasian Chess is a synthesis of European and Asian forms of Chess, particularly FIDE Chess and Chinese Chess. It has all six pieces from Chess and only two pieces from Chinese Chess, but five of the pieces from Chess are found in other Asian variants. Four came to Asia from India, and they are still used in Thai, Burmese and Mongolian Chess. The fifth was independently created in both Europe and Japan. It also includes the Vao, a fairy chess piece not found in any regional variant east or west, but whose roots are both Chinese and European. The artwork for the game combines elements of both European and Chinese sets. |
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Caïssa Britannia, formerly known as British Chess, is a British-themed variant. The Queen is the royal piece, the Bishops are Anglican, and the game includes three additional pieces derived from British heraldry. These are the Lion and the Unicorn from the British coat of arms and the Dragon from the Welsh flag. The Lion is T.R. Dawson's Leo piece. The Unicorn is borrowed from David Paulowich's Unicorn Chess. And the Dragon was created especially for this game. |
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Voidrider Chess is the only variant I created during 2002. This was a less productive year for me, because my father died in April, I moved away from Rochester in May, I discovered Coast to Coast AM during the summer, and I began devoting most of my time to two jobs. But I'm very happy with this game. The rules allow pieces to shift the location of spaces, and it introduces a new piece, called a Voidrider, that takes good advantage of the shifting shape of the board. One thing I especially like about this game is how it virtually expands the playing area to 63 spaces, just one short of the spaces in regular Chess, while remaining a small variant. This is a 43 square variant I created for the 43 Squares Contest. |
| Interdependent Chess is a Shogi-style game played with drops, in which pieces can capture only by borrowing the usual capturing ability of the piece it moves away from. This makes the powers of the pieces interdependent. The game's name comes from the 7th principle of Unitarian Universalism, which calls for respect for the interdependent web of all existence. Following on the UU and interdependent web themes, two of the pieces are named Universalist and Spider. The Universalist borrows all its moving ability from other pieces, and its presence lets pieces capture as themselves. Because pieces in this game work together best in close proximity, the small size of the board probably makes this a better game than it would be on a larger board. |
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Mini Thunder Chess is a 42 square version of one of my favorite creations, Thunder Chess, which is a hybrid of Fusion Chess, Metamorph Chess, and Assimiliation Chess. Like Shogi, this is a dynamic game in which forces can grow as well as decrease. But the mechanisms for growth are different than in Shogi. Forces can grow through reproduction or assimilation. The smaller board works well with the rules of Thunder Chess, because it forces more intimate confrontation between pieces, which is at the heart of what gives Thunder Chess its character. Mini Thunder Chess tied for second place in the 42 Squares Contest. |
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Yang Qi is a westernized version of Xiangqi, a.k.a. Chinese Chess. It replaces most Chinese pieces with their western counterparts, and it replaces Counsellors with diagonal Cannons, which I call Canons in the western graphics ZRF and Arrows in the Chinese graphics ZRF. It removes all barriers to movement that existed in Chinese Chess. Kings and Arrows may leave their castles, and all pieces may cross the river. |
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Mortal Chessgi is a Chessgi variant in which total material diminishes with each capture. This makes it more like Chess than Chessgi is. When a piece is captured, it demotes to the next lowest ranking piece, changes sides, and is held in hand by the capturing player to drop on a future turn. But since nothing ranks lower than a Pawn, a Pawn capture simply removes the Pawn from the game, as in usual Chess. I invented Kamikaze Chessgi a few days before Mortal Chessgi. This is another Chessgi variant in which capturing diminishes the amount of material in the game. In this variant, the capturing piece dies and is removed from the game. The capturing player gets to place the captured piece in hand and drop it on a future turn. I generally prefer Mortal Chessgi to Kamikaze Chessgi. |