Animal Chess also known as Dou Shou Qi or, Jungle Chess is a two-player board game popular in East Asian countries. The game is played on a 9x7 board consisting dens, traps and rivers. Each player starts with 8 game pieces of their own color representing different animals of various ranks (or strengths) which are placed on one end of the board at the beginning. One player plays with RED colored pieces and the other player plays with BLUE colored pieces. RED starts first. Players alternate turn to play. Each player has a den on their side of the board which is surrounded by 3 traps. Additionally, two rivers are located in the center of the board comprising 6 squares in a 2×3 rectangle. Remaining area is divided into land squares. Players aim to race any of their pieces to the opponent's den to win. Players can also win by capturing all of the opponent pieces.
Ranking of animals from strongest to weakest: Elephant, Lion, Tiger, Panther, Dog, Wolf, Cat, Rat
A player cam move any of his/her pieces one square horizontally or vertically on his/her turn. The rules of the game are as following
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- A piece can not move to its own den. It is allowed to be moved to any trap square.
- Only a rat can move to the river square.
- A piece can not move to a sqaure occupied by another piece of the same player.
- A piece can capture opponent piece (or kill opponent animals) if it lands on a sqaure occupied by oppoent animal piece which is equal or less in strength. One exception to this rule is that the rat can kill the elephant but the elephant can not kill the rat. Since the rat can also enter the river, it is not allowed to kill the elephant from the river. It can only kill the elephant from a land square and not from the river square. A rat in the river can kill another rat in the river.
- Capturing opponent piece is not mandatory.
- Lion and Tiger can jump horizontally or vetically over a river from one edge to another. Jumping is not allowed if a rat of either color has occupied any of the intervening water squares. Opponent piece can be captured during a jump if destination square is occupied by opponent animal of equal or less strength.
- An animal piece entering opponent's trap has its strength reduced to 0 which means any of the opponent animal can capture (or kill) it regardless of its strength. Animal can enter its own trap without any change to its strength. Animal strength is restored on leaving opponent trap.
- An animal piece of a player in its own trap can not be captured by opponent pieces of any strength since opponent pieces have 0 strength in player's trap.
- In order to handle a stalemate, repeating same board state more than twice will result in a draw in this version.