Oh, how Trevor and I wanted to like Puzzle Board Chess as we opened the box one Friday over coffee.
The premise is genuinely fascinating and refreshingly straightforward. We were up and running quickly. As the name implies, this is a chess game—more accurately, a chess variant—but the twist lies in the board itself.
Instead of a traditional 8×8 grid, players take turns laying down four-square board tiles—eight each—starting from a single anchor tile. By the end, the board is anything but standard. The resulting layouts are often irregular, frequently featuring gaps that dramatically affect gameplay.
These gaps create immediate movement issues. Orthogonal movers—especially rooks—are stopped cold by them. Diagonal movers (bishops, queens, and kings) can maneuver around the gaps, while knights, thanks to their leap ability, handle them with ease. Pawns, however, are rendered essentially useless, and while they’re included in the box, they aren’t used in actual play.
Once the board is complete, players place their pieces on the tiles they’ve contributed (marked with a pawn). Unfortunately, this is where the game stumbles—more specifically, where the gameplay resulting from piece placement falters.
Placement is meant to be completed within 60 seconds, using the included egg timer. That might sound restrictive, but with only eight pieces to place, it’s not demanding at all. In practice, it creates a bigger issue: you can see exactly where your opponent is placing pieces. Spot a rook going down? It’s trivial to place a bishop so it’s immediately under threat.
As a result, the opening moves devolve into instant captures or shuffling high-value pieces out of danger—knowing full well something else will be lost instead. Even with careful setup, multiple pieces often begin the game under immediate threat.
That’s the core problem with Puzzle Board Chess: there’s no satisfaction in immediate captures that arise purely from placement rather than strategy or skill. We even tried a draft-style placement system—announcing a piece type like “rook” and each placing one—but it did little to solve the issue.
It’s a shame, because the board construction phase is excellent. With a better piece-placement mechanic—one that restores the importance of thoughtful moves—this could easily rank among the best chess variants available.
As it stands, Puzzle Board Chess feels less like a great game and more like one full of unfulfilled promise.
You can find it at www.metadreamsllc.com.
About Author
Calvin Daniels is a Saskatchewan-born, self-taught journalist. He is currently Editor of Yorkton This Week, with 35-years in the newspaper business.
Wish We Liked It More
The premise is genuinely fascinating and refreshingly straightforward. We were up and running quickly. As the name implies, this is a chess game—more accurately, a chess variant—but the twist lies in the board itself.
Instead of a traditional 8×8 grid, players take turns laying down four-square board tiles—eight each—starting from a single anchor tile. By the end, the board is anything but standard. The resulting layouts are often irregular, frequently featuring gaps that dramatically affect gameplay.
These gaps create immediate movement issues. Orthogonal movers—especially rooks—are stopped cold by them. Diagonal movers (bishops, queens, and kings) can maneuver around the gaps, while knights, thanks to their leap ability, handle them with ease. Pawns, however, are rendered essentially useless, and while they’re included in the box, they aren’t used in actual play.
Once the board is complete, players place their pieces on the tiles they’ve contributed (marked with a pawn). Unfortunately, this is where the game stumbles—more specifically, where the gameplay resulting from piece placement falters.
Placement is meant to be completed within 60 seconds, using the included egg timer. That might sound restrictive, but with only eight pieces to place, it’s not demanding at all. In practice, it creates a bigger issue: you can see exactly where your opponent is placing pieces. Spot a rook going down? It’s trivial to place a bishop so it’s immediately under threat.
As a result, the opening moves devolve into instant captures or shuffling high-value pieces out of danger—knowing full well something else will be lost instead. Even with careful setup, multiple pieces often begin the game under immediate threat.
That’s the core problem with Puzzle Board Chess: there’s no satisfaction in immediate captures that arise purely from placement rather than strategy or skill. We even tried a draft-style placement system—announcing a piece type like “rook” and each placing one—but it did little to solve the issue.
It’s a shame, because the board construction phase is excellent. With a better piece-placement mechanic—one that restores the importance of thoughtful moves—this could easily rank among the best chess variants available.
As it stands, Puzzle Board Chess feels less like a great game and more like one full of unfulfilled promise.
You can find it at www.metadreamsllc.com.
About Author
Calvin Daniels
Calvin Daniels is a Saskatchewan-born, self-taught journalist. He is currently Editor of Yorkton This Week, with 35-years in the newspaper business.
See author's posts