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r/chessvariants

▲ 3 r/chessvariants+2 crossposts

A fun chess website I’ve made

Sorry if this comes off as too self-promoty

I just wanted to share something I recently built that I think some chess enthusiasts and people new to the game would enjoy

It’s basically an online chess website but you can talk to your opponent through voice chat

I had the idea when I saw an in person chess tournament where the players had to trash talk each other and thought it’d be a fun thing to try recreate online and it could lead to some funny clips

I’ve linked the website if anyone wants to try it and give feedback it’d be much appreciated

chessvc.com
u/solowdeveloper — 14 hours ago
▲ 28 r/chessvariants+11 crossposts

I spent the past 6 months building a chess MMO

I used to love playing massively multiplayer games like runescape growing up, and have played chess.com daily my whole life

I had the idea to build a chess MMO. What if chess was open world, a social experience? Where your wins give you trophies that you can then upgrade your character with? Where you can walk around and spectate matches, or have others watch and chat about your match?

So I spent the last 6 months building chessmmo.gg, it's been out for about 3 weeks. It's currently a mobile app on the apple and google play store, and you can play in browser too if you're on desktop/pc. I have plans to get it on Steam soon as well.

It's honestly been a dream come true so far. You can currently accrue trophies to level up your character, grind your ELO, get custom chess piece skins, buy pets, and even purchase a home and invite friends to play in it. There's also a social round-based puzzle arena that's like a battle royale with progressively harder puzzles. I'm currently building a tournament hall where there will be daily swiss-style tournaments. Lot's of expansions are on the way

I would love to get the community feedback, hoping to get more players online and a more active discord!

Here is a link to the game if you'd like to try it out:

chessmmo.gg

ios app

android app

discord

u/b___d — 1 day ago
▲ 8 r/chessvariants+2 crossposts

Playing a bot that randomizes the position and I genuinely cannot figure out if I'm winning or losing in a bullet game. Send help.

u/Technical-Sector-671 — 4 days ago
▲ 7 r/chessvariants+1 crossposts

I was inspired by Doug's many-rule chess, so I made my own. I changed up some of the rules to make things a bit more fair, and added a bunch of extra ones.

Not sure if there is any interest, but I had a lot of fun trying to make this.

chesschess.horse
u/oryxthemadbot — 5 days ago
▲ 5 r/chessvariants

Anyone want to play a game of "Covert Ops"? (A fun chess variant with hidden abilities)

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a new variant called Covert Ops on my site, Chessmerize. It plays exactly like traditional chess, but it adds a layer of hidden information to make capturing and trading pieces much more tactical.

I'm looking for a few people to play a match with me to test it out!

The Rules

Base Game: Standard FIDE chess rules apply for all piece movements, check, and checkmate.

Hidden Abilities: Certain pieces on the board are secretly assigned with abilities by each player before the start of the game. Your opponent does not know which of your pieces have these abilities until they attempt to capture them:

  • Mine: If an enemy piece captures a Mine piece, both attacking and defending piece die.
  • Psion: If an enemy piece captures a Psion piece, the attacking piece converts or changes its color to the side of the psion piece. post conversion the piece is frozen for 2 moves.
  • Sapper: A piece assigned as a Sapper is fully immune to Mines (it can capture a Mine safely without being destroyed).
  • Aegis: A piece assigned as an Aegis is fully immune to Psions (it can capture a Psion without getting frozen).

This creates a fun element of deduction—if your opponent is carelessly hanging a Knight, you have to wonder if it's a trap!

Where to play: You can check it out and play in your browser at https://chessmerize.com

If you want to play a match with me, leave a comment or send me a DM and I'll shoot you a direct game invite link so we can jump right in. I'd love to get your feedback on the balance!

u/bharathts — 5 days ago
▲ 0 r/chessvariants+1 crossposts

Conquest: Sages & Legions (Xiangqi x Chess)

Hi everyone — I’ve been experimenting with a small browser-based strategy game that blends Xiangqi and Chess into one shared battlefield.

The idea is to keep the spirit of traditional piece movement, while adding a few “hero” modifiers inspired by historical figures. For example, one possible matchup is Cao Cao vs Julius Caesar, which creates some fun cross-cultural strategy moments.

I’m not trying to replace Xiangqi — more like exploring what happens when Xiangqi ideas meet another classic strategy system.

I’d really appreciate feedback from people who understand Xiangqi better than I do:

  • Do the Xiangqi-inspired pieces still feel respectful to the original game?
  • Are any rule interactions obviously unbalanced?
  • Do the hero boosts feel interesting, or do they distract from the core strategy?
  • Are there any Xiangqi principles I should be careful not to break?

The game supports local play, AI play, and online PvP. Sharing the link here mainly to get feedback from people who care about Xiangqi and strategy games.

Would love to hear what you think — especially if Cao Cao feels too strong or not strong enough. 🙂

Try now: https://verdantia.fun/

u/Full-Jelly-8267 — 6 days ago
▲ 2 r/chessvariants+1 crossposts

Variant Idea: Switch Chess (Players switch sides halfway through the game)

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Title: Variant Idea: Switch Chess (Players switch sides halfway through the game)

I had an idea for a chess variant that adds a strategic twist by forcing players to deal with the consequences of their own play.

Rules

Standard chess rules apply.

The game starts as normal.

At a predetermined point, both players switch sides/colors and continue playing from the exact same position.

The switch can happen in either of these ways:

  1. Move-based: Players switch after move 20 (or another fixed move number).

  2. Time-based: In timed games, players switch once half the total game time has elapsed.

Example

If White builds a strong kingside attack early on, once the switch happens, White now has to defend against the very attack they created.

This means players must think beyond immediate advantage and consider:

whether their position will still be favorable after the switch,

whether sacrifices are worth it if they may inherit the downside later,

how to build objectively strong positions instead of purely aggressive or one-sided plans.

Strategic Effects (in theory)

Discourages reckless overextension and all-in attacks.

Rewards flexible, balanced, and objectively strong positions.

Creates a weird “future self vs present self” dynamic.

Possible Variations

Single switch only.

Multiple switches every X moves.

Hidden switch turn (decided randomly beforehand).

Question

Would this create genuinely interesting strategic depth, or would strong players eventually reduce it to drawish/overly symmetrical play?

Would you try a variant like this?

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reddit.com
u/Hellios2646 — 7 days ago
▲ 9 r/chessvariants+7 crossposts

Metamorph Chess

I made a chess variant where your pieces randomly transform after every move — try to survive the chaos

Every move triggers a swap: your bishops might become rooks, your knights become bishops — you never fully control what you've got. Built it as a fun side project. Free to play in the browser, no sign-up needed.

Play here → https://metamorph-chess.vercel.app/

Would love feedback from chess players!

metamorph-chess.vercel.app
u/Particular-Hunt7555 — 7 days ago
▲ 5 r/chessvariants+1 crossposts

Alternate win condition: King captures e8/e1

This is a very simple variant that is based on regular, standard chess. The idea is that there is an extra way to win.

If White moves their King to e8, White wins. If Black moves their King to e1, Black wins.

Everything else is the same. The reason I like this is that it adds an extra pressure during endgames, like the one in my example screenshot. Do you focus on advancing and promoting your Pawn, or leave it undefended and try to reach e8 with your King? Each scenario has it's risks.

u/Fit_Fisherman3719 — 9 days ago
▲ 9 r/chessvariants+5 crossposts

Built a free encyclopedia of all named chess openings (feedback wanted)

No ads, no accounts, just a hobby project.

For the past few months I've been building Chess Codex a free, no-signup encyclopedia of all 3,690 named chess openings indexed by Lichess (public-domain ECO data).

Live: https://test.av-webdevs.com/

The goal was to make a reference I personally wanted but couldn't find: something between Chess.com paywalled explorer and Lichess's search-focused explorer. Every opening gets its own page with:

-Interactive board - click through the moves or use arrow keys

-Live Lichess statistics - win rates and top responses for each position, pulled from real games, cached server-side

-Stockfish evaluation - cached from Lichess cloud analysis (slowly growing as I batch-fetch)

-Tree navigation - parent line, sibling variations, full subtree of every sub-line at all depths

-Play from here vs Stockfish at six difficulty levels (built on Stockfish.wasm, runs in your browser)

-Search by moves, name, or FEN (the FEN search finds transpositions - same position reached through different move orders)

It's a hobby project, written in vanilla PHP, hosted on shared OVH for 39 nok/month (€3). No ads, no tracking, no signup. Mobile-friendly + installable as a PWA.

main body

Things I'm still working on:

-Human-written descriptions (currently 25 done, 3,665 to go - there's a "Suggest an improvement" form if you want to contribute one for your favourite line)

-Translations of opening names to UK/DE/FR

-Engine evaluations for deeper variations (Lichess only caches popularpositions)

Would love feedback - especially on UX (mobile in particular), missing

features, or openings I should prioritise for hand-written descriptions.

reddit.com
u/Few-Rule-1149 — 9 days ago
▲ 3 r/chessvariants+1 crossposts

Drafted - Standard Chess with optional alternate setups

Hi everyone, I've been thinking about this simple variant idea, which keeps all the traditional rules of standard chess, with a small twist.

Basically, players can choose to use the standard backrow piece setup, or three alternate setups:

  1. Bishops and Knights switch the standard starting positions. So for White, Bishops would be placed on b1 and g1.

  2. Both Bishops start on left side/queenside squares, and Knights on kingside.

  3. Both Knights start on left side/queenside squares, and Bishops on kingside.

No other standard rule is changed. Castling still operates the same.

My suggested rule would be where White first selects their setup, and Black selects their setup in response to White. Because Black has a slight disadvantage in standard chess from starting second, this might actually help to equalize things.

In the screenshots I just showed mirrored setups for White and Black, but obviously it could be a mix of different setups.

u/Fit_Fisherman3719 — 9 days ago
▲ 1 r/chessvariants

Chess in which you can upgrade pieces

I have created a prototype of a chess where every few turns you can upgrade on of the pieces to gain additional moves. It’s available at https://chess-upgraded.com with full source code available in GitHub.
Personally I enjoy how the king can escape checkmate via the teleport; I’m not sure how good the rest of the dynamics are, so looking forward for any feedback.
The game is playable online vs other players of vs computer

reddit.com
u/Proof_Air_2675 — 9 days ago
▲ 5 r/chessvariants

Mad Chess just pushed a big update (0.9), I have a few free keys for those interested to test it out.

Hi guys,

Mad Chess just pushed a big update with optional objectives/customization/lots of changes, and if anyone active in this subreddit wants to test it out, let me know here, would love to get your feedback. This post will probably just stay up for a day or 2. Cheers!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1551190/Mad_Chess/

u/Bobafettinspace — 10 days ago
▲ 1 r/chessvariants

3-D Chess: Would you trade your 2D board for a 3D theme based chess?

Hey everyone, I’ve been thinking about the transition from 2D chess to spatial 3D environments on the Vision Pro:

  1. Why 3D: If you already play online, what would actually make you put on a headset to play in 3D instead of just using your phone or a physical board?
  2. Customization: What matters most to you in a spatial chess app—the Theme, the Environment (being able to customise it), or the Chess Pieces/Board itself?
reddit.com
u/Leading_Concept_5005 — 11 days ago