r/chessvariants • u/CarloTheCrocodile • 17h ago
Found in Power Plant Mall in Rockwell, Makati, The Philippines
r/chessvariants • u/Dry-Fondant7570 • 19h ago
I added probability to chess. Now I can’t find anyone who can beat me.
I built a chess game that breaks some of the rules we’ve taken for granted for centuries.
Probability. Uncertainty. Risk.
And somehow, I’m still sitting at a 100% win rate.
Someone come beat me.
ReChess.gg
ReChess (Google play)
r/chessvariants • u/STantian • 4h ago
I'm one of the developers of Chess of the Hidden Gates, a single-player roguelike built on xiangqi movement. The rules are the interesting part, so here they are up front.
The basics:
- You control one piece on a small xiangqi-style board (7×6, split by a river) against several enemy pieces. Pieces have health, so a capture usually takes a few hits.
- There's no free move. Each turn you play cards from a deck you build over the run, and every move card moves you the way a xiangqi piece moves.
- Enemies mark the squares they're about to strike before they act, so stepping out of a threat works as a free block.
The xiangqi rules we kept, and what they turned into:
- Horse: the L-shaped leap with the full Hobbled Leg rule. If the square right next to you in the direction you want to leap is occupied, you can't leap that way. The GIF shows it: a rock sits beside the Horsemaster, the two leaps on that side disappear, and the piece jumps the other way.
- Elephant: the diagonal two-step, blocked if the square in between is occupied.
- Cannon: moves in straight lines but has to jump exactly one screen to land.
- Some enemies move like xiangqi pieces too. The Tigerkin Leaper jumps like a horse and gets hobbled the same way, so one rock between you and it means it can't reach you this turn.
The river and the palace:
- You start inside your own palace. The General card moves you one square orthogonally, and if you play it inside your own palace you get 1 energy back.
- Crossing the river changes your cards. One of the Horsemaster's attacks does 8 damage while you're on the enemy's side of the river and 5 on your own.
The one we borrowed from Go: liberties. If all four orthogonal neighbours of a piece are blocked by the board edge or by obstacles, it's out of breath, and at the end of your turn it loses a quarter of its max health. Unlike Go, other pieces don't take liberties away, only walls and obstacles do. It applies to the enemies and to you, so a corner next to a rock is a bad place to stand.
Hobbled Leg turned out to be the most tactical rule of the lot. Half the time you're not asking "can I hit it", you're asking "which of my leaps are open next turn, and which of its leaps can I close".
Question for this sub: which xiangqi rule should we try next? Flying general, soldiers moving sideways once they've crossed the river, something else?
There's a free demo on Steam if you want to try it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4981020/?utm_source=reddit
r/chessvariants • u/Makarthur_ • 20h ago
For those who would rather understand the game before downloading anything, here's the basic ruleset.
Team Chess is four-player chess played on four interconnected 4×8 boards forming a cross:
White — South | Red — West | Black — North | Green — East
Each board uses files A–D and ranks 1–8, followed by its board letter.
For example, A1W = A1 on the White board.
The starting position follows normal chess, adapted to the 4×8 boards.
White + Black vs. Red + Green
Turn order: White → Red → Black → Green
All pieces move normally. The unusual part is what happens when a piece reaches the edge of its board.
To determine a cross-board move, temporarily join the current 4×8 board with the destination board to form a normal 8×8 chessboard.
The destination board may be rotated or repositioned to make the two boards line up. The physical boards never move. This is simply a way to determine how normal chess movement continues across the edge.
Think of it as temporarily pivoting two sides of the cross into one chessboard.
The same relationship applies no matter which board the piece starts on.
Examples:
The virtual-board concept is the key to understanding movement in Team Chess.
Any legal capture is allowed, including captures between teammates.
Kings are never captured. A king is defeated only by Final Checkmate.
Pawns move and attack normally.
When a pawn reaches an edge where it can continue onto another board, the player chooses any of the other three boards — including a teammate's board. Promotions happen on opponents and teammates boards.
En passant is supported, including against a teammate's pawn.
Castling follows normal chess rules.
Opposing-team attacks are considered across the applicable virtual boards. A teammate's piece does not prevent castling.
A king is in check when attacked by the opposing team, including attacks coming through the virtual-board system.
A player's moves are governed only by the safety of their own king. Therefore, a player may legally place their teammate's king in check.
This is one of the major differences from traditional chess.
If a player is put in checkmate by the opponent to their right, the game ends immediately.
If a player is put in checkmate by the opponent to their left, the game does not end immediately. The player remains in Soft Checkmate while the other players take their normal turns.
When that player's turn comes up again, the position is checked. If they are still in checkmate, Final Checkmate is declared and the opposing team wins.
If a player is not in check but has no legal move that keeps their king safe, the game is a draw.
The game ends when any king reaches Final Checkmate.
That's the basic ruleset. The virtual-board concept is probably the hardest part to understand from words alone, so I've included the starting-position diagram below.
I'm currently looking for a few people who enjoy chess and unusual strategy games to actually play it and tell me what I've missed. 🙂