It has taken some time, but finally Economy Chess is available! 

Economy Chess is a chessvariant in which possesion of the board also comes into account. Conquer squares, gain money from them and buy new pieces to check-mate the king!

You can download the game here:

http://www.chess.com/download/view/economy-chess

Video explaining the rules and the program:

Screenshot:

Read more about the game, updates and challenge others in the EC group:

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/economy-chess  

***** Rules index *****

1. Quick introduction
2. What's different?
3. Owning a square
4. Conquering a square
5. Gaining income
6. Buying new pieces 
7. Settings 

1. Quick introduction

Welcome to Economy Chess, a chessvariant in which you conquer the squares of the board. These squares generate income (coins) which can be used to place new pieces on the player's backrank. Spend -or save- your money wisely and try to check-mate your opponent!

2. What's different?

3. Owning a square

A player owns a square when:

- he has a piece standing on it
- he was the last player who had a piece on it

A square is neutral when no player ever stood on it. 

4. Conquering a square

A player can conquer a neutral or enemy controlled square by:
- Moving a piece onto a vacant square
- Capturing an enemy piece

A piece only conquers the square that it ends on.

5. Gaining income

By moving your pieces around you will conquer more and more squares. At the end of your turn, each owned square will harvest you 1 coin income.

However, each piece also costs 1 coin upkeep per turn. therefore you calculate your income by deducting the upkeep from the harvest:

#of squares owned - #of pieces owned = income
At the end of the player's turn the Income is added to your Savings. After several turns players have saved enough coins to buy new pieces.

6. Buying new pieces

When you got enough coins you can buy one or more new pieces. The sum for the piece(s) is deducted from your savings. Players are not allowed to buy when they are under check. Also if you buy pieces, you may not move that turn. You do get income like every other turn.
Default prices (coins):
Pawn: 25 
Knight: 75
Bisshop: 78
Rook: 125
Queen: 225 

Some restrictions apply to the placement of new piece(s):
- white player can only place pieces on rank 1 and pawns on rank 2
- black player can only place pieces on rank 8 and pawns on rank 7
- a square must be empty
- the square may not be enemy controlled

7. Settings

Various parts of the game and mechanics can be controlled using different settings. You can choose the price of each piece for instance. Read more about settings here:
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/settings-menu  

No AI available yet, it can only be played locally against yourself or with a friend. 

Cool beans. I am glad that it is finally out.

rules?

A quick something that I noticed: a player is allowed to castle when their rook is under attack in normal chess. You stated that is a bug in the game when in fact it is fine and chessy to leave it as is.

Ok, I thought that was forbidden! Well lets keep it that way then- all normal FIDErules should apply unless overruled by new rules.

@ Roeczak: rules are ingame in the HELP and ABOUT button.

edit: will add them here in a minute

I hope some strong chessplayers want to try the game and post their game here. I would love to replay a game to see how it went. My rating (and the ones that I have played the game with) is approximatly:  

Someone predicted (and I think that is true) that there will hardly be and endgame. Once you got the economical and positional advantage youll win for sure- I dont expect any stalemates to happen.

What I do think is that there will be interesting choices in opening and midgame. Some moves give you an economical advantage, but weaken your position and vice versa. 
 

The settings that I think give the best game are:

Placement: only on original spot
Promotion: steal cash
Production: may always produce
Movement: produce or move

Thanks in advance for trying and would love to see a game posted here :) 

Can it run on windows xp?

I am not sure, I think it runs on Vista, XP and windows 7.

Thank you.

Very interesting. I`m gonna download it right away. Do you think you`ll add an engine one day? 

Yes that is my biggest wish, but I dont know how costly it is to buid. The game has a couple feautures that I would very much like to add:

- AI, an engine or something that allows online play versus life players. Just something that makes it possible to play a game against NOTyourself ;)

- Flip board

- Copy PGN and display the board right away, just like the board editor here on chess.com
(also there's a mistake with castling notation: should be 0-0 and 0-0-0) 

But it will take some time. Mainly because I dont have time and spare money now (this is not programmed by me). But also I want to get more feedback on the gamerules before a next version. Which options are good? Which option is unnescessary? Perhaps there is something I missed that should really be in there. In other words: I need feedback to see if the game is good as it is or need changes before starting a new project.

But yes, Id love an AI as well. I have only played this against my father sitting next to eachother behind a computer :)

The only way of playing against someone would be by correspondence chess. Send eachother the moves, with a big disadvantage that you cant paste PGN and have to place all the moves before you can do your next move...

i think the option "production and move" allow some people to set a checkmate and wins easily

I`ve just played my first game (on my own for my wife isn`t at home now) and I found something strange. The below was originally a part of my review but I think it belongs here.

You can see the position before Black`s move in the first diagram. I used the "production and move" option. Black bought a pawn (see #2), captured the White`s King (see #3), and the game was over - Black won. I was able to capture and win this way by buying other pieces, too. Is it a bug or a new rule?

This is correct, with produce AND move the piece may move right away. Personally this I think that is way to good and allows to many sudden check-mates (as Maewmiauw says). So I recommend the produce OR move setting. 

But the above is not a checkmate - it is something that can`t happen according to FIDE rules. "Produce OR move" makes the game more chess-like. But "produce AND move" makes it IMO more interesting, complicated and funny.

In the first version of the game the player placed his pieces at the end of the turn- after he moved. In that way you can move your king away. 

To be honest.. I thought the option "produce AND move" was still that way . Like that it was good already, allowing the player to create crazy attacks. The way it is now you cant place a queen or king there without your opponent buying a pawn and capturing it straight away... 

It seems that the option as it is now is quite useless.

Another option "Production - productionsquare dependent" also seems useless to me. This was an idea of the programmer and it has potential, but it is not fully programmed. (I wouldnt know how black would win a game without being able to produce... and how will he ever get the productionsquare?)

The game doesn't work on my 1024x600 px screen. Could you make the program compatible for smaller screen?

I'm afraid not at this time.

On the list for future version:
- make the game compatible for more platforms and screensizes 

First blood! I have been butchered by Boletus_CZ.. twice!

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. d4 Nxd4 5. Nxd4 xd4 6. Qxd4 c5 7. Qd3 d6 8. e4 Qa5 9. Be2 Ng4 10. Kg1 Be7 11. Nd5 Ne5 12. Qg3 g6 13. Nxe7 Kxe7 14. f4 Nxc4 15. Bxc4 Be6 16. Bxe6 xe6 17. Qg5+ Kd7 18. f5 $f7 19. $Ng8 $c7 20. xe6+ xe6 21. Bd2 h6 22. Rf7+ Ke8 23. Qxg6 Ne7 24. Rxe7+ Kxe7 25. Qg7+ Ke8 26. Bxa5 Rf8 27. $Qd1 $f2 28. Rf7 Qh5 29. $e7 $Ng8 30. Qxg8+ Kd7 31. Qxa8 b6 32. Qxf7 xa5 33. END Qe8+

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e3 g6 4. f3 Bg7 5. e4 xe4 6. xe4 Bg4 7. Nf3 Kg8 8. h3 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 Qxd4 10. Bd3 Nc6 11. Bf4 Nh5 12. Bxc7 Qc5 13. g4 Bxc3+ 14. Ke2 Nd4+ 15. Kf2 Nxf3+ 16. Kxf3 Qxc7 17. xc3 Qf4+ 18. Ke2 Ng3+ 19. Ke1 Qe3+ 20. Kd1 Nxh1 21. $Bf1 $Nb1 22. END Nf2+