Kung-Fu Chess is a
chess variant that removes the concept of turns and allows multiple pieces to move simultaneously. It was created by Shizmoo Games as a "real-time" in the early 2000s and remained on the company's website until the website shut down in 2008. Other online servers have since appeared.
Background
The game was conceptualized in the early 2000s by Dan Goldstein as a "real-time" version of chess; it was later developed by him and his brother Joshua Goldstein under the name "Ultra Speed Chess". The name was later changed to "Kung-Fu Chess" to reflect the
martial-arts
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the preser ...
themed sound effects that would play during the players' moves. The game was published by Shizmoo Games on the company's website and it won the Audience Choice award in the 2002
Independent Games Festival
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...
. Following with the martial arts theme, the game also featured a rating system categorized by
belt colors. It was later supplemented with additional variants (such as
Four-player chess
Four-player chess (also known as four-handed chess) is a family of chess variants played with four people. The game features a special board typically made of a standard 8×8 square, with 3 rows of 8 cells each extending from each side, and req ...
,
Crazyhouse
Crazyhouse (also known as drop chess, mad chess, reinforcement chess, turnabout chess and schizo-chess) is a chess variant in which captured enemy pieces can be reintroduced, or ''dropped'', into the game as one's own. The drop rule resembles th ...
, and
Bughouse chess) before the website shut down in 2008.
The original version was added to the
ICQ instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
program in 2005.
The app Chezz is based on Kung-Fu Chess, adding concepts such as an adventure mode that allows for upgrading pieces to allow them to move more often.
Rules
In Kung-Fu Chess, either player can move any available piece at any given moment, though only one piece can be moved at a time. After a piece is moved, a predefined delay prevents it from moving again for a short period of time. This, plus piece movements not being instantaneous, means that speed and timing are crucial aspects of the game, as any delay could determine whether a piece is captured or not.
In addition to this, the game's "real-time" aspect leads to essential differences between Kung-Fu Chess and standard
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
. For instance,
checks and
pins do not exist in the game, since players are not bound to one move at a time and thus could respond to threats with multiple piece movements.
Checkmate and
stalemate were similarly both impossible to achieve; as such, the game only ended when one's king was physically captured or if one's opponent resigned.
References
External links
GameSpy articleGameDev.net article
{{Chess variants
Chess variants