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Diagonals (Diago)

a chess variation where the pieces stay diagonally

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This is a variation of chess in which, in addition to the arrangement of the pieces, the rules governing pawn movement are altered, and new rules are introduced:Called Diagonals, Diago, or DiagoChess. Standard 8x8 board. White sets up in the bottom-right corner (King on h1) and moves first; Black sets up in the top-left corner (King on a8).Movement: Kings, Queens, Rooks, Bishops, and Knights move normally. Pawns move 1 square in any direction to empty squares, but capture strictly diagonally.Special Rules: No check, checkmate, castling, pawn promotion, or en passant.Win Conditions: First player to capture the enemy King wins immediately.Attacked King Mechanics:Streak Reset: The attacked turn counter resets to zero as soon as your turn starts with your King safe.You can play this version on the website; I've added full-fledged multiplayer with the ability to create public and private rooms. The multiplayer is powered by NOSTR (nostr relays).The website features a game against a bot at various difficulty levels, single-screen gameplay, online matches against other players, a time limit like in chess, and even a profile (either as a guest by entering just a nickname, or via Nostr).

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HN · launched Oct 27, 2026 · 5 upvotes (top 90%)

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Could you build this?

Yes This is a rules variant of chess played on a standard board, and a browser implementation with custom move generation and a simple AI or multiplayer is well within vibe-coding reach.

Discussion

2 comments analyzed.

Concerns raised: timer only runs on the player's clock, false 'White cannot defend the king' win message, unclear whether computer resigned at endgame

Feature requests: add 1 second delay before computer moves, fix bot clock so it counts down

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 213 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #213 of 214 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 361 days after the earliest competitor.

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