I’m interested in your concept of Chess feeling like it’s complete, as if it has completed a platonic solid. You remedied its incompletions with the Cardinal and Marshal, but Omega Chess attempts to fill in the lack of leapers by introducing the Champion and Wizard. The design of Omega Chess was similarly motivated by this sense of completion, but it seems its design locates the gaps in different places from where the design of Grand Chess locates the gaps. Did you consider this? And how did you come to this conclusion?
I don’t really feel like the Champion and Wizard are “missing pieces” the same way the Cardinal and Marshal are. There are a practically infinite number of pieces that could possibly exist, so I’d expect most possible pieces are not included in the game (Betza’s Chess with Different Armies is a nice exploration of this). Omega chess doesn’t even feel particularly complete- where are the pieces that can move exactly 1 square orthogonally or diagonally? If a champion is to rook as the wizard is to bishop, what is the knight to? I feel the correct completion of that is the knightrider, but there is no knightrider in the game. And we still have this weird gap where we have rook + bishop = queen, but rook + knight and bishop + knight are missing.
While I expect that most possible pieces will be missing from any variant, I happen to agree with Capablanca and Freeling that the lack of marshal and cardinal in orthodox feels weird. In orthodox, the queen is a strange wildcard that is unlike any other piece, whereas in grand chess the queen, cardinal, and marshal make a nice set, naturally extending the knights, bishops, and rooks.
Beyond any considerations of completeness, I also just feel more excited about the Cardinal and Marshal than most other variant pieces. They feel like fireworks to me, and I’d prefer a game with them over a game with a few new weaker pieces
I’m interested in your concept of Chess feeling like it’s complete, as if it has completed a platonic solid. You remedied its incompletions with the Cardinal and Marshal, but Omega Chess attempts to fill in the lack of leapers by introducing the Champion and Wizard. The design of Omega Chess was similarly motivated by this sense of completion, but it seems its design locates the gaps in different places from where the design of Grand Chess locates the gaps. Did you consider this? And how did you come to this conclusion?
I don’t really feel like the Champion and Wizard are “missing pieces” the same way the Cardinal and Marshal are. There are a practically infinite number of pieces that could possibly exist, so I’d expect most possible pieces are not included in the game (Betza’s Chess with Different Armies is a nice exploration of this). Omega chess doesn’t even feel particularly complete- where are the pieces that can move exactly 1 square orthogonally or diagonally? If a champion is to rook as the wizard is to bishop, what is the knight to? I feel the correct completion of that is the knightrider, but there is no knightrider in the game. And we still have this weird gap where we have rook + bishop = queen, but rook + knight and bishop + knight are missing.
While I expect that most possible pieces will be missing from any variant, I happen to agree with Capablanca and Freeling that the lack of marshal and cardinal in orthodox feels weird. In orthodox, the queen is a strange wildcard that is unlike any other piece, whereas in grand chess the queen, cardinal, and marshal make a nice set, naturally extending the knights, bishops, and rooks.
Beyond any considerations of completeness, I also just feel more excited about the Cardinal and Marshal than most other variant pieces. They feel like fireworks to me, and I’d prefer a game with them over a game with a few new weaker pieces