this morning before I awoke i was designing a game — receiving a game, a premonition, a thought. after certain checkmates, the songbird said, is a yuri of absence.
the kings must eliminate each other; ignore the rule that kings cannot come adjacent to one another and where the game normally ends, but keep any others from original chess. the board is smaller, intimate, and on its axis. black's goal is to have the black king eliminate the white king, or the white king eliminate the black king. red's goal is to stop this by forcing any king into checkmate by a non-king piece. pawns can move forward along the former rank or file "outward", and capture along the former diagonal. bishops move as always, though it feels more straightforward on this axis. knights follow their normal rules. white to move
edit: yuri chess is now available on itch, including a way to play online!
we were able to do the first full playtest of yuri chess this morning!
black stumbled into a win for Red, accidentally checkmating the white king with a knight in the process of trying to clear one of red's knights. we started again from the move right before, after which it was a very close game but the black king was able to come to the center of the board, and white chose to end the game bringing the kings together!
got a lot of good feedback; but I'm feeling really good about the rules and how they end up reflecting the themes of the game. the empty corner of the board; the subversion of "victory", the intimate boardsize.
quote from the playtest: "You technically know everything you can do — what's new are the consequences."
