Laser Chess — Draft Rules
Only Kings and Pawns are used, set up exactly as in normal chess (full pawn rows, King alone on the back row). Every piece — King included — moves one square in any direction, like a chess King.
Capturing
Moving onto an enemy square captures it, except: your King can only capture the enemy King this way, and a piece that is currently part of one of your active lasers is "locked" into construction duty and cannot capture (it can still move to an empty square).
Building a Laser
Line up two or more of your own pieces down a single file, rooted by a piece on your own back row. A single empty (or enemy-occupied) square gap is allowed between pieces; two gaps in a row breaks it. Power = pieces in the line − 1, which is also its range in squares.
Firing
A laser fires from its frontmost piece (the tip). By default it can only fire straight along its own file, forward or backward. If the King is anywhere in the line, it can also fire diagonally. Firing is a full turn, destroys one enemy piece within range, and puts that laser on cooldown for your next turn.
Disabling a Laser
If an enemy piece sits anywhere inside your laser's line, the laser is jammed and cannot fire until that piece leaves.
Winning
Capture the enemy King — either by moving your King onto it, or by destroying it with a laser.
This is a draft interpretation of a game explained verbally, and a few points weren't fully settled during playtesting: whether "diagonal unlock" comes from the King specifically (this build assumes King, since the recording named the King everywhere except one moment), whether a laser shot can pick any piece in range or only the nearest one (this build allows choosing any piece in range along the line), and whether the board should be larger. Treat this as version 0.1 — happy to adjust the rules engine as you and Raef playtest it.
Got it