360 Chess on a Cube

Hello, I am new to this forum and would like to intoruce myself as well as a chess concept we are developing. I am Pawel Bodytko, a game developer, creator of Spheroku - a unique version of Sudoku wrapped on a 3d sphere where players can use colors in addition to numbers. www.spheroku.com

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The concept I would like to introduce started as my "Kickstarter experiment" in November. It consists of a cube with 4x4 chessboard grid on each side. Since then the basic concept was developed by Jocly.com into a networked online, or off-line turn based game that is avalable right now.

We are searching for expereinced chess players who are not allergic to experimenting & will want to help us to make educated rule modifications required by the new geometry. The rule changes will be required by the geometry of the game, to assure the movement of pawns. 

The initial setting of figures and pawns is on the opposite side of the cube. The oppositng grups are positioned diagonally from each other, with the sides protected by uncrossable barriers. The pawns need to be able to move either sideway or diaginally to certain extend. The restrictions on this movement will need to be detremined experimentally.

We are inviting everyone to try the game and join our grand experiment. Here are the links:

360-chess on the cube game: 

http://www.jocly.com/?obsolescence=0&self=1#/game-dev/cubic-chess

Google group: 

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/360-chess-on-a-cube

Wiki page: 

http://wiki.jocly.com/index.php/360_Chess_Authoring

Youtube video (old):

http://youtu.be/zAM_y1lE_yY

Wow! 5 days on the forum full of chess players and zero interest... I am somewhat amazed.

Is this really as bad of an idea as no reaction from chess community suggests, nobody has seen this post, or is this something else?

Of all people Chess players are usually least interested in Chess variants other than the one they are used to.

The 3D rendering of your game is of course brilliant. But apart from the nice graphics, the game seems to offer very little novelty. The same boring pieces as in good old Mad Queen. And because of the impenetrable barriers the corners are not really corners, and cube can be folded into a flat 16x8 cylinder board with four 4x2 regions on the back-ranks made inaccessible, with as only extra that one half of the back-rank connects to the other.

I think people generally take their time getting used to new things. We tend to settle on particular solutions. I am sure that a game like chess is especially entrenched, because of the history and the traditions. ...but!

..."there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in" sings Leonard Cohen. Smetimes one new ingredient makes a huge difference.

I do not expect that this variant would replace chess by any streach of immagination, but it is still interesting to me, how would really good players do on this different "battlefield". -- In 3d you have to keep the whole set in your minds, rather than having everything laid out in front at all time. This is the novelty of this approach (agree the cylinder does the same thing). The other new thing is that the game becomes "active" rather than "static" -- this actually adds a whole new feel to the experience... (Just like Spheroku adds a new feel to Sudoku www.spheroku.com)

In spite of the conservative nature of chess community, I am hoping to find a few brave souls that will take this experiment for a spin and see what happens.

I personally am a pretty lousy player. I have little free time and am less social then most people. I would probably be dead in 2 minutes against someone good, but would love to see how the concept survives in some good hands (and brains).

Here is the modification of pawn movement that makes sense to me:

Of course the cube can be unwrapped and the 2d board I'd like Jocly to implement when the game is finished would look like this:

I came across this discussion while searching for 'cubic 3D chess'. This is as close to what I had in mind, but not quite. I'm looking for a 3D spatial grid in which the game is played on all three axis' on a virtually rendered cubic grid in which the pieces can be moved in all three planes including angular moves. Such a game would  require a different level of 3D perceptual motor skills and visualization. This idea came to me while I was contemplating a concept of  spherical microprocessor that would utilize a trinary code (+1, 0, -1) to execute omnidirectional processes. Kinda like 'Breaking the Thought Barrier' and mimicking the operation of the human brain.