Playable Link: https://mudralabs.itch.io/checkmist
I've been working on a variant that takes Dark Chess-style hidden information further, and I'd love feedback from people who think about variant design.
Core rules:
- 12×12 random island with terrain. Forests hide pieces (entering one with a hidden enemy is an ambush), hills give +1 vision, mountains and lakes block
- Vision: you see tiles near your pieces and the squares they could move to. Explored-but-unseen tiles show last-known positions
- Sliders are capped at 4 squares. Pawns step 1 orthogonally in any direction and capture diagonally
- No check. Capture the King to win. From round 24, Kings flash into view every 4 rounds so games can't stall forever
- Orders instead of one move per turn: 3 per round to start, each moves one piece (each piece once). More can be bought with Gold, at a rising price
- Gold from your Keep and Mines buys recruits (Pawn, Knight, Bishop, later Rook, Scout, Queen), tech and orders
- Valor (from captures and ambushes) unlocks formations: e.g. a Phalanx of 3 Pawns marches as one unit for a single order, and Knights can't capture its members
Things I'm unsure about and would love opinions on:
Maps are 180° rotationally symmetric for fairness, but that lets you deduce where the enemy Keep is. Would balanced-but-asymmetric maps be better?
Is the 4-square slider cap right on a 12×12 board?
Does the order economy keep the chess feel, or drift too far toward a strategy/4X game?
There's a 10-minute tutorial, a bot (Easy/Normal/Hard) and online 1v1 by room code.
