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One has to be careful about dropping pieces in this game because a dropped piece will be lost, at least temporarily, if your opponent makes a general time travel into the past after you drop it. This won't be possible if you can drop with check however, so dropping with check can be a good idea.

Updated the rules a bit to specify / clarify some differences between restrictions on 'general' time travel (referring to the whole board) and 'special' time travel (referring to individual pieces traveling into the future).

Now that I've opened up that can of worms, I'm wondering whether I should restrict one from making drops as moves while General Time Traveling. To be filed under subject heading, 'Restrictions for General Time Travel'? For now, I'll not restrict it, but after playtesting, I might. It's an unsettling idea, a piece dropping in from the future.

When one makes a General Time Travel, the pocket is the only thing that stays the same. Everything else goes back or forward to that moment in time when one travels. This is a very generous rule, as long as material is still relatively equal. If you've just become the victim of a combination, but the negative exchange or loss has not yet occurred, you can avoid the consequences by retreating back in time. If you're not satisfied with the results of your opening, just go back in time; try something different.

Bear in mind this though: Your opponent might very well want to revisit that negative future from which you retreated later!

But...

...the moment a material imbalance occurs, this time traveling into the past won't likely help you and will probably hurt you. Your opponent may want to return to the opening to exploit a weakness s/he didn't have the material to exploit the first time around.

I would really like to encourage people playing this game to do this sort of time travel often. Of course, if you're not comfortable with that, you and your opponent can agree at the outset to limit the number of general time travels.

Please note: Where previously I said, '...and repeats the same move...' I added '...(or makes a different move)...' I realized while playing that I think the former is too constrictive. Sorry to change the rules right from under you, my opponent, but I am hoping we are early enough in playing that you won't mind. I just felt that it was more in keeping with the spirit of the game that you should have the opportunity to do something differently going back into the same circumstances.

Hi, Adrian, yes. You will have to be checking the king almost continuously to avoid having it disappear. This game isn't as checkmate-centric as some, but there are a couple of limitations that may prevent the king from traveling. If the king is in check or if a time travel has taken place in the last couple of moves. So it may be that some of Paul Morphy's sacrificial masterpieces wouldn't work in a time travel chessgi setting (or plain chessgi setting for that matter), but there are plenty of new tactics that a Morphy type could take advantage of based on the difficulties of returning pieces from time travel, else losing them. Still, the winner will have to gain an overwhelming and crushing material advantage that can be demonstrated through series of checking sacrifices for an eventual win. I think such wins may be a lot easier to deliver in this setting than you might think. I urge you to give it a try and if you don't like it we can agree to delete it or just adjourn indefinitely. Don't give in to 'green eggs and ham' syndrome and reject this game without trying it.

Added note: Wanted to say also that variants of this are possible. You could restrict the king from time traveling and restrict the number of 'general' time travels if you're worried about indefinitely long play.

Maybe I'm missing something, but anytime a player would come close to being checkmated, couldn't he just time travel out of it?