Minishogi

Minishogi is a compact variant of Japanese chess, or shogi, designed by Shigenobu Kusumoto and dated by the Ludii portal to 1970. It keeps the capture-and-promote logic of its parent but shrinks the contest to a 5x5 board with a reduced set of pieces for each side. Promotion is simplified as well: each player promotes only on the single rank furthest from their own side, rather than in a three-rank zone as in full shogi. Because the rules otherwise follow standard shogi, a player who knows the parent game can sit down and play at once, and a game finishes far more quickly than the full-size original. The Ludii portal classes it as a modern board and war game built on replacement capture and checkmate, and lists it beside other shogi relatives such as Kyoto Shogi, Dice Shogi and Hexshogi.