I had a little time tonight – not enough to make a video game but enough to try out a few ideas. I was thinking of ways to reduce Chess to a more minimal experience and I decided to try taking out pretty much all of the “special” pieces and see what could be done with just pawns. A little more brainstorming resulted in this: Bodyguards and Assassins.

Rules and starting positions for Bodyguards and Assassins

So the above image sums everything up for you. If you want to give it a go, there are a few options for you:

1. Find that chess set buried in the closet or at your parent’s house.
2. Get the Inkscape-made SVG file of the above image and play by moving the pieces around.
3. Download a greyscale Print-and-Play version of the game and rules, also available as either a SVG file or PNG file.

Both versions above include additional pawns (the usual 8 total per color) in case you want to try a customized game with additional units. I didn’t make icons for the other standard chess pieces, but I’d be curious to hear of any “house rules” ideas that utilize them (I hear the Queen can be seductively dangerous as an Assassin ;-D ).

Feedback and opinions are greatly appreciated, enjoy!