A series of different takes on the classic game of Chess.

Chesses is a brilliant series of chess variants by game designer/developer Pippin Barr that will challenge how you play the game by twisting the rules, the board, the pieces… more or less everything.

Often, you’ll find that when you’re trying to be creative in a large open space it can be a little more difficult than when you’re confined to a set of rules or standards, its the wriggle room that you can find within a set of rules to create something that really sets yourself apart from the others.

This series of chess variants is a great example of that, with a set of mind-bending ways that will confuse but ultimately delight you and change the way you need to think to win.

For example, the crowded chess above fills the entire board with pieces straight away, you’ll have to first create some space with small captures but always be aware of the looming checkmates that exist when there are threats everywhere!

In gravity chess, your pieces will sink to the bottom of the board once they’ve moved… this means you’ll need to start working from the top down and be looking to see where your pieces will end up dropping to know if they’ll be safe or not!

Pippin has done an astounding job at picking at small ideas and expanding them rapidly into the chess format, with a total of 3 “chesses” series, totaling over 20 different variants, aptly named Chesses, Chesses 2, and Chesses 3.

My chess with fog of war is coming along pic.twitter.com/sxYLvThuTA

— P░pp░n B░rr (@pippinbarr) March 11, 2020

All these variants are also open sourced under Creative Commons, looking through the repository will give you a solid groundwork at what would be required to make your own variants, so a quick fork would get you up and running in no time.

➶ Chesses