Interesting idea with the movement. Have to think about that one. Being a game designer first and a quantum engineer…farther down the list, I try to never let reality (or metaphor) trump gameplay. My gut feeling is that you would end up with fewer active supers, and less of what makes the game interesting. But now were getting to the part of the cycle where playtesting would be quite valuable.

When I have a moment (my day design-job is pretty demanding right now), I’ll write these up in the optional rules, and move entanglement out of options and into the main set.

I’m having trouble seeing the alternate capture you are proposing. With three sets of super positional pieces, every combination I set up with shared squares ends up with three sets of real pieces at the end of the resolution round. Am I missing something? Probably need to start calling these things out in chess notation:

Algebraic Notation

The rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper on this little project…};^)

I think a few extra notations would be needed:

< = Piece becomes Superpositional
> = Piece becomes Real
~ = Threat
[...] Brackets denote moves that happen during collapse phase

As for writing software, let’s talk offline. My address is on the Contact Sean page.

Also, considering metaphorical exactness, the movement rules should be slightly modified. I say this because there is only one REAL piece, but movement can result in a superpositional piece. In theory, we don’t know which spot the piece ACTUALLY occupies until it is acted upon. So during the next turn, the super positional piece could have legal moves from EITHER of the new starting locations. So when the player moves, the piece should collapse to ONE of the two possible starting locations and then make a new legal move. In this way pieces always have to move like in the original. In quantum, we don’t see two halves of a wave function going in two separate directions where they can not instantly and legally recombine.

Finally, there is still a problem of turn resolution. It is possible (but rare) that a super positional piece 1 shares its two locations with two pieces 2 and 3, and that pieces 2 and 3 share a square. If a fourth piece moved its exact location to annihilate the 2-3 square and 2 and 3 collapsed backwards, piece one would have no location. This would be a fun and new type of capture!

I am really a fan of this idea. Would you be offended if I wrote software for this game just for fun?

You could kind of look down through the boards, though sadly only through the “white” squares I think.

Of course as luck would have it, the board broke after too much use a few years ago…

Hmm. I don’t think it would turn the pawns into locusts, since the pawns are still useless against superpositional pieces, and have only their normal power against real pieces when they themselves are real or when paired with another pawn in exactly the right square (both of which would be obvious to the player controlling the real piece).

I’d be inclined to leave entanglement as an option (or as an “advanced rule” to be added to experience the “full game”), to leave the “basic game” as accessible as possible (which is already a big hurdle for most multi-board chess variants, due both to the material requirements and to the complexity that comes with having to track multiple boards (dimensions) at once, overlaying them in your mind).

You could use entanglement as part of the “real” rules, but still start players off with the version that requires less bookkeeping.

L. Scott, yes, you’re right. The resolution phase needs to be updated to reflect two superpositional pieces capturing a real piece. But I think this clinches it for Entanglement, it needs to be part of the base rules, otherwise I foresee a cloud of undifferentiated pawns devouring everything in their path.

Thanks for the good questions!