r/chessvariants

PLAY IN REDDIT : r/morphychess
I built a small chess puzzle game with one twist:

Every time you capture a piece, you become that piece.

Your movement changes after every capture, so every puzzle is about planning not just your next move, but what you’ll become next.

I’m calling it Morphy Chess. It’s still an early side project, but I’d love to hear what you think about the core mechanic.

Feedback, ideas, and criticism are all welcome.

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Game Title: Chess: The Update

Playable Link: https://hickodev.itch.io/chess-the-update

Platform: Windows PC

Description:
After 1,500 years, chess is finally getting an update!

Chess: The Update is a turn-based strategy game that combines the familiar rules and tactical depth of chess with deck building and unique playable pieces. Before each match, you build your own deck, choose which pieces to bring, and create a strategy around their different movement patterns and special abilities.

During the match, every decision matters. You can move a piece, activate an ability, capture enemy pieces, and find new combinations to outplay your opponent. The goal is to keep the game simple and readable like traditional chess while introducing more variety, customization, and unexpected strategies.

The beta is now available, and I would really appreciate it if you could play the game and share your honest feedback.

YouTube trailer: https://youtu.be/uv-ZE2fg8Vg
Discord:  [DISCORD LINK]

What new piece would you add to chess?

Free to Play Status:

[x] Free to play

[ ] Demo/Key available

[ ] Paid

Involvement:
I am the indie developer behind Chess: The Update. I designed and developed the game, including its core gameplay systems, pieces, abilities, deck-building mechanics, user interface, visuals, and overall game direction.

End of the game

Next game

Play here! playpicklechess.com

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/Cuytzk8bDs

Game Title:
Chess Adventure

Playable Link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.awesomelyup.chessadventure&hl=en_US

Platform:
Android (Mobile)

Description:
A clean and simple chess app designed for young players who are just learning the game. Built with Unity over the course of a year, the goal was to create something friendly enough for kids who can't read yet, while still being a proper chess experience. The app features a vs Bot mode with fully adjustable difficulty, local PvP on one device (pass and play), and customizable piece colors and backgrounds. The UI is kept minimal and visual so younger players can navigate it easily. No ads, no subscriptions. There is one optional one-time in-app purchase to unlock extra color themes, but the game is fully playable without it.

Free to Play Status:
[x] Free to play

Involvement:
Solo developer. Designed, programmed, and shipped the entire app independently.

Hey guys!

I’m an indie developer, and I’ve been working on Chess: The Update for quite a while.

After 1,500 years, chess is finally getting an update !!!

Build your deck, choose new pieces, master their abilities, and outplay your opponent.

I’d really appreciate it if you could take some time to test the game and share your honest feedback.

🎮 Play: [GAME LINK]
💬 Discord: [DISCORD LINK]

▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uv-ZE2fg8Vg

What piece would you add to chess?

A while back I got a little obsessed with the idea of chess on a smaller board — something you could finish in a couple of minutes but that still had real tactics instead of being a novelty. I even made a small rollup mini-chess board and would bring it to chess clubs to play with other players OTB.

One of my favorite Variants is chess on a 5×6 board. Each side gets one king, one queen, one rook, one bishop, one knight, and five pawns. Everything moves like normal chess, with two changes for the smaller board: pawns only move one square (so no double-step, and no en passant), and castling still works — the king steps two toward its rook and the rook hops over. Pawns still promote, Draws automatically happen from 3 fold repetition and insufficient mating material.

The name is the math, think chess-960 only smaller. There are 120 ways to order five different pieces on the back rank. Throw out every setup where the king starts right next to its own rook and you're left with 72 legal orders. Black will randomly either mirror White's row or reverse it, so 72 × 2 = 144 unique starting positions. I named every one after a great female chess player, so you might open a game as "the Judit", "the Irina" or "the Yifan."

What surprised me is how sharp it plays. With less room, tactics show up almost immediately, and a full game is usually two or three minutes. It scratches the same itch as bullet, but the positions feel fresh because you're not in a line you've memorized.

It's completely free, Anonymous, runs in any browser, desktop or phone, no signup necessary. You can play the bot across six levels, play live opponents (ranked, 2+1), or grind 500 "Mate in 1/2/3" puzzles. I vibecoded it myself and I'm still tuning it, so I'd genuinely like to hear what breaks or what feels off. I think its great for new chess players and chess veterans like yourself.

www.chess144.com

Mostly I'm curious what do you all think of mini chess? Hope to catch some of you out there in the live player Queue! Mods let me know if everything is alright with this post.

The monster is a placeholder, ill make my own energydrink or soda later lol.

The way im making the game some pieces have special abilities. Like the checker on the left capture by jumping over pieces

follow dev on my twitter if ya wanna, same name :-)

I had a great deal of fun making this and adding it to my Kwik Chess portfolio of chess drills and games.

The aim of the game is to get as many gold king tiles as possible. It's that simple. To get a gold tile you need to combine two queens (of the same colour.)

- To get a queen - combine two rooks!

- to get a rook - combine two bishops!

- to get a bishop - combine two knights!

- to get a knight - combine two pawns! (although knights sometimes spawn.)

Remember how you played the old 2048 viral game where you'd shift numbers around and join them together - Kingmaker 2048 is the same concept. Although there's 64 squares, not 16 AND you can manually join tiles using chess moves like a knight hop!

Works best on browser but also works on mobile phone.

www.kwikchess.com

Enjoy and please let me know how you get on and what your score is. It can be very addictive as me and my wife have found out.

Hey r/chessvariants — long-time lurker, finally have something to share. I spent the last few years building a chess variant called Void Chess and just released the polished version. This community is the ideal audience for it — variant enthusiasts who care about good design.

The variant changes three things — everything else (check, checkmate, castling, en passant, promotion, draws) works exactly like classical chess:

1. 9×9 board instead of 8×8. One extra file (i-file). 9 pawns per side instead of 8.

2. A new piece called the Minister sits between the bishop and the knight on the king's side (g1 for White, g9 for Black). It moves up to 2 squares in any of the 8 king directions, and can change direction between the two steps. Worth roughly 13 pawns in my engine. Three unique abilities:

- Captures don't create unstable tiles (the void-blocker special)

- Can heal red unstable tiles

- The ONLY piece that can step onto a void tile (and remove it)

3. Every capture creates a red unstable tile at the destination. At the end of the owner's NEXT turn, that red tile becomes a permanent black void — UNLESS:

- The piece on it moves away (saves the piece, square still becomes void)

- An opponent recaptures (chain continues, new unstable tile)

- The Minister heals it before the deadline

The void blocks ALL pieces except the Minister. Sliders can't pass through, knights can't land on, pawns can't capture onto. The board literally shrinks as the game progresses.

The interesting strategic question this creates: captures are no longer "free." Every trade costs you a square forever. Endgames are completely different — sometimes with a massive material advantage, you still can't win because the voids blocked your path.

Built it in C++ compiled to WebAssembly. The engine has 20 difficulty levels (recently rebalanced so Level 1 is genuinely beatable for beginners). PvP rated with ELO. No ads in gameplay.

🎮 Try it:

- [Play free in browser] (https://voidchess.com/play)

- More about the design: [voidchess.com](https://voidchess.com)

Curious what you variant veterans think of the design. The Minister specifically — does it feel overpowered, balanced, or underused in your view?

Hey all! I’ve been playing around with this chess variation and it’s definitely an interesting strategy

I feel like I’m learning chess again hahaha. My normal play strength is around 1850-1900 elo

I haven’t seen a variation like this and wanting to see what you all think!

Pawns can only capture pawns, knights capture knights, etc

In this chess variant, the goal is to capture all of your opponents kings (the green stones) or leaving the opponent with only one piece
Each piece has a different way of being captured
Pawns (white pieces): jump over it was one of your pieces
Knights (blue pieces): sandwich it between two of your pieces
Kings (green pieces): sandwich it between two pieces than jump over it, it can not move when sandwiched
A turn consists of moving three pieces, but if one is under three pieces, you can move less than three
Pawns move up to 2 spaces in any direction, knights move like knights in regular chess but also like an extended knight, in a 3 by 1 L shape, and kings have the combined movement of knights and pawns
To tell the difference between pieces, use weather the side facing up is flat or curved.

I've been working on a computer vision project that turns a phone into a companion for over-the-board chess, and I'd love some feedback from the community.

The idea is simple: point your phone at the board (a tripod helps, but isn't required), and the app detects the pieces in real time, tracks the game, and can provide useful assistance like:

• Recording moves automatically.
• Running a chess clock.
• Warning if a king is left in check (surprisingly common in junior tournaments).
• Announcing checks and other events.

Everything runs on-device, so no internet is required.

The app is free, and you can find the iOS and Android download links here:
https://magicalchess.app/

I'm especially interested in feedback on accuracy and usability.

Current challenges:

• Camera dead spots and occlusions.
• Occasional hallucinated piece detections.
• I'm trying to use the previous game state to recover from these errors, but there's still room for improvement.
• Pawn promotions aren't implemented yet.

I'd really appreciate any feedback, bug reports, or feature suggestions. Thanks!

This Game; https://youtu.be/L0Yy8vE0UTI?si=wUlkBsvNRa94Ux85