This is the two hundred twenty-second entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred twenty-second random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has put our king into check, and then pushed a bunch of its chips into the pot. It’s Shift, by Jack Schlesinger, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

The game of constantly changing strategy where you have to check to bet!

Check yourself before you bet yourself.

Shift is a print-and-play game, originally designed in response to a game design challenge to combine chess and poker. As such, it’s a board game for two players, with custom components to be printed at home, ideally on card stock. As usual for tabletop games that pop up in this series, I lack the time and inclination to recruit another player to actually try it out, so I’m simply giving my impressions after reading the rules.

The basic idea of the game is that players have a chess-like board with pieces on it, including their king, but they also have hands of cards which are played to determine how pieces move. Players move pieces and play cards, with the ultimate goal of getting a checkmate. But each time a player puts their opponent’s king in check, they can bet with their poker chips. The opponent responds by calling, raising or folding. Players repeat games until one of them has claimed all the chips.

So far, that sounds a lot like chess and poker. Pieces are captured in the same way as in chess, the betting process is just like poker, and players will be trying to suss out which cards the other one might be holding as they gauge what to bet. But the rest of Shift is quite different. Both of the board sizes included in the game are smaller than chess boards, and there are only three types of pieces, in addition to the kings. Each of these, however, can be made to move in a variety of ways based on the cards one plays, and the moves are not limited to chess moves. Sure, some cards make a piece move like the king, or like a knight from chess. But others might allow one to move in vertical lines or one specific diagonal line, or two spaces in any direction, or jump to a set of spaces on a different line on the board. It’s quite a lot to take in, honestly, since pieces could go from weak to extremely poowerful and back in the blink of an eye. Every single turn, the board state can change dramatically.

This is made somewhat more manageable by the fact that, every turn, players must make a move first, and then play a card (except for the first turn, when they play a card only, and don’t move). So there are no “surprise, this piece is a queen now, and it takes your piece!” moments. Therefore, each player can read the board and make an appropriate move on their turn, knowing that the opponent can only respond with the movement patterns currently showing in their play area. Only after taking a move can they alter their pieces’ movement, although the the card they play at the end of their turn can put their opponent in check.

Lest players worry that there will be too many shenanigans like that, however, know that each player only has three of these movement pattern cards in hand at the start of a round, and they must play until they run out of cards. Only then are three more cards dealt to each player, and another round of betting occurs. Also, players’ kings always move like kings in chess, it’s only the other pieces that can change their behavior. This makes it simpler to deal with getting into and out of check.

I admit it’s a bit hard to wrap my head around this one without playing it, but it sounds pretty cool. I like that the default boards are small: either a 5×5 board in which each player gets a king and two each of the three other piece types, or a 7×7 grid where each player has three each of the three piece types. This keeps the board layouts simpler than a full chess game such that the additional complexity of changing movement patterns for different pieces can be accommodated. It also encourages getting each other into check much faster than would happen in a traditional chess game. It seems akin to jumping to a later stage of a chess game, when many pieces have been captured already and a final showdown plays out with those that remain.

It’s less clear to me how well the betting will work. I imagine many rounds would end with folding rather than a checkmate, as one player senses they are losing and that it’s not worth bleeding chips to continue the struggle. But maybe that’s fine! The game ends when the pot is taken, not a checkmate, after all. But how many rounds will see both players making big bets? Will there be times when both players think they can get that checkmate? Or will each round quickly favor one player and lead to the other folding after the ante? I can’t comment on this without trying Shift myself, but I admit I’m intrigued to see how it would play out. And, indeed, to see just how much skill players could acquire once they familiarize themselves with the deck of movement patterns. Maybe there are some master plays waiting to happen.

If any of that sounds interesting to you, consider picking up Shift, printing it out, and giving it a try. If you missed it in the bundle, it’s sold for a minimum price of $1, so it’s no great investment to check (heh) it out.

That’s 222 down, and only 1519 to go!