Single Comment

Shambhala chess. Maybe, it's the misterious first form of chess? Actually, most probably, not. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Apr 2, 2011 12:41 AM UTC:

One issue I see with playing this game is the 'advisor may one time during the game move as...' rule.  Looking at the board of a game in play you have no idea.  True, castling in chess has a similar problem but it is uncommon (did the king really move and then move back to its starting square and thus lose the right to castle?)  And that castling rule is pretty kludgy anyway, although it does work and does make chess a better game.  Anyway, my point is that in chess, castling is an opening move, and if you look at a game in the opening and the king and rooks are on starting squares, you can probably castle.  Being an opening thing, castling or not generally gets resolved early, and moving pieces off starting squares and back onto them is rare and not generally advantageous.  In this game, with the Advisor leap as I'll call it, you've got to remember during the entire course of the game if you've used that ability or not and looking at the board of a game in play won't give you the slightest hint.

To make it workable, I think you have to consider it two different types of pieces - the Advisor-Who-Hasn't-Leaped and the Advisor-Who-Has-Leaped, and they'd need to be represented by different pieces.  Probably better to alter or drop the rule, in my opinion...