andreas: Even better would be to have Bughouse, which is very popular and fun chess variant.

Energizer: Shatranj is rather slow game. I would prefer Double Move Chess or Progressive Chess.

Lawless: 40 half-moves (i.e 20 full moves) limit is too low. As a consequence, many position, which are still full of life will be declared a draw, e.g. in this game: Dark Chess (andreas vs. Lawless) there were no captures for 28 full moves.

As alternative proposal I would suggest to keep 50-moves rule from the chess, i.e. if no capture or pawn move is made in 50 moves, a player get an option to declare the game a draw. Since players can't know when this occur, the situation should be detected by BrainKing automatically. But instead of automatically ending the game, a new button should appear on the game page: "Declare draw by 50-moves rules". The players then have an option to continue the game or finish it with a draw.

Walter Montego: This game is also called "Beirut Chess", it was inveneted by Jim Winslow in 1991. I never played it, but looks like a fun!

mezzanine: Certainly, piece values in Ice Age Chess are completely different from that in chess. Pawns and knights are considerably more valuable. Rooks and bishops are about the same value.

I think piece values are something like:
* bishop: 2 pawns
* rook: 2 pawns
* knight: 4 pawns
* queen: 5 pawns

Pafl: The game with 54 moves (finished in pawn endgame): Dice Chess (AbigailII vs. andreas)

Is it legal in Atomic chess for king to move close to opponents king? For example, white has a king on e1 and black on d3. Can black king move to d2?

From simply reading the rules it seems to be Ok, white can't capture black's king with Ke1xd2 because his king would be destroyd in explosion as well.

HalfPawn: It is called "Loop Chess" here.

Doerdich: You get up-to-date information in both cases: after your move and after the move of your opponent. After you make a move it is best to chose "Move and stay here" option to see what is changed.

Doerdich: I think 1. Nc3 is a weak move and loses significant advantage White have in this chess variant after 1. e4.

nabla: To avoid forced win for white, "a pie rule" can be employed (like in Hex). After the first player (with white) makes a first move, the second player (with black) has an option to rotate the board, so that opponents change piece colors. Now the game continues as usual, first player has black pieces now and he is to move.

The second player has an option to rotate the board only once, after the first move of the first player.

There is a binary openning book for Sjeng engine (about 300Kb). I think it is compiled from a collection of Crazyhouse games played at FICS.

The problem with combinations is that there could be too few people who will play them. For Atomic Dark Chess only people who likes both of them will likely to play it.

Is stalemate possible in Dark Chess? For example, assume White has a King on h1, Queen on g6, Black King on h8. Black to move. In chess it would be a draw because of stalemate. However in Dark Chess it is legal to move a King into check so it is look like Black have to make a move and will lose. Does anybody knows how this situation is really handled on this site?