4D Chess

Chess on a 4×4×4×4 board: four 3D boards, one for each step along w, each made of four 4×4 levels, on stands styled after the tri-dimensional chess of Star Trek. Every piece moves as it does in chess, with more directions to move in.

Game White to move

Opponent

View keys 1 · 2 · 3

Stand

Tri-d sets each level back from the one below, like Star Trek’s tri-dimensional chess, so you can see into the lower levels. Plain stacks them straight up, further apart. Either way the spacing is only for display: the grid is regular.

Your slice keys Q · E

Ana axis

Layer

Pieces

KKing: one step in any direction, 80 of them in 4D.
QQueen: any distance along any straight line, along one axis or diagonally across two, three or all four.
RRook: along one axis. In 4D that makes it the weakest officer: it always reaches exactly 12 cells.
BBishop: diagonally across two axes, so it keeps to its color.
UUnicorn, from 3D chess: diagonally across three axes, corner to corner through a cube.
NKnight: two cells along one axis and one along another, jumping.
PPawn: one step forward, along z or along w. It captures one step forward plus one sideways, along x or y, and becomes a queen on the far corner, where z and w both reach the other side.

Forward is both z and w: white starts at z = w = 1 and black at z = w = 4, so the armies face each other diagonally. Only the queen and king use the four-axis diagonals. No castling, double steps or en passant. Checkmate wins; stalemate, bare kings, or 50 moves each without a capture or pawn move is a draw. Cells are named like b2 y1 w3: file b, rank 2, level 1, layer 3.

Moves

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