Where Chess is No Longer the Only Game in Town
If you're into card games, video games, or sports, you probably enjoy more than just one. So, if you love Chess, wouldn't you want to try out more games like it?
Chess as we know it today evolved from earlier games. It's descended from the Arabian game of Shatranj, which goes back to the Indian game of Chaturanga. It may have also been influenced by Courier Chess and other Historic Antecedents.
In the far east, Chess has relatives that rival or exceed it in popularity. China's Xiangqi, Korea's Janggi, and Japan's Shogi are some of the more popular Oriental variants.
In the west, the popularity of Chess has inspired numerous games that resemble it in some ways but differ from it in others. Some are played with the same equipment, and some are played with different boards, pieces, or additional equipment. Our Topic Index breaks this down in more detail.
Three dimensional chess variants: Star Trek and others
Multi player variants: Chess with 3 or more players.
Hexagonal chess variants
Small chess
variants: Chess on boards with fewer than 64 spaces, typically with fewer than 8 ranks or files
Round boards
Large chess variants: Chess on boards with more than 64 spaces, though typically 8 by 9 or larger.
Other boards with an unusual shape
Chess
variants with unequal armies: Variants where white and black have a different set of pieces.
Thanks to computers and the internet, we may now play several of these games without physical boards or pieces.
On This Site
Play Chess variants against other members with Game Courier. Created and maintained by Fergus Duniho, who is now webmaster, this is a PHP-based game server with JavaScript enhancements and its own programming language. Design and program your own games, or play any of the hundreds our members have already made presets for.
Jocly uses JavaScript, WebGL, and HTML5 to let you play games in your browser against your computer with either 2D or 3D displays. While it proved too expensive for its creators to maintain, volunteers have been updating it and programming new games for it.
Many rules pages on this site include Interactive Diagrams, which can show how pieces move or allow you to play the game against your computer in your browser. Created by H. G. Muller, this JavaScript-based tool allows page authors to fill in values that let it play new games without needing to program them individually.
When Java was still young, Ed Friedlander wrote a whole bunch of Java applets for playing Chess variants in your browser. Although modern browsers no longer support Java, you may still run these with a Chrome extension.
Downloads
Zillions-of-Games is a Windows program that lets you design, program, and play your own abstract strategy board games and puzzles against the computer. On this site, we have almost 1000 zip files you can download for playing different Chess variants with it.
Running on Windows, Linux or MacOS, Greg Strong's ChessV is an open source C# program that lets you play a large selection of Chess variants against your computer.
H. G. Muller's Fairy-Max is a Chess variant engine that interfaces with WinBoard to let you play a variety of Chess variants against your computer.
Besides the files and programs mentioned above, you can download many other computer programs for playing various different Chess variants against your computer.
This website – The Chess Variant Pages – is here for cataloging, discussing, and playing the many games that are based on, related to, or similar enough to Chess.
👨🏻🏫 Learn
A different logo for each color scheme
The Chess Variant Pages may be viewed in four different color schemes using controls in the menu, and each color scheme has its own logo.
- Dark
- This logo features AI art images of a Dragon Horse and a Fairy Princess. The Dragon Horse comes from Shogi and represents Asian variants. As a fairy, the Fairy Princess symbolizes fairy chess, which was the practice of creating Chess problems with novel pieces or alternate rules. Also, the piece known in fairy chess as a Princess is one of the most popular of Chess variant pieces, though it is usually known by other names and depicted differently. Fergus Duniho generated both images with Leonardo.Ai.
- Darker
- This logo makes use of 3D designs for printing physical pieces with a 3D printer. Jean-Louis Cazaux designed the Cannon, which comes from Xiangqi and Janggi and represents Asian variants. Bob Greenwade designed the Nightrider, which represents fairy chess and modern variants. If you're interested in printing your own 3D pieces, you can search for 3D Printers on Amazon or for 3D Printers on ebay.
- Light
- This uses touched-up photographs of real Chess variant pieces available for purchase in Musketeer Chess variant kits. The Elephant represents historic and regional variants, as many from Chaturanga to Janggi include this piece, and Xiangqi is even named for it. The Unicorn represents fairy chess and modern variants.
- This uses a cropped and divided illustration John Tenniel did for Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, in which Alice meets anthropomorphic Chess pieces and participates in an unusual game of Chess. Instead of portraying fairy pieces on the sides like the other logos do, this one pays homage to the influence Lewis Carroll's writings had on Vernon Parton, who may have coined the term "chess variant."