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Bushi shogi
. Shogi variant on a two-square board! Bushi means Samurai.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]With only two squares, perhaps this is the smallest of all chess variants.
Yes, it MAY be the smallest chess variant. But two players can also use one piece and roll and rotate it on a square, win by make some special move. Piece can be polyhedra instead of cube.
I am a fan of Georg Dunkl's wonderful games, Nana Shogi and Gufuushogi, but the truth is, no matter how good a game this is, it is too far a departure from any form of chess, in my mind. I don't wish to give an unfair rating, because it may be fantastic (never played it), but it sadly has lost everything that makes chess, shogi, and others what they are.
It's interesting idea to make smallest possible chess variant. But, i think what it's not chess (or shogi) at all: players have only one piece and they don't move (expect droping). I think: chess with 2 squares, many (at least 3 for each player) pieces, moves and captures MUST be invented!!! By they way, here 2 squares is really absolute minimum for chess. But i suggest to author of these small shogi: make absolutely without suares and one piece for both player (or even without pieces at all playing only with words)! It's not irony it will be really good idea (although it will not be chess or shogi). But for absolute minimum of chess, there MUST be game with two squares, several pieces, moves and captures! But it will be 1D game... Absolute minimum for 2D chess is 3 squares (and 4 squares for 3D game).
No, there can be smaller Chess on 1 square, which equals no square. It was already discussed how piece-types alone and sub-modes of them can mutate competitively, ready and able to delineate whose advantage. The class can be designed non-trivially, not like some Rock-Scissors-Paper. Also there may not be a spatial but only temporal arrangement. Battle Chieftain has only one piece-type and it is still Chess, as do couple of others, but Chieftain has two modes. Conway's Angel leaps to any square, as does the Missile Flowerman reused, and so against some mixes none of the other squares would matter against Angel, and the whole game is tempo, by thinking of and planning it all as just one square, or space accurately.
Ok, maybe, game with only 1 square can be called 'chess' or 'shogi'. Maybe, even game without squares at all. I hope, it will be invented. But it will be 0-dimensional game! Absolute minimum for 1-d game is still 2 cells, for 2-d game - 3 cells, for 3-d game - 4 cells. I think so, maybe, it's wrong... By the way, i almost invented these 3- and 4-cells games, i tryed to play with 3 cells (but i still don't know if it's playable). May i describe them here?
This game actually have 12 playing spaces, it's 3D and it's not Shogi or any other chess variant.
I really enjoy Nano Shogi and Bushi Shogi by the same inventor, as they still seem to retain some semblance of being a shogi variant. However, this to me is an interesting game, but not shogi. I've not played it, so I can't rate it, but if it's not shogi, it's not a chess variant to me.
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