Scratch

While reading a comment on a YouTube video about Seirawan Chess, a chess variant of my own sparked into my mind. I like it because while it involves fairy chess pieces (pieces other than the normally used six), players have the option not to bring these into the game.

Basically, it is played as normal chess is played, with the same starting position, on the same board, with one new rule. On a player's move, a player may, move one of their pieces to a square occupied by another one of their pieces. On that square, the two pieces 'blend' into one piece, the new piece having the powers of both the pieces involved. Players could not combine a queen with a rook or bishop for any additional ability, since queen already possesses powers of bishop and rook. Players could not combine pawns or two pieces the same. A king cannot be combined, because if combined with a queen it would be very hard to checkmate.

This allows for the following fairy pieces to be used:

Amazon - queen and knight compound
Chancellor - Rook and knight compound
Archbishop - Bishop and knight compound

A player could combine a rook and bishop to create a second queen (meaning a player could have three queens without pawn promotion).

This arises several questions or variations:

Could a player combine one of their newly created pieces with another piece?
Does castling work as normal?
Is it possible to add pawn and king combinations?
Can pawns promote to a compound?

Please tell me what you think. I'd be interested in making this game in Scratch. It would be interesting to see opening strategy. A powerful possible opening could be to use your queen to build an amazon with a knight, then combine both your bishops with rooks to create two more queens, then combine one of these with the other knight. This would leave two amazons, a queen, and a king.

Last edited by benjamin2 (2012-11-05 02:36:26)