Objective: Place pieces down on the board by playing cards, moving those pieces on the dance-floor, dancing-off, and checkmate the other king!
Premise: It's the 1980s. Times have changed, and now armies have swapped the battlefield for the disco floor to resolve their differences. Two kings have brought their dance crews, but they need to earn their team's spot on the floor, dance-off the competition, and kick those squares out of the venue!
Setting Up
Each player places their king in the starting point (directly across from each other) as in regular chess. The deck is shuffled and each player draws three cards.
Turn Flow
Draw one card (Note: The player who goes first does not draw on their first turn).
Either: Play cards to place a piece OR Move a piece (same movement rules as standard chess).
Playing Cards
There are two types of cards in Check It!: Piece and Position.
Piece Cards: Determine what type of piece will be played. Each card has a Value (of the card) and a Cost (of the piece). To play a piece, total card value must equal or exceed the cost of the piece. Excess value is discarded; only 1 piece can be placed per turn. Pieces played must have an equal or greater cost to the most valuable card played.
Exception: Cannot play a Bishop using exclusively Knight card(s), or vice versa.
Position Cards: Determine where pieces are placed relative to your King. There are two types: Horizontal/Vertical and Diagonal. Each card allows for one space away from the King in that direction. Multiple cards can be combined for extra distance.
Dance-Off
If a piece is played so that its position hits an opponent's piece, the opponent's piece is taken ("danced-off") and the played piece takes its place. Kings cannot be danced off, and a dance-off cannot occur on the first or last rows of the board.
Miscellaneous Rules
If a player runs out of a piece type in their physical pool, another piece can represent it.
When a pawn reaches the opposite end of the board, it may promote into any piece available in that player's pool.
Once all cards have been drawn, there is no reshuffling and no more cards are drawn.
Players must disclose their hand count if asked by an opponent.