Chessers is a combination of chess and checkers. Like checkers, both sides begin play with 12 pieces situated on the 12 dark squares closest to them; only the dark squares are used for play; and black moves first. Like chess the pieces capture by occupying the enemy's square rather than by jumping and the game is won by checkmating the opposing King.
 
Other than being confined to the dark squares all pieces (not pawns) move the same as in chess: Bishops move any number of squares diagonally; Rooks move any number of squares vertically or horizontally to another dark square; the Queen combines the abilities of the Rook and Bishop; the King can move to any adjacent dark square or castle with the Rook.
As in checkers the Pawns move only diagonally forward and promote on the back rank but, as in chess, they may promote to any piece other than a King. When castling the King moves one dark square towards the Rook and the Rook leaps to the square the King left.
 
Since Rooks have no method of moving diagonally they are confined to only half of the dark squares. To make this easier to visualize Chessers uses a special double-checker board which makes half of the dark squares blue and the other half green. If this is found to be annoying, distracting or otherwise unhelpful it may be removed in the future.
 
Chessers includes a second piece set which uses checkers pieces for the King and Pawns which may be preferable for 'Pawns Only' and 'Pure' variants.
 
This game is young and may see minor changes in the future.
 
Game and rules file are Copyright 2002 Harvey Patterson. Official web page is http://members.rogers.com/chessopolis/chessers.html