I have a variant that you might find interesting
@boorchess , I made it around 2007.
The game starts with a blank board, white always going first. You alternate placing pieces with your opponent wherever you want on the board with the following basic rules: You will always place your kings first, and the king is the only piece limited to his own back rank. The 9 squares closest to the king are safe squares which your opponent cannot place a piece. If you are on A1, your safe squares would be A1,B1,C1,A2,B2,C2,A3,B3,C3 if your king is on d1 it would be C1,D1,E1, C2,D2,E2,C3,D3,E3 et. After the kings are placed you place a pawn, and the furthest you may place a pawn is on the 5th rank for white, fourth for black. Also another thing about pawn placement, you are limited to placing 1 pawn per file unless you do not have a legal pawn move in a file, in which case that pawn may be put into a file already containing a pawn. All gameplay goes Piece Placement, Pawn Placement, Piece Placement, Pawn Placement etc... When all pieces are on the board, a regular game of chess commences, there is no castling, en passant exists. You may not place an opponent into check while dropping a piece. You may only have 1 bishop of each color.
I have played many games of this variant I created and find it quite balanced. I would be down to play you some games in study if you want.