Brainstorming is one of my ever favorite topics. It all started from the chapter "The Science of Deduction" by Arthur Conan Doyle where Sherlock Holmes seamlessly brainstorms by himself, and went all the way till reading in "Space Barons" about
Bezos's extreme brainstorming for building rockets that included even a bull whip as long as a train before settling on chemical rockets.
My list of brainstormed ideas could use a different day for posting, but I do think brainstorming could be made more structured than how it is perceived now.
While brainstorming could be seen as something that can be very ad-hoc, I use the "What's your Chess" approach to make it have a tangible ice-breaker point
In this, we come up with out own variants of chess, from minor to major, cosmetic to dramatic. The idea is to brainstorm.
| DoubleMoveChess in which the players do two moves consecutively, so the toss is crucial. |
| And then a generalization of "DoubleMoveChess" for "n move chess" |
| Tetris chess: A chess software where pawns fall from top into chess board (vertical on the screen). Players move them left and right to place them on the board. Therey creating a random board. |
| WhiteRed, whiteYellow, blackRed, blackYellow - coalition chess. Why are both knights, bishops, rooks equally powerful? What if they differ in their capabilities? |
| Entangled chess: Where the two knights, the two bishops, and two rooks are entangled. Sorry, this is called Quantum Chess. With entangled particles. When one moves in a way, the other moves in the opposite direction if still bounded within the board |
| Quantum chess: Where you can't see what the other person has played, but can only see the board. (In a way, you might have to remember everything) |
| Cheat chess: Where you're allowed to cheat, but if the other person catches it, you get a penalty point. By cheat, you could do wrong moves, illegal captures, illegal castlings, not saying 'chess' etc. |
| No warning chess: Where you don't say "check" and directly kill the king |
| All warnings chess: Where you MUST say "check intensity x" if you're going to capture something in the next move |
| Three people as a team play against another team of 3. BUT, nobody can consult each other for they moves. They just take turns :) |
| Designated Surviver Chess - King is disguised as a different piece. |
| Covid chess: Social distance practiced Chess wherein pieces can't come close to each other unless for killing |
| Reproducing Chess: It's assumed that of the two rooks, knights, and bishops, one is male and the other is female. So, when they (of same color) come to adjacent squares, they are assumed to procreate and when one of them dies, their child can come back. This is only once |
| Inverted chess: The board is laterally inverted, and then vertically inverted with the board on the celing and magnetic pieces attached gto it defying gravity. |
| Adventure Game Chess: Like all those action adventure mobile games (of yhe sort of Age of Empires) excepts that the chessLords raise capital, resources etc to develop their ChessYard (chess farm, where they raise animals, their food etc). Then they compete in action chess, with real arrow animation etc |
| Hidden piece chess. All chess pieces are enclosed with their actual pawn looking enclosures. But at the middle of the game, after some time or after a certain number of moves, the enclosures on all pieces are removed to show the real pieces |
| Kill chess - if you kill, you get another move, and stops only when you say check. And the opponent escapes check and your move again, unless he/she kills while escaping from check and then it's his/her turn |
| Budget chess: How do you get all the pawns you have? You need to first earn them. So, you have a budget. Play well to get more budget and then use it to play well |
| N queen problem taken seriously: All pieces are queens on both sides. Now play regular chess |