User:PirateMonkeyAlpha

Word.

I'm in a band, and I'm retarded about chess. Firefox is your friend; embrace it. Denounce Internet Explorer for the evil that it truly is. A pox upon thee, Windows Vista! XP for the win, Linux forever!

Often found hovering over a chessboard, stuck in a book, staring at a monitor, devouring Ramen. No touchy while eaty. Forky pokey fun.

We're all mad here.

On a more serious note: I take great pleasure in designing, testing and playing Chess variants, and most of my spare time is made up of either that, computers, or video games. I work as part of a two-man team at a small, privately-owned independant record company called Rot Infested Records, near my home in south Georgia, where I serve as the engineer and audio/recording monkey. The vocalist for my band is the other half: Production, engineering aid and creative input.

We're currently recording a band called This Hideous Strength, who we plan on touring the southeast with in June of 2008. You want to check out their MySpace.

Leave me a message in my Talk page if you want to know something.

And now, some games I designed.

Unreal Tournament Chess
I designed these variants based on rules from Unreal Tournament 2004. The goal was to try to keep the spirit of UT in each game, while changing the overall format from real-time FPS to turn-based strategy. The first one features the most radical change: Instead of two Domination points that a team has to control for a certain time (because that honestly would have been harder to arrange than neccessary), this one is played in a "best of three" set, more reminiscient of the old Killer Instinct tournament fighters.

Rules
Set up like an orthodox chess match, with one board and 32 pieces. White moves first, and the players take turns as though following a standard game. Once a king is captured, however, the additional rules come into play. The captured king's army is "dominated". When this happens, all of the winning army's captured pieces change colour; they are "recruited" into the winning army. Because of this, it is recommended to capture as many pieces as possible before attempting a checkmate, as the size of the winning army will be that much larger at the start of the next round.

Once the first round is finished, a second board is added to the losing side to form a vertical "stack" of boards. The second army is in place at the base of this board, and must advance against the winning army from an original starting position. (The wining army stays in place while the losing army's second wave readies itself and makes the first move. Colour does not matter for this round; the losing side always moves first.) Play progresses through the use of two boards in an 8x16 area, and in the third round in an 8x24 area. Once two armies have been dominated, either in succession or by winning two out of three rounds of play, the Double Domination is complete and the army that scored two victories wins the game.

To win a round, the opposing King must be checkmated, or his army wiped out. If a draw is declared, the round is restarted. Rounds cannot advance until one side claims victory.

Ideally, the three boards would be put aside during the first round of play, and would be brought out for successive rounds as required. Some players, however, may elect to fully place all three boards, and set up both armies. If this option is taken, play begins on the middle board first, and disregards the two end boards until the first round is finished. Only the center armies engage, and only the 8x8 grid is in play. Extra pieces are kept aside. The losing army gains their end-board and their second army, and advances on the winning army from the end of the 16x8 grid.

Variants
Double Domination can be enhanced or altered by adding rules taken or modified from several other chess variants:


 * Avalanche: Each player must advance one of his opponent's pawns at the end of a turn.
 * Monster: The losing side gains an extra move per turn during the next round.
 * Kung-Fu: The game proceeds in real-time as opposed to turn-based time.
 * Progressive: Moves are incremented for each successive turn.
 * Atomic: A capture results in a blast that "kills" all the pieces around it (1 square radius).
 * Plunder: The capturing piece takes the abilities of the piece it captured for 3 turns.
 * Extinction: All pieces must be captured to win the round or match. Unlike standard Extinction, where the capture of all of only one type of piece is required, Extinction-DD requires the capture of every single piece.
 * Bandersnatch: Similar to the Andernach rule, captured pieces change colour instantly. The losing army regroups with their second wave at the end of the round (the king is removed from play before the next round begins).
 * Horde: The winning army exchanges all of its pieces for pawns before the next round.

Special Variants

 * Alice has been included as a variant in Double Domination. A parallel board is added for each board in play, and gameplay follows the rules of Alice Chess: After a piece is moved, it is pulled "through the looking-glass" and into its corresponding space on the parallel board.


 * Monster Alice is designed to increase the complexity of Alice-DD with the addition of the Monster-DD rule: The losing army gains an extra move per turn during the next round. Under the Monster Alice rules, a piece may move twice in succession before being transferred to the parallel board and ending the turn, or two pieces may be moved once each in a turn, in which case each piece is transferred at the end of its move.

Grand Chess
Grand chess is almost identical to most normal games and variants, with the exception of the sheer size of the board, as well as a few different rules of play. The "Grand Chessboard" is set up with four identical boards arranged in a 16x16 square. Most games also require the use of at least two sets of pieces, though in actuality the average number of sets will total four per side. I call the four-set-per-side arrangement a Grand Army. In a standard game, the board is set up in a double arrangement; that is, two Royal rows and then two rows of p awns.

Grand Kings
This is the basic chess match, played almost identical to a double-board set, except for the two extra boards on top. Both side uses the Grand Army, and the player must capture all four opposing Kings to win. When a King is checkmated, it is removed from play before the next turn.

Grand Horde
Set up a Grand Chessboard and divide the pieces. White gets a gargantuan horde of 128 pawns (12 sets, enough to completely fill the two lower boards), and black gets the Grand Army. White moves first. The goal for white is to capture all four black Kings; the goal for black is to capture every white Pawn.

Grand Extinction
I made this one for anyone who truly appreciates a long, grueling game of chess. The setup is the same as Grand Kings, but the game is played with the Extinction rule, with one exception. Instead of capturing every piece of a certain type, the player has to capture every last one of his opponent's pieces to win. This means that no less than 64 captures can be made during the course of the game.

Other kinds of chess
These are variants that I've come up with spontaneously, and refined using my initial notes and ideas. Some of these aren't tested yet, but the ones I post here are.

Four Kings
I made this one while screwing around with a board and two sets of pieces, and as a result, that's all you need to play it. Explaining the setup is pretty complicated, and there are about five different modes of play, so I'll be using diagrams to explain each one.

The main thing to remember about a Four Kings game is that starting positions always reflect colour. That is, white starts on white and black starts on black. Because of this, it is impossible for a pawn or a bishop to capture on the first move. In addition, kings are not allowed to capture on the first move. This is because the higher modes add the Atomic rule: A capturing piece, the piece it captured, and every piece one square away, with the exception of pawns, are "killed" and removed permanently from play.