Meet the Pieces
Click any piece on the board to see its legal moves highlighted. Below is the canonical rule for each. The full rules are on the Rules page.
The four royal pieces
King (K)
Moves one square in any direction. The royal piece — if checkmated, the game ends. May castle with a Rook under the standard chess conditions.
Queen (Q)
Slides any number of squares orthogonally or diagonally. The strongest piece on the board.
Prince (Pr)
Moves up to four squares in any direction and can jump over any piece on the board. Royal piece, but capturing it does NOT end the game.
Princess (Ps)
Moves up to four squares in any direction but cannot jump. The path must be clear; if blocked, she travels only as far as the square in front of the blocker. Royal piece, but capturing her does NOT end the game.
The new pieces
Archbishop (A)
Two-part compound move: 3 diagonal + 1 orthogonal. The Archbishop slides three squares diagonally, then steps one square up, down, left, or right from the diagonal endpoint. Cannot jump; the entire path must be clear.
Super Knight (SN)
Two-part compound move: 3 orthogonal + 1 diagonal. The Super Knight goes three squares forward, backward, left, or right, then steps one square diagonally from the orthogonal endpoint. CAN jump over any piece on the board, just like the orthodox Knight — intermediate squares do not have to be empty.
Fortress (F)
Moves one square per turn in any direction. Defensive specialist: any piece adjacent to a Fortress is protected. Only a royal piece (King, Queen, Prince, Princess) may capture a Fortress- adjacent piece without consequence. A non-royal that captures a Fortress-adjacent piece also loses itself in the same move (mutual destruction).
Super Pawn (P)
Moves one or two squares forward on every move (not just the first, like in orthodox chess). Captures one square forward-diagonally, exactly like a regular pawn. Promotes on the 16th rank to any non-King piece.
The orthodox three
Rook (R)
Slides any number of squares orthogonally. Castles with the King.
Bishop (B)
Slides any number of squares diagonally. Stays on its starting colour for the entire game.
Knight (N)
Jumps in the orthodox L-shape (two-and-one). Can jump over other pieces.
The patent-pending feature: every piece is reprogrammable
Reprogram every one of your pieces — Patent Pending
The unique feature of Super Chess 16x16. Every piece on your side is reprogrammable: King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight, Super Pawn, Prince, Princess, Archbishop, Super Knight, Fortress — you can author each piece's movement at runtime. Select a piece, click destination squares; each click appends a (delta-row, delta-column) vector to that piece's legal-move list. Right-click removes a vector. Save the set to your account and bring your custom roster into your next game.
Three game modes when you create a match: Default (standard rules, no reprogramming), Each side programs their own (asymmetric — only YOU know where your pieces can move; your opponent's repertoire is hidden from you and yours is hidden from them), or Both sides use the same reprogrammed pieces (symmetric — whatever vectors you add to the King apply to both Kings, etc.). You can flip back to Default any time. Read more »
U.S. Provisional Patent Application has been filed for the data-driven piece-movement engine and the runtime authoring subsystem.