This is a cute variant on chess that I bought in Japan as a souvenir for a friend. I wasn’t expecting it to be anything but a cute example of Japanese children’s game design, but it actually proved really interesting. The game layout and images of the pieces can be seen here: it’s obviously just a cute little chess game. The rules are similar to chess but with simpler moves and an additional way of winning. The board is a 3×4 matrix, with sky at the top and forest at the bottom. These regions constitute the players’ “areas”, which are similar to the back row of a chess board.
The pieces
Each side has only four pieces:
The objective
Winning is possible by catching your opponent’s lion or by advancing your lion into your opponent’s area. Catching the lion is called “catch” and winning by advance is a “try.”
Replacable pieces
The main change from the standard rules of chess is the ability to return captured pieces to the board. After you catch your enemy’s piece you put it next to your side of the board and can then place it on the board instead of moving an existing piece. You have to place them in the order you caught them, and you can put them in any empty square. It wasn’t clear from the explanation but the rules stated that the chick has to advance into the opponent’s area to become magical, so we figured that means you can’t enchant a chick by placing it in your opponent’s area.
Differences from chess
Replacable pieces on a board this size makes for an interesting variation on chess. You can see from the diagram that the chicks start off facing each other and able to take each other. This is of no benefit to the person who starts because both players end up with a chick in hand, but one player has his lion in the middle of the board. The lion is strong, not weak, so this is a good position to start.
This is the other main difference from standard chess. Because no piece can take from range the lion is the strongest piece on the board, and moving it out early is good. Also, the ability to win by a try makes aggressive use of the lion a good tactic. In fact, over 10 or 12 games I got the impression that this game encourages aggressive play.
Another difference from chess is the use of diversionary tactics, especially using captured pieces. For example, if you threaten the king with a newly-placed elephant from one side of the board, the king will have to take it. This gives your king a free run up the board on the other side. I don’t think these tactics are used as much in standard chess.
Three special rules
This game is a training game for child chess players (the website is on the women’s chess society homepage), and as such intended to introduce children to chess culture. So it introduces three special rules for all players:
Each game takes only 5 to 10 minutes, so it’s a pretty quick learning curve compared to chess and it’s cute and fun to play. I recommend giving it a go. It also has me wondering what other variations on chess might be possible. For example, if you doubled or tripled the board size could you play chess like a modern war-game, with great sprawling battles, and wargame-style tactics? I’ve not really seen variations of chess based on changing the board size and distribution of pieces, but it appears to offer opportunities to use the basic rules of chess to play a very different style of game. An interesting idea…
Compromise and Conceit 
September 12, 2011 at 1:27 am
[…] the original here: Current Gaming: Animal Chess « Compromise and Conceit Filed Under: Chess, General Tagged With: actually-proved, chess, cute-example, cute-variant, […]
September 12, 2011 at 7:58 pm
The main change from the standard rules of chess is the ability to return captured pieces to the board.
A Japanese person wouldn’t see this as a change – in Japanese chess, shogi, you get to keep captured pieces and return them to the board at will.
Also, the “magic chicken” thing is a direct life from shogi, where if you get a piece behind enemy lines (i.e. opponent’s set-up territory) they become imbued with special powers and can do more moves. (In most shogi sets you turn the piece over and reveal a more elaborate and different-coloured kanji character.)
Actually this seems more like an introductory set to shogi than western chess. Particularly as it rewards aggressive play, which is also something you tend to get with shogi/
September 13, 2011 at 6:10 am
I have never played shogi and although ip used to know Chinese chess I have forgotten the rules. From your description it sounds like this is a simplification of shoji with the try the only embellishment. Wow! I’m learning shogi!
Does shoji have cannon and a river?
September 13, 2011 at 6:10 am
The spelling mistakes are my iPad’s fault!
September 13, 2011 at 7:53 am
It’s a poor workman who blames his tools.
😛
September 13, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Shogi is quite different to Chinese chess – no cannon and no river. It’s easy to pick up if you know Western chess, but difficult to master, because I think Western chess is fundamentally a defensive and conservative game whereas Shogi rewards aggressive play and taking opponents’ pieces.
September 27, 2011 at 12:28 am
Hey, nice review!
Also, note that the background of the game makes it that much cooler: Two champions in the Shogi “women’s league” were tired of the sausage fest, and were wondering how to get more children – particularly girls – into shogi. The two pieces of feedback that they heard over and over again were that A) The rules were hard, and B) The pieces were hard to remember
For A, they made basically this game, which was a Training Wheels version of the core concepts of shogi: Promotion and Replacing Pieces on the Board. One lady made the rules, the other came up with the cute animal designs to appeal to children (making them easy to remember, and notable). It worked! It’s really stroming through Japan.
Also note that they then released “Doubutsu Shougi: Ouki na Mori” (I think that was the name, “Doubutsu Shougi In The Greenwood” was the English title). It is basically a complete full reskin of Shogi but with animal figures.
They include two versions of the game, an intermediate version of the game, and then say “Okay, if you play this you can now basically play shogi; use these pieces and just play shogi!”
I played chess for years, loved the concepts of shogi but never could remember the piece replacement strategies and also had difficulty with the pieces. It was MFing advanced doubutsu shogi that got me full back into shogi. I *HIGHLY* recommend it!
-Andy