Ancient Games and How to Improve Them: Chess

As far as ancient games go, chess is one of the most prolific and well-known board games from ancient times. The modern iteration of "western chess" that is commonly played today is derived from the Indian game of Chaturanga, dating back to the 6th century CE.
It’s complete lack of luck makes it a unique game, and the sheer volume of moves and strategies has probably made it the quintessential strategy board game.

Despite its complexity, chess has a relatively simple set of rules. It is a two-player game, played on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns of spaces. Columns are given a letter designation (from a to h) while rows have numbered designations (from 1 to 8). For example, the bottom left square would be a1, and the space beside it would be b1.

Each player starts with their pieces on either end of the board, and attempt to "check" their opponent's King piece by moving their pieces to capture the King in a way where no action by the opponent can save them that turn, leading to a "checkmate". Players can move one piece while alternating turns.

Players can also draw (or "stalemate") for a variety of reasons, such as matching material (each player being reduced to only having their King) or for a King to have no available moves while in check.

 

There are six different types of pieces, each with their own point values for enemy capture and different ways of moving:

  • Pawns move one space forward. A pawn can be "promoted" to any other kind of piece that isn't the King once it reaches the other end of the board. There are eight of them per player, arranged in a row in front of the player's other pieces (along the 2nd row for white, 7th row for black).
    Pawns are worth 1 point.


  • Rooks     can move any number of spaces vertically or horizontally. There are two per player that are placed on the ends of the row closest to the player (a1 and h1 for white, a8 and h8 for black).
    Rooks are worth 5 points.


  • Bishops     can move any number of spaces diagonally. There are two per player that are placed either side of the King and Queen placed in the centre two columns of the board (c1 and f1 for white, c8 and f8 for black).
    Bishops are worth 3 points.


  • Knights     can jump to any space that is three spaces vertically and one space away from it (ie. in an L shape). There are two per player that are each placed between a rook and bishop (b1 and g1 for white, b8 and g8 for black).
    Knights are worth 3 points.

  • The Queen can move any number of spaces vertically or horizontally, or any number of spaces diagonally. There is only one per player, and they are placed on the matching colour square on the two centre spaces of the row closest to the player (d1 for white, d8 for black).
    Queens are worth 9 points.

  • The King can move one space vertically or horizontally, or one space diagonally. Each player only has one, and they are placed on the opposite colour square     (e1 for white, e8 for black).
    As the King's safety is tied to winning the game, it doesn't have any point value as it's capture would constitute a loss of the entire game.


In terms of variation and derivative games, there is no shortage of chess spin-offs.
However, if I were to make a new expansion of chess rules, I would build on the lack of luck/pure strategy aspect, and to add more niche and specialised pieces.

These pieces also add more passive benefits to other pieces, as opposed to the original six which only had the functionality to capture.
These new pieces should also add another dimension of area-denial to chess. Where before area-denial mostly happened on individual rows, columns or diagonals, these pieces make decisions and strategizing more orientated on zones and groups of pieces.

To accommodate the new pieces, the board would be 12x12 squares big to accommodate these new pieces (bottom left corner being a1 and top right corner being l12). 

 

Moving and capturing can also be mutually exclusive to some of these pieces, where a piece can capture while not moving.

  • Artillery     captures exactly like the Knight, except that it instead doesn’t move from its position when capturing ie. when capturing a piece, the piece is simply removed from play while the artillery remains in the same position.
    To move the artillery, it moves one square at a time, similar to the King. Each player gets two artillery and places them beside their rooks, which are at each at the ends of the board.

  • Medics     have     no capturing capability, but instead prevent any captures of adjacent friendly pieces. This means that an enemy piece cannot take and take the place of a friendly piece that is adjacent to a Medic.
    The Artillery is still able to destroy a piece protected by a Medic however, and you cannot block a check or checkmate by protecting the King with a medic (unless the Medic is used to interpose like any other piece to block an attack). Friendly medics can't help each other and can only protect other pieces that aren’t the King or the other friendly Medic.
    Like the King or Artillery, the Medic can only move one square at a time in any direction. Medics are placed beside Bishops, which are still placed beside the King and Queen.

  •  Halberdiers     are similar to pawns except that they can attack two diagonal spaces away instead of just one, and do not move if attacking a piece two squares away. Just like pawns, Halberdiers can only move one square forwards at a time, until they reach the opposite end of the board where they change direction.     Halberdiers cannot be promoted like pawns when reaching the other end of the board.
    Before starting, the player who is playing white can change the position of their four Halberdiers along their pawn row, before black sets up theirs. This allows for more advanced strategizing and counter-strategizing before the game even starts.
     


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Genre in Video Games

Video games are often divided up into different genres, much like film and television.  Much like in film and television, genre helps to compartmentalise and organise the market of games to make it easier for consumers to find games that appeal to them. Individuals gamers can find games from genres that they enjoy, while filtering out genres that don’t interest them as much. Gamers can also specialise further through subgenre, finding niche games that appeal to their tastes. Developers can also use genre to help them. By following trends in a specific genre, they can see what they might do in their own games to better perform in the market. While not hard-set definitions for what a game must be, genre should be used as a useful tool to guide players and developers towards a common ground for what type of game they want to play or make. For video games, many genres can be very broad, or very specific. Some may present a technical aspect of the game (eg. first person shoote...
Read more

Game Analysis: Factorio

  Summary Factorio is a game about a crash-landed engineer on an alien planet who must build a rocket as their way out of there, one technology at a time. While upgrading his factory apparatus, they must also build defences to keep the hostile local wildlife at bay. Character The player character is represented by a small figure on screen. The player character can move around dry land and harvest materials or interact with objects close to them. Camera The camera is always centred on the player character, though the player can use the map view to observe areas covered by radar dishes remotely. Controls WASD keys are used to move the player character. The player can left click to place structures, and use right click to harvest resources or remove structures. The player can drag and drop items into their grid-based inventory or hotbar at the bottom of the screen. Core Mechanic The player needs to build up more complicated machinery to get to the stage of creating a ...
Read more

Rules in Video Games

There are three main categories for organising rules in video games. While somewhat applicable to other analogue games, they are organised more with video games in mind. They are as follows: - Operational Rules: Obvious rules to the player, such as the limits of the player character’s abilities and controls. - Structural rules: Technical rules that dictate functional parts of the game that don’t readily need to be known to the player. These can be as trivial as how fast a player is allowed to move or how large a level is. - Implicit Rules: Good or intended player behaviour. Whether told to the player through in-game instruction or demonstrated through the player’s own trial and error. To demonstrate examples of these rules, we can break down a game like Team Fortress 2 . Team Fortress 2 (made in 2007) is a multiplayer team-based first-person shooter with many gameplay nuances and rules. - Operational Rules: In Team Fortress 2 the player has the choice of nine classes to p...
Read more