Fool's Chess

Overview

In Fool’s Chess, you and your opponent take turns moving standard playing cards on a 7x7 board as if they were Chess pieces. Instead of trying to checkmate an opponent’s king, however, you must try to checkmate your opponent’s Joker. Because who else would play chess with a deck of cards but a fool? All you need is a standard deck of 52 playing cards, two Jokers included, and a 7x7 board to put them on.

About Fool's Chess

I started designing Fool's Chess, or "Card Chess" as I originally called it, back in year 12 with 2 decks of cards and an 8x8 board made from 6 taped-together A3-ish pages out of a notebook we had to get for Art and Graphics classes. I showed it to some of my classmates and friends, who have my thanks for helping to playtest it and contributing suggestions for the core rules and house rules. From there, I tinkered with it occasionally during university, and after I finished university. Based on feedback from a friend, I made some adjustments to better balance parts of the game, and then ended up making other significant changes  to simplify the game and make the board more manageable.