Beginner's Guide to Variant Creation Methods

Hello variant making community! This guide is intended to be a jumping off point for your own creative process when you create your own variants. These are by no means the only methods, and to really excel, you have to morph a method into something that works for you! (This is also kind of an opportunity to put what I've learned over the past 6 months in this community into words).

Possible Process 1: The Theme

Works best with a singular focused theme, especially in WoF, but for NCV's consider combining several.

1. This variant is centered around exploring a specific theme. This might come in several forms, and could be a synthesis of many:
   1. An underused gamerule
   2. An interesting combination of gamerules
   3. A unique board shape
   4. A unique royal
   5. An unusual synthesis of pieces
   6. An imbalance (material, spacial, move restriction)
   7. A bug or PGN hack
2. Check to make sure that the main idea is not fatally flawed or sufficiently explored. Check using a few different methods:
   
   1. Reference the NCV Spreadsheet
   2. Tell an experienced creator your idea to see if it is plausible
   3. Avoid forbidden gamerule combos (can be ignored with sufficient experience)
   4. Look at Declined and Accepted variants on VW that are similar to your idea
3. Create the first iteration of your position. Your main goal should be to highlight your idea in the player’s process of winning. Do not let it be overshadowed by alternate win conditions. Keep these in mind while creating this first iteration:
   
   1. How does each individual piece add to the game?
   2. Is the entire board being used?
   3. Are the gamerules significant to the game?
   4. Is the audience of the variant more or less experienced?
4. Get a feel for your game. This could be achieved by asking for advice in position workshops, analysis of the position, but above all else, play the game with others (at this stage anyone is okay).Address imbalances in the position once you know it well, how should they affect your theme, and does it make it enjoyable? Make edits to your position as necessary.
   
   1. Long range pieces vs short range pieces
   2. Pawn structures
   3. The speed of the game’s progression (development)
   4. Positional vs tactical tendencies
   5. Open vs closed positions (fortresses and shuffling should be addressed)
   6. Defensive vs attacking ideas
   7. Weak vs strong royal

From here you will be playing games targeted to a specific audience to make observations and collect feedback from different types of players of your future variant. Spec chat and diplomacy recommended for insight to others' ideas (remove these gamerules later for submission).

1. Experts (admins, variant reviewers, experienced creators, 1+ accepted variants)
   
   1. Play at least 3 games with this type
   2. Get good feedback from these people
   3. Analyse positional and midgame strategies
   4. Analyse how the pieces work together/synthesize
   5. Analyse tells of the opening, middlegame, and endgame
2. Intermediates (Active community members, maybe 2-3 variant submissions, puzzle makers, high rated variant players)
   
   1. Play at least 7 games with this type
   2. Analyse how intuitive endgames are
   3. Analyse common mates
   4. Analyse common tactics
   5. Analyse if one way to win is unusually common or overpowered
   6. Is the game a tradefest (do pieces only exist to get traded off, leaving little creation of attacks)?
3. Beginners (Just put your variant on the lobby to play with random people)
   
   1. Play at least 5 games with this type
   2. Analyse opening traps
   3. Analyse how your opponent responds to the game, are they confused after an explanation of how
   4. to play?

Submit!

Possible Process 2: The Tangent

This method works equally well for both WoF's and NCV's, although it is significantly more popular for NCV's. It is significantly less rigorous than "The Theme", but it is also riskier.

1. Find a variant that you have interest in (Accepted, Declined, UR, doesn’t matter).
   
   1. Analyse what makes the variant unique, fun, and balanced.
   2. Think about what improvements, piece additions, new gamerules, or other changes you want to make to the reference to add your own touch to it.
2. Create the position, ideally from scratch so you don’t err to close the other idea
3. Test with 3 types of people (not as rigorous):
   
   1. The high rated players of the related variant (skip if based off of declined, UR, or WoF variants)
   2. The expert variant creators (reference "1. Experts" of “The Theme”)
   3. The beginners (reference "3. Beginners" of “The Theme”)
4. Once you collect feedback and observations from these people, refine your idea, make edits as necessary, but avoid becoming more related to the reference.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 once or twice more

Submit!

Pros and Cons of Each Process:

The Theme Pros:

• Tends to create unique ideas
• Thorough analysis of your position
• Meet lots of community members that can back your creation
• One round of dedicated testing

The Theme Cons:

• Very slow process, months; have to not burn out or give up
• Can be hard to find some testers
• Theme can be restrictive

The Tangent Pros:

• Often based off of solid and reputable variants
• Quicker process to submit
• Testers much easier to find

The Tangent Cons:

• Easily declinable if too similar
• Your idea can be lost in the restrictions of the original position
• Requires a certain degree of knowledge of theory and strategy of the original variant
• Only so many variants to base off of

While I might be done sharing my part (unless I decide to update this and add more), feel free to share any advice on the creative process down below. This is by no means the only way, in fact these methods are meant only to inspire your own process. Doing variant creation consistently is the best way to improve, don't be afraid to try. Good luck on your variant creation journey!

(Credit to the great chess writer Jeremy Silman for the imbalances idea!)

lol posting one in cvc as well is funny

NICE

Nice guide!

Guys Pros and Cons (Italian Mesh Edition) is now back!

By this logic I'm an expert!

And IMV is too...

And I’m barley an Intermediate…

kinda fixed maybe?

Me who mostly follows The Theme but only takes ~1 week to make a variant:

yeah this is better

I'm still an expert though!

i mean roadblock was pretty good ngl and recruiters had a cool idea