Planeetroof: making the 'new' chess

Chess is arguably the most culturally rich and famous game in the world. It’s also probably one of the games with the highest skill ceilings. This made me think: would it be possible to create a simpler version of chess?

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Throughout its history, chess has gone through major variations—like versions where pieces were placed on the intersections of squares instead of inside them, or where movement rules differed significantly from what we know today. That opened the door to experimentation.

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I started exploring different board sizes and rethinking how pieces could move—stripping things back while trying to keep the core strategic tension intact. The goal wasn’t to replace chess, but to see how minimal it could become without losing what makes it interesting.

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