"Ignorance" chess variant - does this exist? If not, ways to make it?
March 19, 2025 7:20 AM Subscribe
I have an idea for a chess variant where initial positions are internally jumbled and you start in a state of ignorance about your pieces' identities, and must discover them by attempting to move them. I'm wondering if this exists already, especially as a computer game, and if not how one might make it. Details inside...
The idea of this variant would be that each player starts with its pieces in its closest two ranks as usual, but with the positions of all the pieces scrambled (with the constraint that the king remains in the first "home" rank). I could see different versions of this where the symmetery would be conserved between the two sides, or not.
In any case, each player's turn consists of them attempting to move one of their pieces to a new square, and then the game either executing that move if it is allowed (and therefore narrowing the possible identities of the piece in quesition, something that the game would keep track of for each piece) or telling the player that it is not allowed (once again narrowing the piece's possible identities). The game would also distinguish between whether a move is disallowed because it would introduce check vs. because the piece cannot move in that manner generally. The information revealed in each round is revealed to both players simultaneously, so that there is an even playing field of information (although I could imagine variations that mess with this principle).
My question is threefold - does this already exist coded up somewhere? And if not, do you know of a way of creating it? Game engines, communities that solicit ideas for games to make? Just kind of curious, I had this idea for a game and wanted to play it. And finally, what would be a good name for this? I thought of "fog of war," but it's already taken by a variant where your vision of the board itself is obscured.
The idea of this variant would be that each player starts with its pieces in its closest two ranks as usual, but with the positions of all the pieces scrambled (with the constraint that the king remains in the first "home" rank). I could see different versions of this where the symmetery would be conserved between the two sides, or not.
In any case, each player's turn consists of them attempting to move one of their pieces to a new square, and then the game either executing that move if it is allowed (and therefore narrowing the possible identities of the piece in quesition, something that the game would keep track of for each piece) or telling the player that it is not allowed (once again narrowing the piece's possible identities). The game would also distinguish between whether a move is disallowed because it would introduce check vs. because the piece cannot move in that manner generally. The information revealed in each round is revealed to both players simultaneously, so that there is an even playing field of information (although I could imagine variations that mess with this principle).
My question is threefold - does this already exist coded up somewhere? And if not, do you know of a way of creating it? Game engines, communities that solicit ideas for games to make? Just kind of curious, I had this idea for a game and wanted to play it. And finally, what would be a good name for this? I thought of "fog of war," but it's already taken by a variant where your vision of the board itself is obscured.
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posted by caek at 7:34 AM on March 19 [2 favorites]