Game Crit Extra Credit Design Challenge
This challenge is for students in Brenda’s current Game Design Criticism and Analysis class, but if any non-SCAD readers feel particularly inspired, you’re welcome to post your ideas to this topic.
Task: Reinvent Chess
Description: For this project, you must write a ruleset for a new board game that only uses chess paraphernalia. This is not a mod: you may not create a game whose win condition is equal or similar to that of chess, nor may you retain any of the traditional rules of chess (note that this also precludes you from using rules from chess variations). Treat the playing pieces as an arbitrary set and act as if chess does not exist.
Requirements:
- Game must use only chess paraphernalia. This means the only playing pieces available are those included in a regulation chess set (four rooks, four bishops, four knights, two kings, two queens, sixteen pawns, and one 8×8 black-and-white tile board) — no dice and no cards. However, you may include supplementary paper information, such as ability lists or stat sheets. Note: your design does not need to use all the pieces in a regulation chess set, but it cannot use more those found in one regulation set.
- Game rules cannot incorporate any of the standard rules of chess. Note that this means you can make rules that are similar: pieces that move, capturing, victory by entrapment, etc., but they cannot be precisely the same as in chess.
- Game rules must be no longer than two typed pages, single-spaced.
- Game rules must follow the format of the Simple Sundays designs on this blog. That means you must enumerate number of players, materials, setup procedure, turn procedure, special rules (if applicable), and win condition (see SS page for examples). Additional sections may be added as you see fit, just be sure the rules are complete. You will not have the chance to explain the game! It must be playable as written.
Any questions, please post a comment so others can view the response. Good luck, and have fun!
No Name
(note this game is playable under your constraints, but it is improved by the addition of paper templates.)
The goal of this game is to control as many of the squares on the board as possible at the end of play. This is similar to the game Cathedral, though with distinctly different piece shapes.
Required pieces:
1 8X8 chess board.
16 pawns
2 Kings
2 queens
4 bishops
4 rooks
4 knights
Setup
Split the pieces into color coded groups. Assign each player a color, choose a player to go first (possibly have one player hide a pawn in one of their hands and the other player guess which hand it is in. If they guess, they are first if they fail they are second.)
Lay out the chess board. Orientation is not essential.
Play sequence:
The players take turns putting a piece on the board. The player who controls the most squares at the end of the game wins.
A piece controls every square that it could legally move through in a regular game of chess.
a. Bishops may be played on either color square.
b. A pawn in it’s player’s second row controls both squares it would be able to move to in a regular game of chess.
c. If your opponent has a pawn in his 4th row, you may play a pawn adjacent to it in the same row. That pawn controls both the square behind his pawn and the square directly in front of itself (the en passant rule)
No piece may be played in any square controlled by a piece of the opposing color.
A player may play his or her own pieces in squares he already controls. Doing so interrupts the line of control for that piece. Even for knights.
Ending the game:
The game ends when either both players have no more pieces to play or when one player has no legal moves to make that do not block his own lines of control.
Scoring
Count the number of squares each player controls. The player who controls the most squares wins.
If two or more opposed pieces would control the same square, then that square is no longer available for scoring.
(alternately, control goes to the player with the most pieces capable of controlling that square. In the case of a tie, compare the values of all pieces. The player with the highest total control value for that square gains control of that square. In the case of a tie, that square is no longer available for scoring.
King 6 points, Pawn 5 points, Bishop 4 points, Rook 3 points, knight 2 points, Queen 1 point.
This rule makes scoring much more complicated in a game that should be a quick play. Thus it is optional.)
If the points are tied, the player with the fewest remaining unplaced pieces wins. If that is also a tie, the the game ends in a draw.
Materials required are a standard chess set. One team is chosen as offending and the other is chosen as defending. The placement of the pieces, other than the King, is entirely arbitrary, outside of the condition that each team begins on its own half of the board. The King will be placed in the “middle” of the board on a colored square.
The King will be considered the “payload”…the goal is for each team to move the King straight down to the opposite end of the board. The King can only move one direction: straight forward. Although the other pieces can move any direction they’d like (with the restriction of only one piece moving one space per turn), having more than two pieces adjacent to the King at any point in time forces him to move forward on the next turn.
Pieces are not allowed to displace each other, but they can jump over pieces in their way. The only exception is that a piece “dies” when it is surrounded on 4 sides by the opposing team; note that the King cannot be killed. Whichever team can get their King to the other end of the board first wins.