I have many chess-related ideas but the most viable is SACRIFICE CHESS.
SACRIFICE CHESS is just like normal chess but you can also take your own
pawns (e.g. white player can use a piece or a pawn to take one of his own
-- white -- pawns, just as if it were a black pawn).
This has been called "friendly-fire Chess" and "self-eliminator". It gets rid of a few interesting checkmates.
Sorry I misread your post. Friendly fire Chess is when you are allowed to take your own pieces. You said it was just pawns you are allowed to take. It would still prevent back rank mates though
Thank you, ssb22, I did not know about Friendly-Fire Chess. I did consider that alternative ("take any piece") but given that a piece can freely move in any direction -- as opposed to a pawn --, I felt that it complicated things while offering little in return.
I haven't done any simulations, as learning how to update the rules in Scid vs PC (or rather the Stockfish engine employed by it?) seems a bit much to learn for me right now, but if endgames become a hassle, it's possible to eliminate said rule for the King. After all, who is the highest... serves all.
I invented the 10x8 variant known as Gothic Chess. It’s now available on chess dot com and I’d like to make it available here also. Does anyone know who might be the person I need to contact?
@GothicChessInventor Unfortunately there is no authority figure here on lichess who is very open to adding new variants. You could try reaching out thibault or bufferunderrun or programfox , but most likely you won't get much response.
I seem to recall there is little interest in adding new variants, specially not variants with different boards or different pieces. All the variants of Capablanca Chess (including Gothic Chess) are played on a 10x8 board, with different pieces.
I'd say the chances of getting Gothic Chess included are pretty slim. (But hey, Lichess is open source, so you could always clone the site and add it in your clone....)