Apocalypse (chess variant) A footman promotes to horseman when reaching the last , but only when the player has fewer than two horsemen. Otherwise the player must redeploy the footman to any vacant square. A player wins by being first to eliminate all of the opponent's footmen. Accumulating two penalty points forfeits the game. A stalemate is a draw. Bibliography Apocalypse (chess variant) Apocalypse is a chess variant invented by C. S. Elliott in 1976. The players each start with two "horsemen" and five "footmen" on a 5×5 board. The two sides make their moves simultaneously. The game was featured in Issue 53
Four-player chess for themselves. As with regular chess, four-player chess begins with fortifications and the of pieces, but opportunities for capturing pieces (and gaining points) come about at large as each of the three opponents likewise do attacks and make threats of capture. Therefore picking friends and enemies has a political quality; ultimately the impromptu teammates will have to combat each other as only one can win. The Cox-Forbes theory of the origin of chess, though debunked, asserts that a four-player version was the earliest form of the game. A description of a four-player chess game is found in an Indian text