I had an idea for a different version of chess:.. this idea may not be totally original, idk. Essentially it's all the same chess rules except:

Twist #1:

Instead of playing "trap the King" like how normal chess is played, you play "winner must take all the pieces". The King, can be taken/killed, just like how real life kind of is. Being in check is basically not a rule anymore. A king can move into check, and be killed. It's a battle to the last piece.

Twist #2:

When a king is killed, the next highest ranking piece becomes the new king. So, obviously, you really don't want to lose your king because that means trading down the highest ranking of your pieces (in order from Queen>Rook>Bishop>Knight>Pawn). The player who lost their king gets to decide between equally ranked pieces.

For example, if white loses his king, and their next highest ranking piece is a rook, and both rooks are still alive, white can choose which rook to "crown". Gameplay continues when white replaces their chosen rook with the king-piece... so the king will inevitably be the very last piece standing (on the board). And yes, the king can be crowned into a position in check. Note: Crowning your new king is not a separate/whole move. In other words, when you lose your king, you then just crown/replace another piece with your king, and then you make a regular gameplay move.

Being in check doesn't mean you must move out of check. The king can move into check. A player could strategically sacrifice their king, but again, because you have to "promote" a subsequent king, it basically means losing your most valuable piece, so it's still (usually) rough to lose the king.

The end of the game is when one of the players loses all their pieces, or in the rare event of stalemate (only two kings are left on the board, and one is not cornered, such that it would have to step into check and be taken). The winner is the last King on the board.

Notes on strategy:

Protecting the king, especially from being killed by minor pieces, is pretty obvious. If a king is protected, you might not want to attack it with a more valuable piece, like your queen. I could envision sacrificing high ranking pieces before losing the king, or moving your high ranking pieces to more defendable positions when the king is in danger.

Hope this is okay to post here :) shogi is more of a cousin than a variant, but this feels like the crowd that would actually appreciate it!

I got into shogi some time ago because I loved the idea of crazyhouse and someone told me about Shogi. Every capture goes into your hand, so material never leaves the game and there's basically no drawish position.

The problem (which i had personally at least) was that actually trying it was miserable. Kanji pieces, Japanese notation, current sites are just made of pro players etc. I ended up building the site I wish for: shog.io There's a little tutorial, and to have a better entry point, it focuses on minishogi, a 5x5 version where games take a few minutes, so you learn the drop mechanic without a full 9x9 scary board!

Curious what variant players think! Thanks for the feedback :)