Chess Games

LOKA is a fantastically sculpted Chess sets and a brand new take on playing Chess, brought to you by Alessio Cavatore's River Horse and published by Mantic Games.

LOKA is played with fantasy-inspired Chess pieces, each evoking the powerful imagery of one of the four elements.

From the kickstarter page 'At its heart, LOKA uses the rules of Chess, and Alessio has some significant twists in mind in the form of new mechanics:

Choose your army - Each player get to choose which pieces they put onto the board, meaning both players command different armies on the battlefield – do you field a small but elite force with three Queens, or do you go for a mass horde of Pawns?

Fantasy Scenery – Change the shape of the battlefield with movement blocking terrain that alters the path you’ll take into combat.

Dice Driven Combat – a simple and elegant system using eight sided dice adds some unpredictability to combat, placing extra emphasis on strategy and positioning as pieces build in power with support from their comrades."

Strato Chess is a 3D chess set with three full-size (64 square) clear lucite chess boards on an s-shaped aluminum stand. Rules are provided. Board and set could also be used for several other Three Dimensional Chess Variants.

Chess-like strategy game in the 3M Bookshelf Series utilizing medieval character pieces.

The GENERAL Index Article List:

The GENERAL Vol.15,No.5
“Feudal: A New Approach” (Alternate Rules for Combat Resolution and Movement) Mike Chiappinelli

contents:
-16in. x 16in. map board

-6 armies with 14 characters each
-a divider screen
-4 screen holders
-rulebook.

Commander-In-Chief is a fun fast-playing abstract strategy war game published by X Plus Products in which a player's Air, Land and Sea military vehicles work as a unified Armed Forces assault team to "capture" their opponent's Commander. The board consists of a traditional 8 square x 8 square checkerboard grid divided into two Land areas separated by a Sea area. Vehicles are restricted to movement within their assigned battlefields: Through the Air, On Land and/or In the Sea.

Pieces transverse the board in a Chess-like manner. Play evolves, turn by turn, with each player analyzing the current battlefield situation, adjusting their game plan accordingly and executing commands (movements of the playing pieces) in a collective effort to achieve the game's objective. Certain Air pieces (Bombers and Helicopters) can Go Over pieces; likewise certain Sea pieces (Submarines) can Go Under pieces. Additionally, certain pieces (Bombers and Tanks) can Block. The complete Original Release Basic Training Game Rules include "Object of the Game" options, "Team Game Play" options and "Advanced Game Play" options. "Future" options will include new movements, expansion pieces, additional damage control options, new attack features, mini wars and expanded terrains as variants to the Original Release Game Rules.

While this abstract strategy war game does not include random chance, it does allow for piece enhancements both during game play and during board set up which increases come from behind opportunities and can be used to level the playing field between players of various skill levels. The game can be played one-on-one or as a social game with teams. The military theme, the terrain feature of Air, Land and Sea areas of the board and the movements of the pieces themselves relative to the military vehicles they represent give the game a real world appeal.

The two Armed Forces consist of the following fifteen pieces per side: one Commander, two stealth Fighters, two army Tanks, one stealth Bomber, two submersible Submarine warships, two Helicopters, four amphibious assault vehicles (Amphibians) and one surface combatant Destroyer warship. This military themed board game, representing two Armed Forces, "Supports Our Troops" as the game of the "Y" by donating $1 to the Armed Services YMCA for every game sold.

Commander-In-Chief is a 3-In-1 board game that includes Chess & Checkers; these Classics are played on the dark and light colored side of the double sided game board. Additional game play options include: Tic-Tac-Toe and The Triangle Puzzle Game. Lastly, the 30 pieces that come with the game are miniatures, 30 Military Toys, designed for play with or without this board game and the 30 bases that the miniatures mount on, when inverted, become 30 Stackable Spinning Tops designed for multiple family fun games.

Arimaa, pronounced "a-ree-muh" is a game where stronger animals like elephants and camels freeze, push and pull the weaker ones from the opposing team around and into traps while one of the rabbits tries to sneak across the board and harmlessly reach the other side. The first player to get one of their rabbits to the other side wins.

This may sound like a simple kids game; and while it is easy enough for your kids to learn and enjoy, you will find that it is also a very deep game that can take a lifetime to master. Arimaa is one of the deepest strategy games ever invented in the history of mankind, but designed to look intuitively simple. No two games of Arimaa are ever the same. There is much to learn and discover about this intuitively simple, yet intellectually challenging game.

Played on a 8x8 grid with four trap squares and 32 animal pieces(16 gold and 16 silver). Each player has an elephant, camel, 2 horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats and 8 rabbits.
Strength hierarchy: Elephant>Camel>Horse>Dog>Cat>Rabbit.

The game begins with an empty board. Gold places the sixteen gold pieces first in any configuration on the first and second ranks. Silver then places the sixteen silver pieces in any configuration on seventh and eighth ranks. Then gold moves its pieces first. A player can move up to four "steps" each turn. All pieces move orthogonally.

History:
Arimaa was invented by Omar Syed, an Indian American computer engineer trained in artificial intelligence. Syed was inspired by Garry Kasparov's defeat at the hands of the chess computer Deep Blue to design a new game which could be played with a standard chess set, would be difficult for computers to play well, but would have rules simple enough for his then four-year-old son Aamir to understand. ("Arimaa" is "Aamir" spelled backwards plus an initial "a").
In 2002 Syed published the rules to Arimaa and announced a $10,000 prize, available annually until 2020, for the first computer program (running on standard, off-the-shelf hardware) able to defeat each of three top-ranked human players in a three-game series.