u/Shakugannosaints

Hi! I’m the developer of Shift Chess, a chess variant I’ve been working on for a while, and I thought this would probably be the most appropriate place to share it.

The basic idea is simple: alongside normal chess moves, you can spend your turn to shift an entire row or column of the board by one square.

That one rule changes things much more than I originally expected. Pieces can suddenly be brought into or out of attack, lines can open or disappear without any piece moving normally, and the geometry of the position itself becomes something you have to think about.

I eventually turned the variant into a full game, with:

• online multiplayer
• AI opponents
• puzzles
• local analysis
• a puzzle editor
• several customizable rule variants
• notation support for recording positions and games

There’s currently a free demo on Steam, so if the idea sounds interesting, you can try it here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4746450/

The full release will also include a Transformer-based AlphaZero-style AI, trained specifically for Shift Chess — I’m funding the training myself.

I’d especially love to hear what people who already play or design chess variants think about the rules. If you find any strange interactions, broken strategies(well at least my AI didn't find it), or just interesting positions, please tell me!

(sorry I don't use English, this post is translated by AI)

(Sorry, I don't use English—this post is AI-translated. The game has been translated to English too.)

Hi everyone. I recently finished an experimental TTRPG ruleset (or maybe a narrative manifesto). it should be a fairly quick read.

The core idea originated from "unifying role-playing with world design." After that, I looked at works ranging from Brindlewood Bay to Triangle Agency, and starting from epistemology and ontology, I designed this system. Its key principles are:

- A world model maintained collectively by all players;

- The state of the world remains undetermined until it is perceived;

- A core mechanic that reconciles the tension between world-creation and role-playing.

The main mechanism is called Deviation—when a player describes not just an action but its outcome, the GM may call for a roll to measure the gap between perception and reality. Low deviation means close to truth; high means the character is way off.

I know this sounds hardly workable—and that's exactly why I think the design is interesting.

Full rules here: the Loom of eXistential Horizons

I'd really appreciate any feedback.

Thanks for reading!