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

Fearsome Chess

 

Inspired by the complex hierarchy of fear found in nature, this game gives a new life to a childhood game like "Fear Me!" by mixing fear relationship with chess strategy.  

This game has different names around the world and uses different animals in the fear hierarchy according to the local fauna. The game I remember had the following hierarchy:

I decided to add an extra Bear in this hierarchy (in between the Wolf and Hunter) in order to match the six types of chess pieces. 

Setup

The initial setup looks like this:

Pieces

Each player has the following pieces:

Pieces move like their chess counterparts. 

Capturing

Capturing follows the hierarchy of fear. Mice can be captured by Cats, or other Mice. Cats can be captured by Dogs, or other Cats, etc. Hunters are the only exception. They can be captured by the Mice, but other Hunters will behave like regular chess Kings and will not move to adjacent squares. 

Rules

Objective

The objective of the game is to control three of the four red squares. Moving a piece on a red square does not count as controlling it if that piece still has natural predators on the board. 

Natural Predators

Each piece has its own natural predators:

Winning the game

Additional rules



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By Florin Lupusoru.

Last revised by Florin Lupusoru.


Web page created: 2024-02-25. Web page last updated: 2024-03-03