Comments by Stephane Burkhart

I have to precise a rule for the pawn: 
as in 2D, it will be blocked everytime it encounters a piece in the rook
like movement, even if there remains 4 more accessible positions (pawn
rule). This will prevent the pawn from promoting too easily and will keep
the knight useful !
The castling seems for the moment of no use, as the sides are opened, and
I don't go for adding more pawns, which would desequilibrate the game.

Hello Fergus
Is there somewhere a "Zillion2Game" (whatever the name) transcription script ? It would be so much easier to transcript existing games...
Sincerely,
Stephane Burkhart (from France)

Among all the invented chess variants (on this site or in Pritchard
Encyclopedia), I have selected 10 ideas, that according to me prevail on
others, whether they gave birth to a wealth of new variants, whether they
synthesized other older partial ideas, or for their unique originality:

1) "ALICE CHESS", flavour of third Dimension (see also "linear chess" in
1D): each move swaps the piece in another dimension
2) "SYNCHRONOUS CHESS", no time laps between moves: each move is played
simultaneously with new prevailing capture rules
3) "LOSING CHESS", reversed strategy: force the opponent to capture our own
piece until nothing remains
4) "CAPABLANCA's CHESS", new pieces combinations: introduce new pieces like
R+N or B+N, queen being already B+R: see faery chess in general
5) "ULTIMA CHESS", homogeneous pieces with different way to capture: 
immobilization, withdrawing, coordination, multiple capture, mimicking...
6) "EQUAL ARMIES", different forces: opponent handle different kind of
pieces, but overall balanced
7) "HEXAGONAL CHESS", new board shape: each piece has different numbers of
neighbouring squares (see also Strander's game, where board shape is formed
during play)
8) "DICE CHESS", where chance (randomness) play a role in piece order move
9) "BUGHOUSE GAME", also called 4 players blitz: played in tandem, with
captured pieces being given to ally, it requires cooperation
10) "PATIENCE CHESS", solo game: some rules allow you to move both sides,
and you lose if winning is not possible by any side 

PS some games may have different names and differ slightly from the short
description proposed here

Hello Kevin
The aim of your game against oneself is not clear to me ! you should be more explicit about it from the start. You can always give advantage to one side !
I was ready to upload an idea different to yours but still similar, so I gave up.
The idea was to use one dice, each number referring to one piece (1=pawn, 2=knight, etc...), playing the best move on each side. The aim is simply to win ! if you can't with the remaining pieces, you lose (idea is old see §10.11 solo games in Pritchard encyclopedia).
you can also have a look at this (somewhat different):
http://www.chessvariants.com/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSsolitarypatien

Stephane Burkhart

I updated the ZOG file (to change the rule at first move) and added a few pictures.

To avoid direct 3D attacks from long-range pieces at first move, instead of introducing passive or new active pawns (which may complicate the game uselessly), I propose to force long-range Pieces to do at least one "normal" move before doing an extra 3D-like move.

I'll probably introduce this as a new variant in the future.
You can have a feeling of what it brings looking at the reduction game of "Mapped Chess" to one board called "3to2" 

I recall the main interest of "Mapped Chess": the overall relative forces of Pieces are very similar to the ones in standard Chess game, but adding 3D effects. This would bring a wealth of new situations, and new strategies.

This game looks very interesting and well thought. The idea of developping positional and strategy game by limiting the men scope to local action is a nice one. I'll surely try the ZOG file.

It would be good to add a typical game example that would show the interest.

Stephane Burkhart

Thank you all for comments and precisions on existing similar fairy pieces.

I had this it play against itself on ZOG and the mighty knights have a tendency to suppress each other quite soon in the game  !

Dear Publishers, How can we record our own include files that are stored on and recalled from "/play/pbm/includes/" directory ? I would need this to modify move definitions of some pieces. Side question: how can we suppress old inactive setting files ? Regards, SB