Comments by fantactic1

For any questions, contact jeffkubach@yahoo.com or post here.

I think it's cool that you want to make it more female-friendly, but I'm not sure that the name change and having teammates sit across from each other is necessarily enough (or apparent enough to cater to female players).  Nevertheless I do still like those two ideas.  It's a nice combo of "lady" and "bughouse."

I'm not too concerned about specific time controls as much as move order rules.  I'm not sure what other bughouse variants there are, but my understanding of the present form is that two games are running on their own time, and each player just suddenly receives the captured pieces from their partner's game, available to drop.  Without a specific move order it's a lot of wild and crazy luck and/or waiting strategies (unless I'm missing something about the normal bughouse rules).

I will add that I like the 8 stone chess idea.  Maybe the 8 stones (or however many you use) can be the job of the teammates.  One person gets the pieces, the other gets the stones.

Rules have been updated to include revised abilities on the sentry piece.  It will add a more unique feel to the game than the original sentry (which was too ineffective in closed positions- even moreso than a bishop).

erik I'll look into creating one.  I'm admittedly not too familiar with Game Courier.  At the moment, for online playing I've been using a "sandbox" environment without rule enforcement.  I'd be happy to work something out so we can play a game (or if necessary, even using a video stream of the board, with moves entered in the chat box or something).  If you find anyone on your end interested in playing over the board, I'd love to know how the game went (try to record it!)

A quick puzzle based on this variant, with Black's pawns moving up the board - playing from the bottom (using abstract pieces as this is from Tabletopia) 

Anyone insterested in playing a game, we can arrange a time/date to play live online.

Ben, if you liked the sentry example, here's another one, a bit trickier. White to move and mate in 5:

You’re asking the admin team for Spoiler text as a feature?  Or did you want me to simply post the sequence for now?

Nice one Ben, exactly right.  In addition:

Pushing the King to d5 also works, but my original idea- just like your line of thinking, was "return to the square it just left" like in my checkmate example in the Pieces section. Even though it can do a lot, I'm pretty sure the sentry is still just a bit weaker than a bishop (and that's how I wanted it), for example if the sentry were a pinned piece here, it can't perform the final mate move, while a bishop already has it mated. Advantages and disadvantages is what I was going for.

Maybe 1. a5 would be a hassle for Black to deal with in 8x8, but... maybe Black can aim for the center as a response.

Hi Fergus, can I get it changed to ChessVariantDemos?  (assuming all the info and variant pages I've written remain)

Makes sense, and thank you for the compliment. I figure it would be more approachable and manageable for ChessV than 8-Piece Chess (despite my personal love of the latter).