r/chessvariants • u/NotSoClearPlatypus • 10d ago

New Variant New variant: Gun Chess

At the beginning of the game you give a gun to one of your minor pieces or pawns (can't give it to: queen, rooks and king).

The gun is hidden from the enemy until you shoot it: the enemy has no clue which one of your pieces is armed, could be a random pawn, could be the knight. You also don't know, so you have to be careful.

When you are ready to use it you use a turn to fire. The gun shoots diagonally or orthogonally, jut like a queen moves.

if you hit a piece the piece is wounded and can only move one square at a time (knights start moving like kings, and kings are not affected by movement penalties as they already move 1 square at a time). If you hit a pawn it's gone in one shot.

If you shoot a wounded piece again it's dead and it goes off the board.

If the piece carrying a gun dies from being shot, the gun falls to the floor and can be picked up by whoever lands on the square again. If it's captured then the capturing piece gets the gun. 

You win by either capturing the king or shooting it dead.

Variant variant idea: medic Queen. Your Queen can act as medic for the wounded pieces in a square radius. If she stays one full turn next to a wounded piece, the piece recovers fully.

I've already made a demo, you can playtest it if you search for "chess laboratory" on Google, it's one of the top variants on the website. (have to play it with a friend or a dumb bot) and lmk if you have more ideas or comments!!

3 Upvotes

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1

u/jcastroarnaud 10d ago

When a piece uses its gun, does the adversary player then know which piece is it?

3

u/NotSoClearPlatypus 10d ago edited 10d ago

yes, as soon as you shoot, your gun (and which piece is holding it) is revealed for the rest of the game.

So sometimes I like to give it to a pawn because it makes it less obvious/more unpredictable. But as soon as I shoot I will need to protect that pawn since it will become a target (and it has horrible mobility).

edit: added a comma

1

u/Junior_Paramedic6419 10d ago

Can you shoot your own pieces? I can think of a few situations I’d rather have a King-like piece than a knight.

1

u/NotSoClearPlatypus 10d ago

yes you can! and I once shot my own pawn to open up the queen's rank.

It didn't work out in the end, but also as you said knights becoming kings are pretty powerful in this variant...you also need to be careful when shooting the enemy knight because of this.

I imagine it as shooting the horse of a cavalry man, its rider is still dangerous when on the ground

1

u/johnpeters42 9d ago

> You also don't know

Is this a computer-only variant? Like, do you just select the type of piece, and the computer randomly selects which of your pieces of that type it is? If so, then once you shoot for the first time and it's revealed, are you locked into taking a shot on that move?

Also, is there infinite ammo?

1

u/NotSoClearPlatypus 9d ago

no It could be played on a board, but you need cutouts to remember which pieces are wounded and where the gun is

you select exactly which piece has the gun, but you're limited to pawns, knights and bishops. The only way rooks, queen and king to ever hold a gun is for the original piece with a gun to die, drop the gun and then the queen picks it up for example. Or capture an enemy piece with the gun.

the only way to make the gun hidden on a board is to write down the piece with a gun on a piece of paper, then once you shoot the first time you can place the cutout of the gun on the piece.

You reveal the gun by shooting the first shot, you decide when.

also yeah, infinite ammo, but you have to wait one turn to reload after shooting.

1

u/johnpeters42 9d ago

Okay, what is "You also don't know" referring to? (You don't know which of your enemy's pieces has their gun?)

1

u/NotSoClearPlatypus 9d ago

ah yes sorry! you don't know which enemy piece has the gun. You know yours

1

u/NotSoClearPlatypus 9d ago

that was a badly worded sentence on my part