Published 18:22 IST, February 12th 2021
'Suicide King' to 'American dream': Game designer rolls out freaky Chess variants
A recent Twitter thread about the freaky chess variants has left the internet flabbergasted. The thread was shared on Twitter by Elizabeth Sampat.
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A recent Twitter thread about the freaky chess variants has left the internet flabbergasted. The thread was shared on Twitter by Elizabeth Sampat, creative director for a mobile game company and featured variants such as that with a suicide king or lifting Chess. "Chess variants I made up because I can’t sleep: a thread," Sampat wrote before unleashing her creative ideas online.
The first variant ‘hoppy chess’ was a chess version which featured knight moving like pawns. Another version included one wherein the player controls opponent kind rather than their own. Another mind-blowing version included one wherein the player is obligated to stuff his or her mouth with the opponent piece which they takedown.
Chess variants I made up because I can’t sleep: a thread.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
HOPPY CHESS: knights now move like pawns. Pawns now move like knights.
SUICIDE KINGS: the goal is still to checkmate your opponent’s king, BUT ALSO, you control your opponent’s king instead of your own.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
LIFTING CHESS: this is just chess but the pieces are very heavy. Pawns weigh ten pounds, kings weigh 60. You can’t take a piece unless you can lift it. You have to pick up your opponent’s king to checkmate
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE: king can swap places with either of his rooks at any time. No limit on frequency
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
CHAOS CHESS: you choose a color king to defeat, but control all pieces of both colors on the right or left side of the board. This means when a piece travel’s to your opponent’s half, they can use it. Still have to be opposite colors to take pieces though
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
THE AMERICAN DREAM: any piece can be promoted when it reaches the opposite end of the board, except for kings.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
TERM LIMITS: every ten moves players must declare a new piece “king.” New “kings” maintain former movement rules, but are now the piece that must be checkmated.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
CHUBBY BUNNY: every time you take a piece you have to put it in your mouth. If it won’t fit you can’t take it.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
BATTLE ROYALE: 32 players each control a single piece. Last piece standing wins.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
THE PIECES HAVE GUNS: each piece can capture pieces on squares they can legally move to, without actually moving.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
Capturing in this way exhausts the player’s turn for the round though
A couple more chess variants I came up with as I was drifting off to sleep.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
CONTRACT KILLERS: all pieces can checkmate, but each piece can only capture other pieces of its type (pawns take pawns, knights take knights, etc.)
BROKEN SPAWNER: each player is only allowed to have one captured piece at a time. Every time a second piece is captured, the capturing player must put one of the pieces back in a valid starting location for that piece.
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
TRAP DOOR: before the game, each player writes down a square on the board that has a secret trap door. Any piece that moves onto that square will automatically be captured. Reveal the trap door the 1st time any piece moves onto that square. The trap door remains active afterwards
— Elizabeth Sampat (@twoscooters) February 11, 2021
'Calling for engineers'
Her creative chess versions have created quite a stir since shared online yesterday, February 11. In a subsequent tweet, Sampat also called in for engineers to turn her midnight creations into truth. "Enough people are telling me to make some of these available digitally so if you’re an engineer who wants to help me make a really silly side project, feel free to slide into my DMs (my mentions are worthless rn)," she wrote.
Meanwhile, netizens also joined the fun posting their own ideas and suggestions. "If the piece was chosen at random, that would really spice it up. You have 15 remaining pieces to choose from, so get an RNG going, and Bob's your uncle," wrote a user. "Predictable and boring in its current iteration, but promising with refinements. Everyone would declare queen as king ASAP, switch to Rook after that, then switch back to Queen," aded another.
This would be perhaps the most interesting one because of what it does to fortresses in the endgame
— Moshe Schorr (@MosheSchorr) February 12, 2021
Wow, that's impressive!
— Chess.com (@chesscom) February 11, 2021
18:24 IST, February 12th 2021