Consider playing chess on the surface of a cube. For a battlefield divided into squares, it is elegant that the "planet" they are fighting on is a cube.
We treat it as a cylindrical main area around the sides plus north and south polar faces. 6x6x6 cube. 24 pawns on the 1st and 6th ranks of the sides, leaving a familiar 4 empty ranks in between. The polar faces are the promotion areas for pawns.
Initial positions of the remaining pieces are in the respective polar regions behind the pawns. Not sure how many pieces or exact placement. The board area is 3.375 larger than 8x8, and there are 3 times as many pawns.
Diagonal movement (e.g., bishop) is weird through a corner. Approach a corner, then it has a choice of exiting diagonally on either of the other two faces adjacent to the corner. Bishops can change parity.
Perhaps diagonal travel through a corner is forbidden. Or forbid travel through multiple corners on one move. Or always turn a certain direction.
Perhaps constrain the movement of long range pieces so they cannot move to or attack an opposite face.
It is impossible to consistently color all faces a checkerboard so that no square borders another square of the same color. Color the side faces black-white and the polar faces a red-blue checkerboard.
Alternative to this side-and-polar set up, remove any notion that one direction is more special than another; play with isotropic pieces.
1 comment :
The diagonal movement problem across a corner arises similarly at the center of a Martian chessboard for an odd number of players. E.g.:
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1666495/martian-chess
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1851927/martian-chess
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