Sunday, February 20, 2011

Crazy Chess - not so simple

The denial rule in the last post is not crazy enough, let´s try something else :-).

The rules below are supposed to be played in addition to all other rules and movements of the normal chess plus the denial rule in the last post (hard version).

King

The King can (and must, if you choose to move the King) move twice in a round, each of its move is exactly the same of the normal chess but must be done two times in a row. This means that the king can capture two pieces in one movement, move to a checked square in the first move and then escape to a safe one in the second (even returning to it's initial square, witch is very useful to capture an enemy piece near the king and returning to a safe position in the same movement).

Castling is a Kings move, so the king must move a second time when castling is performed, usually the king jumps inside the Rook when this is done (jumping inside the Rook will be explained soon).

The King still could not end its last move in a checked square, but it can move to a checked square and even capture pieces in the first move (the King can capture even pieces that explode or raise from the dead on the first move, if the second movement is safe and is not checked it's OK).

Denying a kings move is not so strong as it is in normal chess, that's because almost all of its possible moves can be performed using alternative paths, this is why the strong denial option is proposed for this kind of game.

Queen

This piece moves and captures just like the Queen in normal chess, but it have a special movement option and a special effect when it is captured. The special move is the all-round capture, instead of a normal move or capture the Queen can use the all-round capture, when this is done every piece in one of the adjacent squares (horizontally,vertically and diagonally, there are a maximum of 8 such squares if the Queen is on the center and a minimum of 3 if she's on a corner) are captured, regardless of it's color, so if the Queen performs the all-round capture while her King is near it's checkmate(so you can lose the game in your own first movement without quiting :-) ).

Note that you cannot normally move the Queen and perform the all-round capture at the same time, you need to choose what movement you´ll do with your Queen.

The special effect that the Queen must perform when it is captured is the revenge, when she is captured the Queen must immediately perform an all-round capture and if there is a piece in the square that she was, that piece is captured too regardless of it's color(this can capture up to nine pieces in a row, 8 for the all-round capture and another one that is in the square that the Queen was when she was captured). This special effect is performed automatically at the moment that the Queen is captured, even her King can be captured this way, so, as long as the Queen and her King are next to each other, if the Queen is checked her King is checked too.

The all-round move of the Queen is the only movement that allow you to willingly capture your own pieces, revenge will also capture your pieces but it is a forced movement, there are other forced movements (bishops and rook as we'll see soon) that can capture pieces of the same color.

Rook

The Rook moves in the same way as in the normal chess, the only different thing is that any piece that could move into the square occupied by the Rook if the Rook was not there can jump inside it. When a piece jump inside a Rook it's put on the top of the Rook (I hope your chess pieces are able to balance itself upon your Rook :-) ) and cannot be captured (except by the Knights as we'll see later) before the Rook is captured.

When a Rook is captured the pieces upon it fall in the square that it was immediately capturing any piece that is on this square, regardless of it's color.

Note that jumping inside Rooks and capturing pieces by falling from a Rook can be done recursively as long as there are queued Rooks and pieces. Suppose that there are two black Rooks and a Pawn queued and a white Rook with a white Pawn queued just captured the black Rook, when this happens the white Rook capture the first black Rook and the another black Rook with the black Pawn inside falls capturing the white Rook, then the white Pawn falls and capture the second black Rook, then the black Pawn falls and capture the white Pawn and the game resumes.

When a piece is inside a Rook it's highly protected (only a Knight can capture it or a Pawn can remove it as we'll see soon) and it's a good idea to put your King inside one as fast as possible (castling movement can be used to do this), the piece inside the Rook can jump off the Rook normally as a movement, but the Rook still moves and capture normally (horizontally and vertically only as normal chess) regardless of the pieces enqueued inside it.

Note that pieces inside Rooks are queued, so, when the Rook is captured the pieces remains FIFO (the last one remains on top, the first ones to be enqueued are on the bottom and are the ones to capture or be captured first). Pieces can jump off the Rook as a normal movement of the respective color(the color of the piece that is jumping off, not necessary the color of the Rook in the base) as they are moving or capturing from the square that the Rook is. (yes, you can capture a piece near a Rook with a King and jump inside the Rook with the King in the same movement, you can also use the all-round capture of a Queen inside a Rook).

The King inside a Rook is not checked unless the piece checking it can capture the King in the next movement, not only the Rook bellow the King, so, a King inside an enemy tower can be really funny.

Knight

The Knight moves in the same way as in the normal chess, but it can capture one piece in it's path instead of one in the end of it's movement (so, that's why a Knight is not entirely immune to Denial rules as in normal chess), the restriction is that only one piece can be captured per movement (Knights like to duel :-)), so, you can move your Knight to an unoccupied square and capture one piece in a square that it jumped in it's path.

The Knight also can jump, this jump can be used as in normal chess (except that a piece in it's path can be captured as described above) but it also can be used to capture any opponent piece inside rooks, when this is done all other rules apply normally. One complex and very unusual example is when 4 Rooks are enqueued with a Pawn inside then on top, if the Knight can capture the third Rook (and do it without ending it's movement inside the queue of Rooks) the only piece that will remain is the Pawn (and the Knight), that will happen because the last Rook with the top Pawn will fall upon and capture the other two Rooks on the basin when the third enqueued Rook is captured, this triggers the falling capture movement of the Rook that is captured by the Knight as described above, note that the other pieces are captured by the Rooks falling upon then, the Knight just capture one of the Rooks and all other things happens as a chain reaction of the first capture, so, this is a complete valid movement.

Knights can capture and end it's movement inside a Rook normally, the only restriction is that only one piece should be captured by the Knight

Bishop

The Bishop moves and capture pieces in the same way they do in normal chess, the only difference is that they raise from the dead once when they are captured.

When a Bishop is captured it must raise from the dead, when this happens the piece in it's square (if there is any) is captured regardless of it's color (so if a Bishop inside a Rook of the same color is captured by a opposing Knight, it raises from the dead and captures the Rook bellow it), when the piece is captured this way the Bishop that is just captured return to the game in the same square, doing so captures the piece in this square as described above. If the Bishop is captured again in the same movement after raising from the dead it cannot raise again (if a Rook with a Pawn inside captures a Bishop, the Bishop raises from the dead capturing the Rook but the Pawn immediately captures the Bishop falling from the Rook). When a Bishop raises from the dead it can make just one more normal movement in the next turn of it's color player,  at the end of that players turn the bishop disappears (it captures itself) no matter if the player choose to move the Bishop or any other piece.

A Bishop can check a King inside a Rook alone (supposing the Rook is in the Bishop diagonal) because if the Bishop captures the Rook with the King inside, the King will fall upon the Bishop Capturing it, then the Bishop will raise from the dead and checkmates.

Pawn

Pawns have 3 special movements, they can move backward and horizontally one square, they can use disguise and also can use chain disguise.

The backward and horizontal one-square moves works the same way that the normal forward moves, even the double-square move when a Pawn is in any Pawn starting square can be done horizontally (and the en passant can be done in a similar way, if an opposing Pawn checks the horizontal square that the Pawn jumps in the two-squared movement), the only exception is that a Pawn can never end a move in the first row, be it making a backward move in it's starting position or trying to move horizontally from a Rook, if a Pawn is forced to end any turn in the first row (falling from a captured Rook) it captures itself in the end of that turn just the same way a Bishop capture itself when returning from the dead.

A Pawn inside a Rook can be in the first row (the same way that a Pawn inside a Rook is not promoted if it reaches the last row until the Pawn jump off or falls from the Rook), but it cannot jump inside a Rook moving backward its starting position because the movement of the Pawn to the first row isn't valid (remember that only valid moves can be done to jump inside a Rook).

Note that Pawns still cannot capture pieces backward, nor back-diagonally, nor horizontally, the Pawn capture powers are exactly the same as in the normal chess.

The second special movement of the Pawn is the disguise, the disguise is the only movement that exchanges the places of two pieces. To perform a disguise the Pawn must be able to move to the square that another piece is (not capture, just move to) as if that another piece wasn't there, regardless of it's color. When the disguise is performed the piece and the Pawn exchange places.

One sample of disguise is when a King (not in the first row) is checked and a Pawn is behind it, the Pawn can disguise as the King and exchange places with it, note that it's a Pawn move, not a Kings move (so, no double moves there). Another interesting move is to disguise as a opposing King replacing it inside a Rook, suppose that an enemy Tower with an enemy King inside is near a Pawn (or at the two-squares range of a Pawn first movement), the Pawn can disguise as the enemy King (since it can move inside the Rook as if the King wasn't there) and exchange places with the King probably putting the opposing King in a very bad situation.

The last movement of the Pawn is the chain disguise, this is a disguised movement performed when there are several Pawns of the same color vertically or horizontally adjacent to each other, the first Pawn make a normal disguise, then, any Pawn that can move to the square where the first was can instantly perform another disguise with the piece being disguised (including double-square Pawn moves when it's possible).

Suppose the sample of disguising an enemy King inside a Rook above, if there are a chain of friendly pawns adjacent to the first one (or at two squares it they are in any Pawn starting square) the King can be chain disguised to any square containing a Pawn in a valid position.

If an en passant is done when a Pawn is disguising or chain disguising the piece captured is the Pawn, never the disguised piece. In the case of an en passant in a chain disguise the pawn captured is the one that moved two squares, in other words, if the two square is done forward the Pawn that is on the front is captured, it it´s made from the right to the left, the one that remains in the left is captured.

Pawns can do the double move at any time when they are at a valid Pawn starting position, even if the Pawn was already moved before. The seventh row is a starting position only for the enemy Pawns, not yours, so your Pawn cannot double move when they are there. Pawns also cannot double move when they are inside Rooks, the same way they are not promoted nor self-captured when they are inside Rooks.

Pawns can never double move backward, if the Pawn is in the fourth row it cannot double move to a starting square, the double move can only be performed from the starting square. So, a disguise cannot be performed to put a piece in the fourth row with a Pawn in the fourth row, nor it can chain disguise a piece there.

Pawn promote if they end any turn in the last row and is not captured until the end of that turn, this can be relevant if the Pawn is inside a Rook and falls, it cannot be promoted if it is captured before the end of the turn. Note that Pawns inside Rooks does not promote until they jump off the Rook (or falls) as it's written above.

These rules are crazy, but they have a strong and strange logic that can be absorbed in a few plays, try it once and see what happens :-).

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Crazy Chess - simple

Lots of chess variants have been made since the first man walks the earth, and this is just another one. Why not :-)?

Denial (hard/strong version)

Denial is a special move that allows a player to deny one movement of another player, the player with the denial right can deny one move at any time, the opposing player that have the move denied must undo the last move and perform a different one (with the same piece or any other). After the player with denial right uses this special movement the opposing player gain the denial right.

After any player denies a movement, that player next movement cannot be denied, in other words, when a player denies a movement the opponent must undo his last move and perform a new one, then the game resumes but the first move of the player that just used the denial cannot be denied, after that the denial rules apply as normal.

Black pieces starts the game with the denial right.

Exceptions: It´s useless to deny knight normal moves, since there are two paths for a knight to take for every of it´s movements. Using normal chess movements the knights are immune to denial.

Denial (soft/weak version)

Since denial is very strong in many end game scenarios the optional rule is that a king's move can never be denied(including castling).

Optional rule:

After the third denial in a given game, the player with the denial right can call a draw at any time unless it´s king is in check.

Naming

What is a chaos monolith?

If we suppose that chaos is an initial state of the universe, such a thing can't exist any more, unless we´re at the beginning of the universe. So the chances are that this question have no answer, so let´s try a new one: "What was a chaos monolith?"

A monolith is something made from a single stone, there are some troubles when we try to imagine such things existing in a universe of formless things that chaos supposed to be... Well, let´s do some workaround and say that a chaos monolith is something that once existed in a formless universe and looked like a monolith.


Hmmm... How can a thing look like something else in a formless universe may be a problem, but we can be happy saying that a rational observer could imagine this thing like a monolith.

How can a rational being observe anything in a formless universe? That´s not my problem, it´ll be good enough just to define life and reason... Ops! Such definitions are a bit troublesome in an usual universe, imagine how these things would be defined in a chaotic one.

Before throw in the towel let's try to recognize an alive and rational being. Life and reason usually interacts with the world around then in ways that cannot be predicted with the laws of the nature alone, so if we observe something strange happening probably we got our observer... or we do not know the laws of nature very well.

This all seems pretty round, except by some minor details, like observing strange things in a chaos universe... The initial assumption that we are in the beginning of an universe in a state of chaos may be right.