Check out Atomic Chess, our featured variant for November, 2024.

This page is written by the game's inventor, Alex Wood.

Towers Chess

By Alex Wood

Introduction
Setup
Pieces
Rules
Equipment
Credits
 

Introduction

Recently, my friend Christopher came up with a chess variant he called "Towers Chess". 

Setup

 

 

Pieces

Standard Chess pieces are used. There is one new piece, the Tower. Towers are neutral and can only be pushed or pulled. See the Rules.

Rules

Standard FIDE rules apply, with the following exceptions:

  1. Pawns move as FIDE king.
  2. When a piece is captured, it is returned to the owner’s hand and placed on its original position after at least 3 turns.
  3. Pawns start in an off-board position. They must move into an on-board position on their first moving turn, and they may not move back off the board.
  4. The King is not a royal piece.
  5. No piece can move through or [in the knights’ case] over towers.

To win, you must move as many towers to the king’s position as possible (see below). If you are next to a tower, you may move it by moving backwards or "pushing" it (moving to the position of it while it moves forward). You can only push or pull one space.

Each can move a different amount of towers at once. Knights cannot move towers. Bishops and Pawns can move two towers while Rooks can move one. See diagram below for bishop pulling-pushing.

Pushing:

    Goes to:    

Pulling:

    Goes to:   

Equipment

You can use the standard 8x8 board and Chess pieces, but you need eight "towers" pieces, possibly high pawns.

Credits