Hi!

I'm Ed Bond, and I've invented a new game, MetaCheckers.

MetaCheckers is more fun than checkers, easier to learn than chess and you never know who will win until the final roll of the dice. Huh, what? Checkers? Chess? Dice? Yes, this game combines all three classics. It might make more sense if I start from the beginning. It started with a dream.

The Dream Game

I dreamed I was in the backyard at my mom's house. A table was set up on the sidewalk along the hedges with checkers laid out on a checkerboard in the standard pattern. My wife, Amy, and I sat down at the table. I made a gesture as if to say, "Go ahead, make the first move."

Amy gave me a derisive look, as if to say, "Yeah, right. I don't play checkers."

So instead of playing checkers, she picked up a pair of dice and rolled them on the board. Then she picked up a checker and moved it like a chess piece -- the knight.

"Very funny, dear," I said. "But that's not how you play checkers ... "

Then, a half a beat later, I had a flash of insight and said, "... but it COULD BE!"

Suddenly, I realized that I had found a new way to combine three games that were each centuries old. I got very excited by this and started running around the yard, realizing the possibilities.

I also realized that I was dreaming, and that I needed to wake myself up and tell the real Amy what I had figured out. So, I tried to focus and wake up.

But this time I found myself in my mom's kitchen. Amy was there, and I started to tell her all about the dream I just had about the board game. As I told her about it, I started to figure out details.

There should be two dice, I thought. One would be a standard die with the pips for numbers 1 through 6. The other would be marked with a different chess piece on each side. Luckily, there are six chess pieces, so it works out.

So, the player would roll the dice and pick one piece to move according to that roll. The chess die would determine how the piece would behave on the board, the numbers die would determine how far the piece must move. But if you rolled a king, a pawn or a knight, the numbers die would have to become irrelevant. The goal of the game would be to capture the opponent’s king, which would be a checker flipped over and marked with the symbol for a king.

... and by now I also realized I was STILL dreaming. Yes, my dreams can be straight out of "Inception."

So, I finally forced myself awake, climbing back into the real world in my real bed just as the real Amy walked into the bedroom. She was on her way to take our youngest, Liam, to Saturday morning swim lessons.

Still groggy, I managed to tell her that I had just had a dream where I invented a new game. "Make sure to write it down," she said.

Later that day, I had set up a rudimentary version of the game on the kitchen table and asked our oldest, Jack, to join me. I explained the game to him, and he said, "This is what I think you should do. If a player rolls a king on his first turn, then you flip over the king checker to hide it."

So, Jack invented the "stealth mode" for the game. His name is on the patent application as a co-inventor.

I played games with Liam and Jack all that day. But the best part about inventing this game was when I realized, "Hey! This is fun!"

We've now reached a major milestone. MetaCheckers is now for sale on Amazon. If you want to get your own set, click the BUY tab up above.

Happy gaming!

Ed Bond