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

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

Knockoff Chess

Rules

Knockoff Chess is played with an ordinary chess set. All the pieces move as usual, but there is no capturing. Instead, whenever a piece lands on a square occupied by another piece (of either color!) that piece is knocked away the same direction and distance that the first piece moved, passing over any occupied squares between it's origin and destination. If the knocked piece then lands on another piece, that piece too is knocked in the same manner. A piece that was knocked is temporarily weakened. It may move as usual, but may not knock away any other pieces until the next turn. Any piece that falls off the edge of the board is lost forever. It is not permitted for a player to knock off one of his own pieces.

A pawn cannot push a piece using its non-capture move. En passant knocking is allowed. To do an en passant push, first move the pawn to be pushed back one space so it is where it would have been had it only made a single step, then push it according to the rules.

The goal is to either knock off your opponent's king, or to make a move with your king that knocks off an opponent's piece. There is no check or castling.

Notes

I tried to change as little as possible from chess, except for the capture rules. I added the extra victory condition because it might be too hard to win otherwise. An alternative victory condition could be to knock off all the other player's pawns.

This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.


By Daniel Zacharias.

Last revised by Fergus Duniho.


Web page created: 2021-01-26. Web page last updated: 2021-02-25