I guess there are a couple of things that could make a chess variant a good one:
- Variety of pieces
- Balance between strong pieces, weak pieces and board size
- New tactical patterns
- Balance between tactics and strategy
- Bringing new elements compared to existing variants
- Not repeating too many elements from existing variants (*)
- Starting position giving a high chance of exciting games
- Average game length is reasonable
- Association with real-life or historical themes are nice
Also, while bringing up a chess variant, one could already provide a couple of tactical puzzles, or annotated games, or analyzed end-games.
Last but not least, providing pieces in physical reality would be very helpful so it can be played OTB. Personally, I prefer wood over plastic.
(*) I must say, I cannot take a variant seriously if it brings for example the knight-bishop compound under the 100th name.
Hi all,
to make chess variants in general more popular 2 things must be done: Try to give a relative value of all the pieces (including the classic pieces especially if we change the size of the board) and also give some tactical tips concerning the new pieces (forks, mates etc.)