From chessvariants.com some intusiasts of turnover, asked about interesting themes. Here they are:

From wdtr2:

I am wdtr2 from chessvariants.com

Your game looks very interesting, reading the rules I have a few questions.

1) I do not know what the startup looks like

My guess (white) is

PPPPPPPP

RNBQCBNR

in the standard chess startup mode

Am I correct?

2) how does a castle move?

Guess: I moves like a king

3) What does the word disambiguation mean? I don't understand.

In your rules you said:

====================

When a White Rook in e1 combines with a Black Bishop in e5:
:Qe5 (when desambiguation is not needed)
Re1:Q5 (when desambiguation is needed)

When a White Rook in e1 combines with a White Bishop in e5:
Qe5 (when disambiguation is not needed)
Re1Q5 (when desambiguation is needed)

==========

:Qe5 and Qe5 (above) -- I think one of those has improper notation.

The text, from above, came from chess variants dot com

I feel the ":" should be mandatory. Where : means combine

Full notation would be

Re1;Be5:Qe5

Shortcut notation would be

:Qe5

Where ":" is mandatory - it means Combine

4) Can you expand the rules on splits and improve the documentation of splits?

For example: Image a Castle at e1. I am going to use the character ^ as split.

Ce1^Pe1;Qe5 Full notation where ";" is a separation character

Ce1^Ne1;Re5

5) Can you update the rules on what pieces can split into?

For example Knight can split into Pawn and Bishop

6) suggestion: I would like a rule change. Check and Checkmate do not exist. I want to introduce a new term. "Soft Check"

1) Soft check is only "on" when you have only 1 Castle

2) When you move a piece, and after the move completes, you need to say "Check". If you do not say check, you can not capture the castle on the next turn, but your move is valid.

3) With the design of "soft check", a castle may move next to a queen (even if you only have 1 castle). On the next move your opponent can not capture

the castle because your opponent did not say check. This gives the Castle a little more power, you can then always butt castles against castles. This idea is only valid, if the castle moves like a king.

7) If you only have 1 castle and you move to rank 8, it will not promote to queen.]

 

In Response:

​

• The startup looks like CCCCCCCC. But why this need to be like that?

  • Castles are resources

    • Players will dispose its resources along the game as they wish.

      • It adds tactic and strategy to the game, because management of resources is one of the best mechanisms to be used in strategic games.

        • Example: StarCraft, Warcraft etc.

• The King is inside a Castle.

  • But which Castle is he in?

    • He will be on last Castle. This is why players need to checkmate the last Castle.

      • sometimes is possible to checkmate more than one Castle, so the King is inside one of them.

• How does a castle move?

  • Honouring traditional chess, Castles (as they move their Pawn pieces) move one or two squares forward, just like first move of pawns on traditional chess, as well as they take pieces like pawns in traditional chess, just diagonally forward one square.

• What does the word disambiguation mean?

  • Disambiguation is about the situation where you have more then one piece of same kind able to move to a specific square, so in notation you need to indicate which piece is moving there, otherwise, when someone read the notation it will be confuse to know which piece moved there. Its is called disambiguation. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_notation_(chess)#Disambiguating_moves

  • Notation needs to be simple and smart at same time.

    • When we have a combination of pieces in a square, always the piece to be moved is the most outer piece, so it is not needed to say which piece move, as example when you move a Castle, of course the moved piece was its pawn piece.

    • So it is much more clever you notate moves results and disambiguate it if needed.

      • If you have a Castle in e1 and move to e3, you don't need to notation like Ce1^Pe3, but just notate e3. Because Castles are similar to pawns so you don't need to notate P as pawn and C as castle.
      • If you move a Queen in a1 to c3, you don't need to notate Qa1^Bc3, you just say Q.c3, so you look to the board and find how may you move to configure a Queen moving to c3, and if there are more than one choice, as if there is a Queen in e1, so you need to specify which Queen is moving to c3, so you notate Qa1.c3

      • Better than that and still more fun is notate combination results like when you combine your own pieces

        • If you have a Bishop in a1 and want to combine it with your Rook in c3, so you just need notate Qc3 instead of Ba1Rc3^Q. And if you have a disambiguation, like if you have a Bishop in e1 too, so to make a Qc3 is possible moving either Ba1 or Be1, so you need notate Ba1.Qc3, making big notation just to disambiguate it. But to be more clever, it can be done just notating Ba1.Qc, because Bishops just move in diagonal, so if it goes from a1 to c of course it is c3. So finally the result is Ba1.Qc.

          • And if it is not a friendly Rook, but a enemy Rook in c3, you are not performing a combination of friendly pieces, instead you are performing a turnover, the name of the game, and it is notate as two points ":", so the result notated is :Qc3 or if a disambiguation is needed it will be Ba1:Qc.

      • Can you update the rules on what pieces can split into?

        • It is not needed, because just the most outer piece is moved always, so its implicit that at least a Rook or a Bishop or both are staying behind and the possibilities on results of the moved pieces are logical.

      • Let me say that on first solution for this game there was no checkmate, but finally it gets bored, because checkmate is a very smart move, it needs much more powerful reasoning, it is so clever that computers just was able to perform a checkmate a few years ago, because its is hard to perform, so it represents the power of human mind and it needs to happen in a chess game and its variants. This is why I finally changed turnover to perform a checkmate, and the solution was imaging a King covered inside one of the castles, which turned the game much interesting because on real life in middle ages, kings sometimes fight inside its castles.

        • As you point: [Soft check is only "on" when you have only 1 Castle], it is not possible, because you may perform a situation where all castles on board get in check at same turn, so it is an impressive and beautiful checkmate. Otherwise, when you threaten just one or more castles at same time, but the opponent has other castle or castles not in check, it is not a check position. You don't need to save threatened castles if you have one or more castles not in check.
        • Just need to say check when all opponent castles are in check, and you need say checkmate if there are no possible moves to save this situation at least for one castle to keep playing. Btw say check or checkmate is not an obligatory rule in chess.
        • Castle reaching last row needs to be promoted to Queen to get not stuck there. So if you have just one Castle in e7 and a Queen in e8 or enemy Queen in e8, you cannot perform a Ce8 or :Ce8 move, because the result will be you have no castles on board anymore, by this new castle in e8 been promoted to Queen. Fascinating!