The chess pieces need to have easily identifiable facing, so pieces from Chess Teacher, chess dice from Proteus, standard chess pieces mounted on some teardrop-shaped bases, or gaming miniatures that are evoke the proper piece (clerics, mounted riders, perhaps golems for rooks, etc.) could be used. The king itself could be a standard RoboRally bot. Each player needs a king and a selection of pieces, for example, a rook, a bishop, and two knights.

Photo of the “Chess” board from planet gareth

Select one (or two) of the more symmetrically balanced boards from RoboRally—the “Chess” board from the Avalon Hill edition is an obvious choice, but there are many more that will work. You could use an empty grid as well, but then this becomes more chess and less RoboRally.

The two players set up their pieces on the two rows closest to opposite ends of the selected arena (secretly, if each wants to wait until the other sets up before deciding on their own set up). Deal out starting hands of 9 RoboRally cards.

Each turn, players lay out programs of five cards. The cards are revealed and executed in priority order. For each card, however, a player chooses any one of his pieces to move. A “Move 1″ allows a piece to make its normal chess move (and maintains the piece’s facing); all other cards would use their normal RoboRally movement or turning effect. Opposing robots landed on with a “Move 1″ chess move are captured; robots landed on with any other movement are pushed per the RoboRally rules. There are no checking rules as in chess, since the eventual capture requires hidden information (the presence of a “Move 1″). No castling or en passant captures either, for that matter.

Knights using a “Move 1″ are subject to effects similar to those of the “Frog Legs” option: the knight can pass over pits but would get stopped by walls; the knight move can be made only if a three-square path from the starting space the the landing space could be traversed by a flying robot.

A bishop can move through any vertex unless a wall or open pit on the bishop’s left and a wall or open pit on the bishop’s right meet at the vertex.

King Twonky and four chess dice pieces. Photo by J. Hunter Johnson, released under CC-BY-SA-3.0

A piece ending a turn on a double-wrench space farthest from its starting edge can be promoted (instead of any healing damage or gaining an option). That is, of the rows that have any double-wrench spaces, only the row farthest from the starting edge row “empowers” its double-wrenches with promotion capability.

The object of the game is to capture the opposing king with a chess move or eliminate him through Robo Rally effects (pits, crushers, or accumulated damage). Only damage to the king reduces the number of cards drawn.

Shogi pieces could also be used this way (and have good facing). You could even mix-and-match shogi pieces, other regional chess-like games’ pieces, or fairy chess pieces (see Chess variants). If you get really deep into it, you can also experiment with unbalanced sides, piece drafts, or point buys—let me know how it goes!

—jhunterj

Cold Room from Robo Factory

There are two unofficial RoboRally boards available online that feature Ice. “The Ice Rink” includes rules for inertia. “The Cold Room” features a much nicer graphic, but the “spin chart” is not yet available (and, given the time spent coming “ASAP”, unlikely to become available, but it would probably have be very similar to The Ice Rink’s) (UPDATE: The Spin Chart is available at the new link!). Neither of them are really suitable to lunch-time play, since tracking and dealing with inertia is tedious. But I like the art on “The Cold Room” enough that I wrote my own rules for Ice. If you’ve got a lot of time and the inclination, try out the inertia stuff, but if you don’t:

Ice

Robots may move cautiously on Ice without change. Rotate Left and Rotate Right function normally. A Move 1 will function normally except that another robot cannot be pushed.

Faster movement will be affected by the reduced friction on Ice. A robot executing a U-Turn on Ice will spin completely around, so that his facing does not change.

A Move 2 through an adjacent robot will cause both robots to slide until they leave the ice, hit a wall, or hit another robot. A Move 2 onto a square occupied by another robot will cause that other robot only to slide, as above. A Move 2 into two robots will not push them at all. A Move 2 with no other robots within the front two squares will slide as above.

A Move 3 has the same effects as a Move 2, depending on whether another robot(s) is moved through or landed on. It cannot push 3 robots. A Move 4 (via Fourth Gear) cannot push 4 robots.

In addition to the above effects, a robot beginning a turn on Ice receives one fewer card than normal, unless that would require a register to be locked.

—jhunterj