Go for the "Two Kings" set, and you replace your queen with a second king. Things start getting weird with the "Reaper" set, whose queen and rooks can teleport anywhere on the board in a single move (though the rooks can't capture or be captured by other pieces, and the queen can't capture on the opponent's back row). The Empowered set gets a mix of boost and hindrance its bishops, knights, and rooks can share each other's movement abilities when adjacent (not diagonally, though), while its queen is stuck with wimpy, one-square-only moves like the king. Nemesis pawns can now move "toward" an enemy king, meaning they can make lateral or diagonal moves depending on position. The Nemesis queen can neither capture, nor be captured by, anything other than a king, letting her dance around the board merrily. The "Nemesis" and "Empowered" sets, with nearly identical pieces to the Classic, are the easiest for newbies to test out, though not for lacking ambition. It seems natural that the lead designer's resume includes fighting video games the "character selection" here makes Chess 2 resemble Chess Fighter. With the exception of the old standby "Classic" set, these armies all modify certain pieces with new abilities, adding an element of differentiation between players to what was previously an almost perfectly symmetrical game. Before a game begins, each player chooses from one of six different armies of pieces. The final change to the Chess 2 formula comes in the pieces themselves. If the defender outbids the attacker, both battling pieces leave the board (the defending piece is still captured no matter what). the person controlling the captured piece) can bid anywhere from zero to two of these tokens in secret, and the attacker does the same. Both sides start games of Chess 2 with three betting tokens, which come into play whenever a piece is captured. The other tweaks in Chess 2 are a little more out-of-the-ordinary, though they have their own appeal as well. It throws a nice, easy-to-grasp curveball into the same tired old chess strategies. On its own, the midline invasion rule is a nice fit for any chess game. It's a risky strategy that often requires sacrificing your own pieces for a precious one-row advantage for your king or setting up a football-like defensive line formation to protect his advance.
You might think that the ability to dash to victory, Braveheart-style, would turn Chess 2 matches into five-turn rushes, but taking a king out of the cushy, protected backline naturally leaves it much more exposed to a focused counterattack. This "midline invasion" helps speed up the sometimes glacial pace of standard chess, but what's notable is how elegant that speed-boost feels. past the first four rows) without being in check. You can still win the classic way-by trapping your opponent's king in a checkmate-but bolder players can also win by sending their king into the opponent's half of the game board (i.e. The first and easiest to understand is an additional win condition. Rushing and wageringīefore picking up an Ouya controller, you'll want to study the game's rule changes. The result will certainly get more people playing-and possibly even loving- Chess 2, but this digital edition makes a mess of laying out the new rules' plush red carpet.
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But the game's big, splashy, mass-consumption debut came this week through a free-to-play download on the beleaguered Ouya game console.
The basic rules for Chess 2 have been floating around the Internet for over three years, accessible to anyone with a printer and a standard chess board. These various incremental tweaks have never stuck around in competitive play, however, which might be why Chess 2 has staked its hopes on a far more staggering update. diagonal movement, forward capture-while another variant boosts the board size to 9x9 and adds a bishop/knight combo "prime minister" piece. The changes have usually been small and insanely specific: one variant reverses the pawn's abilities-i.e.
That hasn't stopped fans and addicts from tinkering with the game over the past 10 centuries. The original board game has few peers so historic-perhaps only the likes of Mahjong, Go, and Othello-and its balance and playability haven't exactly been screaming for a remake. Links: Official webpage | Ouya Store It takes some nerve to lay claim to the title Chess 2: The Sequel.
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Price: Free (pay-to-play for online matches)