Variant Chess: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|'''[[One World Order|World President]]:''' So this will be our home for the next few weeks. I hope you play a good game of 3-dimensional chess, Captain.

 

[[Seen It a Million Times|We've all seen it]] before. It's the far-flung future, or an alien planet, or even a [[Wizarding School]]. The two characters are talking about the latest plot point over a game of [[Chess]].

* There's an entire web site devoted to chess variants called, appropriately enough, [http://www.chessvariants.org Chessvariants.org].

* Obscure variants are surprisingly numerous.

** Fractal Art meets 3D printing meets Chess? You try to ''not'' come up with something experimental after looking at [//www.shapeways.com/shops/mandelpieces?section=Surreal+Chess+Set&s=0 these pieces] for too long.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In 1963, ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' decided, since old-fashioned chess reflected an obsolete kind of warfare, that the pieces and rules of chess needed to be redesigned to reflect modern military innovation. This "Modern Chess" would be, in other words, [[WarGames|Global Thermonuclear War]]:

{{quote|Strategy is limited to each player waiting for the other to make the first move. End of game is followed by deathly silence. Unlike old-fashioned chess, there is no winner. There is also no loser. After several years, the radiation subsides enough to permit another game to begin ... if there's anyone left to play it. Also, a new chess set is used which MAD is now designing -- with caveman-type pieces.}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

** Thud! is apparently a Variant [[wikipedia:Hnefatafl|Hnefatafl]].

** Another [[Terry Pratchett]] book, ''[[The Dark Side of the Sun]]'', briefly features a chess-like game with living pieces.

* ''[[Dune]]'' - from "Terminology of the Imperium":

{{quote|CHEOPS: pyramid chess; nine-level chess with the double object of putting your queen at the apex and the opponent's king in check.}}

** In [[Diane Duane]]'s ''My Enemy, My Ally'', Kirk has gotten a bit bored with "traditional" 3D chess and so his recreation chief creates a 4D variant using a cubic version of the chessboard and very precise [[Chekhov's Gun|transporters]]. McCoy then has a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when he beats Spock at it. When he had never played it before. ''From a position where Kirk was about to resign''. [[Diane Duane]] really [[Author Appeal|likes]] McCoy.

* Since ''[[The Culture/The Player of Games|The Culture]]'' revolves around the protagonist's unsurpassed game-playing ability, it's unsurprising that a lot of the games that get mentioned are variants on the abstract strategy theme. [[Calvin Ball|Azad]] itself is somewhat chess-like, except for the room-sized board ... [[Dissimile|and the changing pieces ... and the multiple side games.]]

* ''[[Godel Escher Bach]]'' proposes a game in which (certain parameters of) the rules are represented as pieces on a second chessboard, so that on your turn you can move a piece or change the rules. Or there could be only one board, so that on your turn you are moving a piece ''and'' changing the rules. Unsurprisingly, [[Defictionalization|some aficionados have actually tried this out]].

* ''[[Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World]]'' features a game called chess, with different but overlapping pieces compared to the basic version.

* In ''The Starfollowers of Coramonde'' by Brian Daley, one ruler played chess with candles topping the pieces. The wicks were of randomly varying durations; when one went out during a game, its piece was removed, even if no other piece was in position to threaten it -- or if the player had been just about to win with that piece....

 

* [[wikipedia:Three-dimensional chess|3D chess]] was used often in ''[[Star Trek]]''. Spock was obviously a master. Features as a plot point in one episode where Spock repeatedly beating the computer at chess is a clue that the computer has been tampered with, because it'd originally been programmed to match his ability. As the rules were concocted ''after'' the board was designed just to 'look' futuristic, there are several sets: one involves being able to move several small four-square 'attack boards' with pieces on them to different clipped-on positions on the three main boards in lieu of moving a piece by itself.

* Sheldon and Leonard play 3D chess in one episode of ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]''. After Leonard loses several times in a row, Sheldon suggests that "perhaps three-dimensional Candy Land is more your speed."

* ''[[Double the Fist]]'' had Steve Foxx travel back in time to make the world better by killing Captain Cook, but Cook's crew had force fields and rayguns and fought Steve's allies to a standstill (don't ask) so Steve accepted an offer to settle things peacefully over a game of chess. Holographic 3D chess where moves and captures were declared by announcing Cluedo-style murders.

* ''[[Lexx]]'' had a live-piece chess game in one of the [[Mind Screw|trippy]] later-season episodes.

 

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