Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Marek14 .

Trihex

I named this variant "Trihex" and, unfortunately, the amount of squares does not allow me to enter any current contest with it ;-( It has 127 squares if I counted right. Basic ideas are taken from Grand Chess, but I added two pieces of my own: Witch, hexagonal analogy of Kylin and Snake, analogy of Crooked Rook (first use of crooked piece in hexagonal variant, I think...) And, of course, this is the first multiplayer variant ever to come with its own ZRF file!

Basic rules

To win, you have to capture both of your opponents' kings. Originally I planned to add rule that kings cannot move to check, but it was way too slow and even crashed Zillions once, so I decided against it. After one player's king is captured, that player is "out of game", and automatically passes on each of his subsequent turns. His pieces can still be captured. Castling was removed (Zillions do castle very rarely, anyway). En-Passant capture still exists. Pawns promote on two sides of board farthest from their controller's starting corner to any major piece - Knight, Bishop, Rook, Queen, Cardinal, Marshall, Snake or Witch. Stalemate does not count, since pass-turn is set to forced - if you are stalemated, you will just skip your turn.

The Snake is a hexagonal analog of Crooked Rook. It moves in zig-zag pattern, alternating steps in two orthogonal directions. It got its name from snake-like shape of its move.

A Witch got its name because it makes 'hexes' with its move. Witch can move one square diagonally or leap two squares orthogonally.

Download a Zillions-of-Games implementation of this game: marek14-pt2.zip (>100k)


Written by Marek 14. Web page created by David Howe.
WWW page created: June 24, 2000.