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

Total Chess

This is a rules file for Zillions of Games, a Windows program that will let you play any puzzle or strategy board game you can feed it the rules to. With Zillions-of-Games installed, this rules file will let you play this game against your computer.

"Total Chess" game, invented by Charles Beatty in 1945, is played on a 8x8x4 Board with one set of usual men.
The movements are "extruded" in the vertical direction, so that the mobility 
of the pieces compared with orthochess is increased by a factor of about four, which corresponds to the increase in board size.
The pawns cast "shadows" vertically, which no piece (knight excepted) may cross, being in a sense simultaneously present at all levels.
Check can be given only if no tier in between is occupied.
En-passant, promotion on any level and castling are allowed.
The Game ends up when the oponent King is Checkmated.

Download Instructions

Instructions on downloading this Zillions file:


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.


Author: Stephane Burkhart. Inventor: Charles Beaty.
Web page created: 2006-04-05. Web page last updated: 2006-04-05