Mess is played on a regular monopoly board. Each player rolls the dice and moves his token as usual, and begins the game with $1,500. Each player also starts off with a full set of chess pieces.
If you land on a vacant property, you can pay the purchase price and then place any one of your chess
pieces on that property. This signifies ownership of the property.
However, the “title deed” cards are not used. You only own the properties that you have pieces on at any given time, and, should one of your pieces be captured by your opponent, the property changes ownership at that time, too. If you get chess pieces on all three properties in a color group, you have a monopoly and can build houses and hotels.
CHESS PIECE MOVES
Your chess pieces can be used to capture your opponent’s pieces and properties, as well as to defend your own properties. Here is how the chess pieces move.
-- PAWN: Can move one or two squares, clockwise only.
-- BISHOP: Can move any number of squares in a straight line, but cannot turn corners within a move.
-- KNIGHT: Can jump onto the Chance or Community Chest pile, after which it can then jump to any of the 19 squares on the two sides of the board closest to that pile.
-- ROOK: Can move any number of squares in a straight line. Can also teleport horizontally to the corresponding square on the other side of the board.
-- QUEEN: Can move to any other square on the board.
-- KING: Can move one square forwards or backwards.
All pieces can pass through each other, with no interference. But only one piece can occupy a square at any time.
RENT WARS
If your token lands on a property that has an opponent’s chess piece on it, then you owe him rent. You can either pay him the rent as specified on the title deed card, or you can attack him.
You attack him by capturing his chess piece with any of your active chess pieces that are able to move to that square. He can then recapture you, if he also has a piece that can move to that square. The battle continues until a player cannot make a capture on the disputed square, or chooses not to.
After the battle, if your opponent still owns the square, then you must pay him the rent. Otherwise, you now own the square, and you can keep any houses or hotels that are already built there. Or sell them to the bank for their standard values.
CAPTURED PIECES and PIECE VALUES
Captured pieces are placed in a special “graveyard”. You cannot place them on the chessboard again until you pay money to get them out. The values of the pieces are: Pawn-$50, Bishop-$200, Knight-$200, Rook-$250, Queen-$500, King-$50.
You can also “mortgage” pieces that you currently have on the chessboard. When you mortgage a piece, you receive its value in cash, and the piece goes into the graveyard. If the piece was on a property, you lose ownership of that property.
PEACEFUL MOVES
On each turn, after rolling the dice and moving your token, you may also move one of your chess pieces to an unoccupied square.
Keep in mind that you are giving up ownership of a property when you move a piece, but, if you land on a vacant property, you now own that new property instead.
Hence, one strategy might be to purchase cheap properties and place chess pieces on them, and then move those pieces to more expensive properties. However, you can only buy cheap properties when your token lands on them, and you cannot buy one if your opponent already has a chess piece on it (although you may be able to capture his piece instead).
Moving a piece to a nonproperty square (e.g. Jail or Community Chest) does not constitute “ownership” of that square. Nevertheless, the nonproperty squares take a special importance in this game, since pieces on those squares cannot be captured, and yet can still threaten the opponent’s properties.
WINNING
The game ends when you or your opponent goes bankrupt. Sorry, no bonus for capturing the opponent’s King.