Games Gallery
Among the Chess variants I have created, several have been officially recognized in one way or another. Here are those games, along with details on how they have been recognized.
|
Voidrider Chess took second place in the 43 Squares Contest. Every piece may move spaces, thus rearranging the shape of the board. And it introduces a new piece, called the Voidrider, which is able to take advantage of the odd configurations the board can take. |
 |
Mini Thunder Chess tied for second place in the 42 Squares Contest. It 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. |
| Interdependent Chess won an honorable mention in the 42 Squares Contest. It 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. |
 |
Hex Shogi 41 is an adaptation of Shogi, the Japanese form of Chess, to a hexagonal board, which I created for the 41 Squares Contest. Like Shogi, this game has 9 ranks, but it's otherwise about half the size of Shogi. After creating Hex Shogi 41 for the contest, I followed it up with the creation of some full-size Hex Shogi variants, Hex Shogi 81 and Hex Shogi 91. Hex Shogi 41 came in fourth place in the 41 Squares Contest. |
 |
Smegi is a 40 square hybrid of Smess and Shogi. It is played with Smess pieces on an abbreviated Smess board, and captured pieces change sides and may be dropped on the board by the player who captured them. I designed it for a 40 Square Chess Variant contest, and it won fifth place. The rules file also includes a variant which uses the full-size Smess board. |
 |
Wormhole Chess is based on the idea that space can fold and create shortcuts between points that are otherwise at a great distance from each other. In this game, a square folds out of regular space whenever a piece leaves it, leaving wormholes which connect its neighboring squares together as though they were adjacent. Wormhole Chess uses Champions, Wizards, and a Lion in place of Rooks, Bishops, and the Queen. This game came in fourth place in the 32 Turn Challenge. |
 |
Zillions of Games made Assimilation Chess a featured game of the month for one month. This game is similar to Shogi or Chessgi insofar as all of these games allow you to replenish your forces by capturing enemy pieces. The thing that distinguishes Assimilation Chess is how capturing replenishes forces. When a simple piece captures another simple piece with different powers of movement, it gains the powers of movement of the captured piece, becoming a compound piece. |
 |
Shatranji is a hybrid of Chessgi and Shatranj. It uses the pieces of Shatranj, the historical Muslim precursor of Chess, with the drop rules of Chessgi. I thought it would be a better game than Chessgi, because Shogi-style games work better with weak pieces than with strong pieces. For example, Shogi is better than Chessgi, because the ability to drop a Queen in Chessgi can throw off the balance of the game. But Shatranj has weaker pieces than Chess, making it a more suitable candidate for a game with drops. I guess some others agreed, for we spent some time conducting a Shatranji tournament in which all games were played on-line with Zillions of Games. |
 |
Cavalier Chess is Chess on horseback. I gave Knight moves to most pieces and replaced Pawns with non-jumping Knights, which in the game are called Cavaliers. This game has rich strategic and tactical possibilities that are different than those found in standard Chess. These are due to the greater power of the pieces, the possibilities for Cavalier formations, and some modifications to how promotions are handled. Several people voted on which games should be played in a Chess Variants tournament, and Cavalier Chess was one of the games selected for the tournament. |