InfernoChess
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How deep is your madness?
Let's get this out of the way first. Inferno Chess is simultaneously named after Dante's Inferno (levels of hell, it'll make sense once you read the rules. Or hell, it might make sense just looking at the board), and the 1970 Doctor Who story "Inferno" which is set in a parallel universe.
What is this?
At it's core, this idea simply nests Chess boards, and provides a mechanism for moving between nested levels, and covers other contingencies (like winning). It could be applied to many (certainly not all) Chess variants. As described here, we'll be referring to standard chess as the reference.
The concept does not have any limits to depth, though "infinite" is nonsensical and any large number of levels be impractical (for physical and/or gameplay and/or sanity reasons).
All discussion here will be based on a sample board of depth 5.
Equipment
Any of the following could be used:
- Multiple normal chess boards (one per layer) and some notes to synchronise levels.
- A single customised chessboard, and appropriate custom pieces to suit the levels.
- An as-yet-nonexistent software version of this which would handle a lot of this
Terminology
Inferno Chess expands on algebraic notation with a simple prepending of a digit to indicate level of move. The sample board on this page has five levels. I'll concede here that I don't know algebraic notation well enough to be certain that this avoids all ambiguation, but it shouldn't be difficult to fix that (eg, by indicating level within braces).
More generally, the board should be visualised as having a "hole" in the middle 4x4, within which sits a whole new board. Using the hole metaphor, this is a deeper level, and then recurse the idea to taste. This concept of "depth" is used in the rules, especially regarding "descending" and "ascending"
Gameplay
Setup
- Setup is simple. Normal chess setup on every level.
Play
- On each level, the normal movement rules of chess nominally apply. However, if any piece ends on the center 4x4, then it descends into a deeper level.
On any turn, a player plays one piece from any level. In a depth5 game, each player initially controls 80 pieces, and moves one before alternating. At any time (including the first turn) a player may choose to play at any level. Normal chess "must resolve check" still applies however.
Descending
Descending is easy. When you land on an inner 4x4 relative to your current board, you descend to occupy a location on any sublevel within your original target square. eg, if you move to 1D3, then you actually move to one of four options: 2C2, 2D2, 2C1, 2D1. The center 2x2 have many more targets, dependant on how many levels below the current level there are. In a 5 level board, then 1D4 has: 12 targets on level3, 12 targets on level4, and 16 targets on level 5. That's a total of 40 target positions that a piece on level 1 moving to 1D4 can occupy.
There are some rules that still must be adhered to when descending
- You must respect original position colour rules of your original move. ie, bishops remain colour locked, knights always colour swap, and pawns colourswap unless it's an initial 2jump or taking another piece on the diagonal.
- Kings may not descend.
- Kings MAY be placed into check from across the hole. Indeed, the lack of ability to place pieces in the center 4x4 may make check more plausible in some situations.
- Only positions that are empty, or occupied by the opposition are valid targets. ie, you cannot replace your own pieces.
Descending can occur on any move, including to create or resolve check. However, check itself can only occur from pieces on the same level.
ie, each level should be considered to only have a conceptual view of itself and any sublevels. Pieces on higher levels do not create check (or castling-blocking through-check) situations.
Ascending
If a level is won, and there is a higher level, then ALL losing pieces are removed from the board, and all winning pieces are transferred to their equivalent positions on the next level up (eg 5D3 -> 4D3. 5A7->4A7, etc).
If a mid-tier level is won, then ALL lower levels improve by one numerically, but only the won level "ascends" - ie, where the losing pieces are all removed and winning pieces all join the next board up
If level 1 is one, then all pieces from both sides become inactive (nowhere to ascend to), and all lower levels (improve their level number numerically. It effectively simply removes pieces from both sides and unlikely to be usefully tactically.
On conflict of pieces, the following applies:
- Ascending pieces lose when the target is occupied by the same colour.
- Ascending pieces win when the target is occupied by the opposition, except for the King who cannot be taken.
At the end of an ascension, it is the opposition's turn. If they are in checkmate again, then another ascension for the winning side occurs. Chained checkmates are considered theoretically possible.
Note: there should be notation to indicate level renumbering. This has not been considered.
TL;DR of Ascension and Descension
- Individual pieces descend in a highly targetted manner, godlike from above, one per turn at most.
- Whole sides ascend in an untargetted manner, like a mass uprising from below. A whole winning side in a turn.
Winning
As the game progresses, levels are won and effectively removed from the game. It's expected that the deepest level will resolve first and then each level upwards in turn but is not required. This progresses until the board resolves to a single level, and finishes as pure chess
Tactics
It's expected that the two main tactics will be
- try to keeping pieces at higher levels for late-game deployment to lower levels to squash uprisings, and
- send pieces into lower levels early to win and create an unstoppable uprising
It's impossible to say yet which is better in general, or what other tactics and styles can counteract each of those main tactics.
The nature of the rules means "descending" dominates the early game, and "ascending" only occurs late-game (afterall, ascension only occurs at the end of any given level)
Origin
This game was inspired by Dakotah Sky Walker on facebook and their posting of an image showing an infinite depth board of this style, representing their descent into Chess research. From this I took the board literally and began pondering how to craft a real game around it, including a first draft of this idea.
The original post no longer exists, but their image was shared again in a comment to my initial fb tease post about Inferno Chess: https://www.facebook.com/nemothorx/posts/10159641848278216
