Crown Chess

Review by John Humphries in Games and Puzzles #30:

Crown Chess is an unfortunate choice of name for this interesting and original game, as it bears no resemblance to chess. Perhaps Crown Prince may be a more apt name.

The game is played on a large, circular, wooden board on which are printed five concentric rings which are radially divided into eight sections, giving forty spaces or panels in total. The outermost ring or band is gold in colour, the remainder being black or white, in a pattern such that each adjacent pair of sections are of a similar colour and each panel is surrounded on three sides by panels of like colour.

Four sets of playing pieces are supplied. Each set consists of a Prince, two Barons (elephants) and two Viscounts (horses). The pieces are well moulded from resin, each set being in a distinguishing pastel colour. In addition there is a Crown, resembling an up-turned vase. The rules are simple and easy to follow.

The Crown is worn by one of the Princes, who is thus elevated to King. The object of the game is to promote your Prince and then manouevre him to the gold (outer) band. All pieces may be moved in or out one panel, the Prince can be moved an unlimited number of panels in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction, the Baron only clockwise and the Viscount only anti-clockwise. No diagonal moves are permitted and the only piece allowed to move onto a panel already occupied is the King, and this only to capture. The King is the only piece able to capture other pieces. The Crown is gained by moving a piece onto a panel of the same colour and adjacent to the King, who is then demoted and the new Prince is crowned.

Although not a difficult game to play, Crown Chess does require thought and planning. However, it is rather difficult to formulate strategy because the situation changes so rapidly with four players. The Hints on Play provided advice that the main objective should not be to take the Crown, which should only be done to prevent another player from winning, to prevent possible capture of your pieces or to win the game. As pieces cannot jump over one another, there is a certain amount of aimless movement. and blocks can occur. Princes may not be captured, thus there is no way of forcing them to move. One of the best winning strategies seems to be to move one's Prince onto a panel adjacent to a Gold, keep it protected and wait for other players to blunder, then take the Crown at the opportune moment and make the winning move.

The game does have many unique concepts and apart from the box is extremely well presented. It is also most decorative though probably beyond the means of most games players (this game cost 18 pounds at the time of release).