Single Comment

The mutator is clever and interesting and a lot more manageable than the unwieldy Cleopatra of Cleopatra Chess which is hard to tame into something more than an unruly gimmick (though I try to do so in some of my mostly untested, experimental -acious series). The King in this game is powerful, not just because of its mutator but because it is the only piece in Maorider Chess that can access any of its eight surrounding squares. The rest of the pieces all have at least two blind spots where they can be attacked by the color changing king. Also, with the exception of Maorider and Short Rook (even they are sometimes not hard to thwart), they can only move one or two squares at most which makes them approachable. So the choice of pieces happens to suit the King very nicely indeed. By not allowing it to capture, Vitya prevents the King from being too powerful. This allows it to retain enough vulnerability to make every choice in moving it difficult. For both sides, the calculation of such maneuvers is the same: Can the King attack and thus succeed in paralyzing a piece? Or will it be forced to retreat if it tries to do so (or worse, become victim to a classic king chase / mating net)?