Chak (2021)

Chak is a Chess and Xiangqi style game designed by Couch Tomato in 2021 specifically to answer the hypothetical question of what a chess variant developed by mesoamerican cultures would look like. The design philosophy was to start from scratch and use only the common elements from all forms of chess: a king, a rook-type piece, a knight-like piece, and some sort of pawns; the rest would develop organically infusing a specific Mesoamerican culture -- in this case, the Maya. The various pieces move and capture in different ways by replacing the captured piece, as in chess, and victory is achieved by checkmating or stalemating the opposing king. An alternate win condition called "altar mate" is achieved by moving the king into the opponent's space on the board called the "temple."