Wish we liked it more

Oh how Trevor and I wanted to like Puzzle Board Chess as we opened to box one Friday over a coffee.

The premise here was super fascinating yet so straight forward in terms of rules, we were quickly into.

So as the name implies this is a chess game – well variant to be more accurate.

The difference here is the board, which is created by players taking turns laying four board game square pieces – eight each – with one starter tile laid out as a sort of board anchor to start things.

In the end the board is far from the standard 8x8 board we associate with chess. The puzzle board can have some rather diverse board layouts, almost always with gaps in it.

Gaps are a problem for pieces moving orthogonally (the poor rooks in particular), as they are stopped by them.

Diagonal movers (bishops, queens and kings) can skirt the gaps.

And the knight pops over gaps nicely – thanks to its leap ability.

The unusual board designs and gaps make pawns useless, so while included, they are not used in the game itself.

Once you have the layout players then place pieces on the board on the tiles they have put down (you mark them with a pawn).

It is in the piece placement where this enticing game stumbled – or more accurately game play as a result of piece placement.

Placement is supposed to be done in 60 seconds – an egg timer is included. That doesn’t sound like much time but with only eight pieces to place it’s not onerous at all.

In fact, one can see where an opponent is placing their pieces – say a rook – and easily place a bishop to put it under threat.

As a result the first few moves are trading pieces, or moving the highest value one under threat out of danger – knowing you are going to lose something else as wise set up will put various pieces under immediate threat.

Therein lies the problem with Puzzle Board Chess. There is zero joy in immediate captures made possible by piece placement with zero strategy, or skill involved.

We tried a sort of draft placement with players announcing say rook, and each then placing one, but it had little impact on the immediate threat issue.

Now we liked the board creation process a lot, and if a piece placement option could be figured out to take play back to good moves mattering more than they do here, this would blast into the realm of ‘best’ in terms of chess variants.

As it sits Puzzle Board Chess is really a game with more unfulfilled promise than real play excellence.

You can find this one at www.metadreamsllc.com