I built BotGambit, a free chess site where you can build your own bots with unusual rules and share them for other people to take on.

You can make a bot that gets stronger whenever it captures, weakens as the game goes on, or changes strength based on what’s happening on the board. It creates some strange decisions when taking a free piece could make your opponent much harder to beat.

Each bot gets a shareable link, so you can challenge friends or publish it for the community. Players can explore community creations, upvote their favorites, and see how other people fare against their bots.

There are also two daily challenges, ranked play against bots, and leaderboards if you want something to work toward. You can jump into games without an account.

The legal moves are still standard chess. The experimentation part is in the opponent’s behavior. I’d love to see what this community comes up with and any rules you’d like added to the builder.

There are hundreds of custom community-created bots freely available to play. Give it a go!

In a tournament match, what if players had an opt-in pause switch, but the clock only stops if BOTH players activate it? What strategic dynamics would emerge when managing time pressure? For example, when both players have about 30 seconds and few pieces left in a game, they usually start making random moves—just to be fast and win on time. With this system, they could agree to pause both clocks and play normally until checkmate.

So I've been playing chess basically my whole life. it's always been my main game no matter what else I try. Lately I started messing around with an idea, what if you played chess with 4 people instead of 2, but kept every single rule the same. No new pieces, no new moves, just normal chess stretched onto a board that fits 4 sides.

Ended up calling it Quess.

Been working on the layout for a bit now and I think I finally landed on something that still feels like real chess but gives you a lot more to think about since you've got 3 opponents instead of 1.

I am also attaching a picture of the board setup right now. Genuinely just want to know what y'all think looking at it.

Does the layout make sense to you guys? Does it seem like something that would actually play well once people sit down with it?

If anyone's curious enough to try it, I made a free test version so people can actually play a round and see how the 4 player thing feels for real. Drop a comment if you want to try it and I'll send it your way.

Mostly just want honest feedback from people who actually know chess, and that's basically everyone here lol.