Sea Cat Chess

Off-Topic
#1

This seems fun. How does this sound?

K3NJ97N.png680x678 80.3 KB

You start with a board like this, and then you spend points to buy “Witch” pieces that are invisible to your opponent. You buy as many pieces as you want then spread them out over the 4 spaces marked with colored pawns in the picture. (The colored pawns are just markers; you don’t play with them.)

You get 6 points total.

  • Queen = 6 points
  • Rook = 3 points
  • Knight = 2 points
  • Bishop = 2 points

You’d move your pieces like normal. If you move a piece to a space occupied by an enemy Witch, that piece will be taken, but you will not be made aware of it. Of course you will know when any of your own pieces are taken. Witch pieces can be leap over by any piece. A pawn can not move diagonally to attack a Witch piece.

Things I’m debating

  • Would you be made aware of when a Witch is about to take your King?
  • What happens if there’s a Witch straight ahead of a pawn? (Can the pawn move ahead, and would doing so kill either of the pieces?)
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#2

Beato would want that, don’t you think? It wouldn’t be a game if the opponent couldn’t fight back.

#3

Better yet, if Witch pieces aren’t able to take the King.

#4

Oh hey, I like this!

I agree with this. Additionally, if only the king remains then it’s automatically game over. (Like the sheep/wolves things.)

A witch being taken down by a pawn feels so wrong, but I suppose that should be possible. Maybe there could be an additional rule? e.g., a witch can only be taken down by a pawn if the witch piece is in a position that can’t attack that pawn directly.

How would moving witch pieces work? I’m ambivalent about inferring the presence of a witch piece by an opponent’s turn yielding no visible piece movements.

However, if you add in something like being able to choose to pass your turn, then you could use that as a bluff. (Fitting for Kinzo’s gambling analogies, I think.)

Maybe this could even be expanded to supporting a layered chess boards approach. Multiple chess boards, played out as different floors. Add in the concept of stairs and walls and this is suddenly pretty complicated, and probably more like an RTS than a slightly modified game of chess… So maybe not.

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#5

It does feel wrong, but on the other hand, any incompetent fool can claim magic doesn’t exist. That additional rule would just apply to Knights and Bishops; I don’t think the game needs more intensive to just pick 2 extra Rooks. I guess the most elegant solution is that a Pawn will unknowingly kill a Witch if it moves onto the Witch’s space.

All players would know that there are Witches, but I do feel it would be too unengaging if both players spend turn developing a board neither can observe.

  • You could have each player move a normal piece and a Witch every turn.

This would make for ridiculously fast chess.

  • Alternatively, before the white players turn, both player can move a Witch simultaneously.

This would make Witches play more like Battleship than Chess. You both more or less declare a space within the Witch’s range, and whatever is on that space would die. It does make it practically impossible for Witches to kill other Witches which is flavorful in a sense.

Obviously, you can expand on this idea a shitton. I just wanted to keep it close to the original as a starting point. “Chess with invisible pieces” can be taken in a multitude of directions, and I’d be up for people posting something completely different from mine.

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#6

Yeah, I agree.

Yes, but they wouldn’t know if any opponent witches remain on the board. This is where “invisible moves” would be interesting and frustrating. You could infer that a witch remains on the board if invisible moves can only happen if there are witches on the board. On the other hand, choosing to do nothing means you don’t advance, but also bluff that there’s a witch on the board.

Oh, this reminds me of Werewolf. It would be potentially interesting to allow witch phases, where both players agree on a set number of turns before witches can move perhaps. In any case, I like this approach too.

The problem is I like this approach, and the “invisible movements” approach! They’re not mutually exclusive or anything, but they vaguely feel like they are.

#7

I feel like moving Witches like normal pieces while being able to skip your turn would be too narrow. Like, if you’re not moving a visible piece and not taking any pieces with Witches, what the fuck are you doing? You’d just be plotting mind games while the other guy simply walks up and punches you in the face.

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#8

Well isn’t this interesting? I’ll jump in on this and add a few thoughts about the rules of the game.

Firstly, there are not many limitations to the witch pieces, so some should definitely be added. I think it should be a rule that witch pieces can be made visible by certain moves on the board. So, let’s say that when a witch piece is invisible it’ll be called a Red Witch (based on the red truth) and when a witch piece becomes visible it’ll be called a Blue Witch (based on the blue truth). Since you mentioned pawns, it can be made that when a red Witch piece is straight ahead of a pawn, it becomes a blue Witch, thus Witches should try to avoid pawns. Also, when a pawn reveals a Red Witch, the pawn is taken by the blue Witch after revealing it. The King that is the most important piece should also be able to reveal red Witches, though the Witches are taken if the King reveals them, so they can’t get very close to the King either.

There also should be some way on how red Witches still stay invisible after taking a certain piece, cause then if they are still red Witches, the other player will know that they are on the square of the piece they just took. So maybe red Witches should get another extra move after taking a piece, but only a one or two square diagonal move so the opposing player knows that they are close by the square of the taken piece, but not their exact location.

As for how their turns should be, they should move in the regular manner, meaning that you can use them like every other piece, on your turn only and they are the only piece you can move on your turn, and you have to say that you moved a witch piece, which will make your darling opponent think well before moving their pieces. Also the whole ‘buying witches with points’ rule should be removed, four witch pieces should be given to both players at the beginning of the game like any other piece.

This is everything I can think of for now, let’s see your replies now.

#9

With maybe the exception of Knights, a game with 12 of any piece would be miserable. The point system’s main purpose is balancing with slight customization elements. It emphasizes the paranoia element if you don’t know your opponent’s line up.

You’re basically making a whole different version of the game, but I think it focuses too hard on finding Witches when the goal of the game is to take the other King. If you made the goal to hunt Witches, that’d be interesting on it’s own; for example, if you couldn’t see any opposing pieces or if one team was invisible while the other had some other perk.

#10

I suppose that the point system is definitely good regarding the paranoia aspect, but although it helps with that, I think the game would be a little less difficult to read and more ‘visible’ for both opponents if there was a rule that both players should have and admit to having one witch in their lineup at the beginning of the game. And this also helps with the paranoia element, making both players feel more alerted since they are certain that there is one witch piece in one another’s lineup from the start.

You may be right about that, I should have focused on making them powerful pieces yet not overtake the importance of the king. But even so, even if we are to remove most of the rules that I added, I still think that there should be some way to expose witch pieces, the game becomes too vague, uncertain and even impossible if the witch pieces should always be invisible and also easy to win if one focuses too much on moving their or finding their opponent’s witch pieces. Maybe you should have given witch pieces some other ability rather than being invisible, but then again, you’ll be making a completely different version of the game by doing that…