Bitian Battlechess-From the designer's perspective

Frankly speaking, however great and classic it may be, the original Chess game is very strange, for there are too many unreasonable points in it. The Bitian Battlechess was originally designed to be a more reasonable version of the Chess game.

  Let’s list some unreasonable points:

1. Sorry my Queen, you can’t move for the time being because the little pawn, 200 meters away, is moving!
2. I’m so sorry we’ve lost a knight, but there are only two knights in our kingdom. We can’t get a third one.
3. The Queen is really awesome but the King can do almost nothing outside being checked...
4. The rook, albeit looking like a tower, can move, and moves really fast! Unbearable!
5. The faithful bishops are fast-moving muggles...

Now let’s see how I get rid of these problems...

Firstly, every round, EVERY chess can take action (move and attack) once.

Secondly, instead of having all the chess pieces initially, chess pieces (including Kings and Queens) are bought in-game and can be rebought once lost.

Thirdly, Kings and Queens are regarded as special heroes and heroines. Every King and Queen has his or her unique ability.

In addition, bishops are now called Priests, able to cast magic bolts and heal others (Priests in CFBU learn from the healer Yosin);

Rooks are now called towers, unable to move but able to shoot the coming enemy and withstand a lot of punishment;

Knights are super powerful, as they hit hard, move fast and don heavy armor.

In order to add such things to the battlechess, a series of rules must be set up first.

Chess pieces are bought with gold. Both sides start the game with 6 gold. The price of the chess pieces are evaluated according to their power.

Pawn: 2 gold

Priest: 3 gold

Tower: 4 gold

Knight: 5 gold

First hero (heroine): 6 gold

Second hero (heroine): 9 gold (White) 8 gold (Black)

Note that the second Black hero (heroine) is 1 gold cheaper to compensate for the Black’s loss in not going first.

For each player’s turn, there are two stages, namely Pre-action Stage and Action Stage.In the Pre-action Stage, the players first gains gold equivalent to the number of the chess pieces they already own. Then they buy chess pieces and put them at the bottom line. (If it’s full, the chess piece can be put at the second line, and so on...) In the Action Stage, the players put some or all of their chess pieces into action. Note that the chess pieces just bought in the Pre-action Stage can’t attack in the following Action Stage.

When put into action, the chess piece can move twice and attack once. To be more detailed, the chess piece can move once, attack, and move once more. The total step count of the chess piece’s moving before and after attack can’t exceed its speed. For instance, a 4-speed knight, after moving 2 steps pre-attack, can only move 2 steps at most post-attack.

To conclude, the game can be divided into: White Pre-action, White Action, Black Pre-action, Black Action and so on.

Now let’s talk about the properties of the individual chess pieces.

To begin with, let’s see the stats a chess piece can have.

Hit Point (HP): The amount of damage the chess piece can take before being eliminated. All ordinary units have 1 hit point. Heroes and heroines can have multiple hit points.

Armor (Also known as Defence): The amount of damage the chess piece can take each turn without actually being harmed.

Attack Damage (Or simply Attack ): The base amount of damage dealt by the chess piece when it’s attacking.

Range: The maximal manhattan distance the projectile that the chess piece fires can reach. For melee pieces it’s always 1.

Speed: The maximal total steps the chess piece can go pre-attack and post-attack. (One step means going one tile in the front, back, left or right)

Here are the basic stats of all the ordinary pieces:

Pawn:0 Armor, 1 Attack, 1 Range, 2 Speed

Priest:0 Armor, 1 Attack, 2 Range, 2 Speed

Skill: Heals 1 HP for a hero inside the Priest’s range.

Tower:3 Armor, 1 Attack, 2 Range, 0 Speed

Knight:2 Armor, 2 Attack, 2 Range, 4 Speed

    Now let’s go on to heroes and heroines.

    Heroes and heroines, or Kings and Queens, are the most important chess pieces throughout the whole game. The command of Heroes and Heroines is always a key part and often determines win and loss. Be sure to make the best use of them!

    Heroes and heroines have skills. Passive skills are always enabled while active skills have a cooldown of 2 turns.(That is to say, if the skill is activated on the first turn, it goes through cooldown on the second and third turn and regains availability on the fourth turn.)

    Below is a list of heroes and heroines:

Heroes:Genius 3 HP, 0 Armor, 1 Attack, 4 Range, 3 Speed.

Active Skill: Attack also deals damage to enemies directly beside the target. (Just like a + sign) Plus, deals +1 damage to the center.

In order to deal splash damage, ranged heroes are allowed to target empty tiles. There is also absolutely no friendly fire.

    Canida 4 HP, 1 Armor, 2 Attack, 1 Range, 3 Speed.

Active skill: Attack deals double damage.

    Felida 3 HP, 0 Armor, 2 Attack, 3 Range, 2 Speed

Active skill: Attack deals damage in a 3\*3 area of effect.

    Prince 4 HP, 1 Armor, 2 Attack, 1 Range, 2 Speed

Active skill: Choose one of your pieces. It can attack twice this turn.

    Termo 3 HP, 0 Armor, 2 Attack, 3 Range, 2 Speed

Active skill: Attack deals damage to all enemies in a single direction (front, back, left, right).

We have GCFPT five heroes at present.

Heroines: Yosin 3 HP, 0 Armor, 1 Attack, 2 Range, 2 Speed

Passive skill: Allies within 3\*3 square (including Yosin herself) gets +1 Armor and +1 Range.

Active skill: Instantly heals an allied piece to full health.

         Shiyu 3 HP, 0 Armor, 1 Attack, 3 Range, 2 Speed

Passive skill: Enemies defeated by Shiyu are coverted into ally.

Active skill: Fires a single-target coverting heart in one of the four simple directions.

If the coverting fails, the pieces are automatically turned into gold. Heroes and Heroines cannot be coverted.

         Rebecca 4 HP, 1 Armor, 2 Attack, 1 Range, 3 Speed

Active skill: Deals attack damage to all enemies in a 3\*3 square around Rebecca.

         Lotus 3 HP, 2 Armor, 2 Attack, 1 Range, 3 Speed

Active skill: This turn, gains +1 Attack and +2 Speed.

         Zeszy 3 HP, 1 Armor, 1 Attack, 3 Range, 3 Speed

Active skill: Instantly kills an enemy ordinary target and heal to full health.

    Now we have five heroines: YSRLZ.

There is an extra special mechanism in the game called the upgrading system. Upgrading nearly always cause great change. Without this system, it’s really uneasy to end a game (Before the introduction of this system, one game lasted for 45 minutes and was forced to end because the lights were off).Both hero(in)es and ordinary pieces can be upgraded. Hero(in)es get upgraded by collecting experience, while ordinary pieces are upgraded with gold.

    The upgrading system is closely related to the triangle number chart(1,3,6,10,15,and so on...)

Experience is gained when an enemy is defeated with any hero or heroine present. If the enemy is defeated by a hero(ine), the experience straightly goes to the hero(ine); if it’s defeated by an ordinary piece, to whom the experience goes is decided by the player. All ordinary pieces give 1 experience, while hero(in)es give 2+EXP/2 (EXP is the experience gained by the hero(ine)) experience, rounded up. Hero(in)es regain all their experience when revived.

    Every hero(ine) starts at level 1 with 0 experience. To level up to level n, n(n+1)/2 total accumulated experience is required. For example, EXP 6 Yosin is Level 3, EXP 12 Yosin is level 4 (10<12<15).

Experience isn’t reset when leveling up. The cost of hero(ine) revival is also related to the hero(ine)’s level. To be more exact, it’s(7+2\*LVL) gold, with LVL indicating the level of the hero(ine) at the time of defeat.

    When leveled up, the player chooses one of the following upgrades:

+2 HP, +1 Armor, +1 Attack, +1 Range, +1 Speed, -1 Cooldown

   Ordinary pieces can also be leveled up. The upgrading of ordinary pieces is universal, which means that EVERY ordinary piece, regardless of its kind, is affected by the upgrade. The first universal upgrade costs 15 gold, the nth universal upgrade costs(n+4)(n+5)/2 gold. Ordinary pieces can be upgraded in four aspects: +1 Armor, +1 Attack, +1 Range (Ranged pieces only) and +1 Speed.

    Now I have introduced the game in detail to you. It includes:

Pre-action Stage: Gain money and buy pieces!

Action Stage: Everyone, move, attack and move again!

Properties of chess pieces:

HP, Armor, Attack, Range, Speed, Skill (Active and passive)

Upgrading and experience system

This is the current 1 vs 1 non-story mode of the game. It now requires a complete set of Chess pieces, a Chess board and a recording paper. Hope you like it!