Check out Balbo's Chess, our featured variant for October, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Adam Norberg.

Tron Chess

This variant bears great similarity to my previous creation, Rubble Chess.

Remember the "rubble piece" in Rubble Chess? That thing you had to get out of your way? It's back. In Tron Chess, whenever the queen moves, then any space she moves over(and the one she moved from) is covered with a "wall": a piece that has no allegiance, but blocks movement all the same, and is captured normally, but it slows you down. It's a simple change, but it makes your queen an interesting piece. If you use her too much, you'll slow yourself down- badly, but you can also make walls against your opponents.

Optional Rules

  1. Pawns do not capture Walls diagonally; they move normally to clear it.
  2. Pawns cannot clear walls and are... walled. (This is unplayable in practice.)
  3. Walls do have allegiance, but you're still blocked by them and can still take your own- but twice a game, you can remove all of your own walls.
  4. Start out with Walls in the middle two ranks.
  5. Start all unoccupied spaces with Walls. (The starting configuration will look like Rubble Chess.)
  6. Use other pieces besides (or as well as) the Queen to drop walls.

Notes

If someone implements this in Zillions, this can easily be done by making a "tron-queen" different from a queen in game- maybe mark it with a circle. That way, this variant wouldn't require a seperate board; just reconfigure the pieces. A tron-piece should be marked somehow.

Strategies are wildly different; the game does move more slowly.

Overall, your queen is weaker in this game when you are attacking, and stronger when you are trying to hang on for dear life.

Written by Adam Norberg.
WWW page created: April 8, 2002.