Wednesday, January 25, 2012

[sllktkuu] Chess set for blitz chess

Create a chess board and pieces designed for blitz play.  The goal is to avoid pieces that get knocked over easily, pieces not getting exactly placed in a square, and so forth, while still keeping it possible to rapidly make moves.

Two proposals:

Every piece gets an upside-down square pyramid glued to its base, and the board is no longer flat but has corresponding holes that the "plugs" fit into.  (Optimize the size and depth of the pyramid.)

Pieces are replaced with spherical marbles (easy to grasp) which the piece type drawn on them (probably multiple times).  The board is again not flat but each square has an indentation or shallow cup to hold the stone.  Lined with something soft so the piece can be dropped into it without bouncing out.  Slightly inspired by mancala, with the feeling of dropping a seed into a pit.

They need not be spheres, perhaps other polyhedra, including dice of different shapes and sizes.  This could be cheaply constructed with egg cartons.

For either, you can no longer quickly slide a piece from one square to another, you have to pick it up.

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