Okay, I'm working on another kooky little chess game. It's called
Chess in Hell
...aka Demon Queen, Adversary, The Green Meanie, the Green Queen, idk
This is a collaborative game where Black and White work as a team to uncover, survive, and defeat a procedural piece of a third color called the Adversary.
Rules and notes dump below:
(Something like this probably already exists, but I was cooking and just went for it without looking up anything. We're not totally sure how about all the rules yet. I tested last night with my chess brother and it pretty much works.)
To play, you will need a standard chess set and board, at least 32 tokens of some kind (coins, checkers, generic game pieces etc.), a piece representing the Adversary, and polyhedral dice.
Minor Rule Changes from Chess: The pawns can move backwards, but cannot capture backwards. Black and White pieces may still capture each other if deemed necessary. Additionally, Black and White may capture their own pieces. For reasons later apparent, the Black and White kings are worth 10 points each.
Promotion & Castling: Yes
En passant: No
Setup: Black and White start with pieces in the standard position (optionally with some pieces removed to modulate difficulty).
All empty squares are instead occupied by neutral pieces. These make no moves and can be taken or jumped over; they are simply inert pieces belonging to no one.
One neutral piece randomly mixed into the field is marked on its obverse side with an indication that here lies the Adversary. When a black or white piece discovers the Adversary square by moving to it, their piece is captured and the Adversary is activated. The Adversary piece is placed on the square where it was revealed.
Once revealed, the other player makes a move and then the Adversary moves. The Adversary takes its turn after Black's move and after White's move (i.e. turn order WABA) — is this too much? Could you never pin it down except by chance, missing the point of strategy ? Remains to be seen.
The Adversary's movement pattern is the most powerful on the board. It may be (according to desired/tested difficulty adjustment):
- The "Amazon" aka "Dragon" (Queen+Knight)
- ...+Camel, +Giraffe, +Zebra
- ...+Dabbaba, +Alfil
The Adversary is normally prohibited from taking neutral pieces to clear squares.
Once exposed, it moves randomly or procedurally, prioritizing capture of pieces that it can see based on a few conditions (see further below).
The Adversary can capture a king in order to defeat a human player. Losing your king leaves the rest of your pieces petrified. These pieces become equivalent to the neutral space-filler pieces from the starting position.
ADVERSARY (CAPTURE/SLADDS)
*Note that the if/then procedure moving from capture to movement here does not totally make sense, or at least it confuses me. You could also determine the type of move by rolling, for example, a d3 for move, capture, or stand still. This might mitigate the extreme danger of the Adversary's move frequency and allow for more opportunities to make actionable plans.
Capture
If the Adversary sees one or more pieces it can capture, it takes according to the following priorities:
0. Will not capture to place itself in checkmate
1. Capture undefended piece
2. Capture piece with highest value
3. Capture nearest piece seen
Movement
If the Adversary cannot see a piece to capture, it moves according to SLADDS:
- Shortcut/Simple: If the Adversary has only a few squares it can move to, these can be temporarily assigned numbers; roll for which it will move to.
- Linear: If the Adversary has only linear directions in which it can move, roll a d8 to determine the direction it will move. See "Direction" below. If direction is blocked, roll again.
- Any type: If the Adversary can make linear or leaping moves, roll a d2, d3, etc. to determine if it will make a linear move, knight move, camel move, etc.
- Direction: Once the movement type is determined (previous), roll a d8 to determine which direction the Adversary will move. For linear moves, assign 1=N, 2=NE, 3=E, etc.; for knight or camel moves, assign 1=NNW, 2=NNE, 3=ENE, 4=ESE, etc.; if direction is blocked, roll again.
- Distance: For linear moves, after determining direction, roll a d8 to determine the number of squares moved.
- Stops: For linear moves, the number of squares moved is of course cut short if the Adversary runs into a board edge, neutral piece it cannot take, or player piece it already opted not to take by consideration of the capture procedure (See below)
- The Adversary will not move or capture to place itself in immediate checkmate. If such a move is rolled, roll again.
KILLING THE ADVERSARY (options)
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The Adversary cannot be captured unless it is simultaneously attacked by two pieces, not pawns. at least one Black and one White. A pawn can still make the killing move. (This is the one we tested)
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The Adversary cannot be captured unless it is simultaneously attacked by both Black and White Queens
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The Adversary cannot be captured unless it is on the square where it was revealed (this is evil and maybe impossible)
-
The Adversary cannot be captured unless Black and White have lost all their pawns
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The Adversary cannot be captured unless Black and White have lost a combined six pieces (this is also evil and scary)
TRAPPING THE ADVERSARY
If the Adversary becomes contained in a space of nine or fewer open squares (including the one it occupies) and this space is bounded by neutral or petrified pieces, pieces it cannot take by its procedure, and/or board edges, it may start taking neutral pieces in its procedural movement in order to dig out and escape. Once this happens, it is permanently empowered to take neutral pieces even if no longer trapped.
If the Adversary becomes truly trapped (as above, but with no way out via capturing neutral pieces, essentially no moves allowed by its procedure that could lead outside the contained space), this is a victory for the human players.
Trying to find a balance here between threat posed by the Adversary and not making it way too hard. It should be right in a zone where the game can be won but is also very nervous-making as you start to carve open space.
Variant idea: Pieces captured by the Adversary are converted on the spot to the Hell color (by placing a red checker under them, for example). This only works with a third human player or an engine. These converted pieces can then be captured by Black or White and removed from the board.
PLAYTEST #1 NOTES
The turn order of Adversary moving twice as frequently as each human player is very dangerous and can basically amount to it getting to take two or even three middle/major pieces for free while a king flees.
The Queen movement pattern alone seems to be enough for the Adversary to present a constant and fairly complex threat. And an added knight movement might be hard to keep in mind.
Look for a nook protected by some neutral squares for an endangered/fleeing king
Being able to take your own pieces can really help in situations where your king seems to be screwed. You can put it somewhere that was previously occupied by a pawn with adequate defenses.
The Adversary may suddenly ruin an entire side of the board, and you end up with a semi-defended / neutral-barricaded other half of the board where you can recuperate somewhat and start planning.
Opening strategy:
Be careful clearing a square that might reveal the Adversary pointing straight at your king or queen.
Flushing out the Adversary with pawns may not be a good idea because it can open up a ton of wide-open space / sight lines once the Adversary is revealed. Maybe pawns carving diagonal corridors at first is a more manageable way to go?
Maybe a sacrificial knight/s hops around in the middle 2 ranks and carves out a cave?
Maybe White and Black can send emissary knights across the board to each other's side to get some cross-color defenders in the mix and even keep the king defended?
Probably a good idea to spend some time rearranging your back ranks to get everything defended... now that I think about it, could this leave the Adversary with nothing to do once you've locked everything down? At least until you try to make a move on it, or if you uncover it earlier than expected while making space for yourself
.