Hi, the creator’s here.

Thank you for playing my variant! I was literally waiting for this video the moment I saw you playing it.
I would like to comment on a few things in the video that I found interesting and/or thought would be helpful.

1. It seems that you forgot to mention the Torpedo game rule. This makes it so that pawns can always move one or two squares, if there is space available. Yes, en passant is thus possible in most situations where a pawn moves two squares and lands next to an opponent’s pawn. This does not affect captures (pawns still only capture one square diagonally).
2. At 11:55, the opponent promotes to a Knight. Yes, pawns do promote on that rank (the 7th rank of the board or the rank immediately behind the hill). They have the option of promoting to a Bishop, Alfil, Knight, or Dabbaba.
3. No, castling does not explode your king (lol). Castling works just like normal chess (queenside and kingside). However, you are also theoretically allowed to castle “through” or “into” check if you freeze the piece(s) that would put you in check.  
4. At 26:30, it seems you forgot that the hill exists. Don’t worry, everyone who has played has forgotten the hill too at some point. XD

Additionally, I’m also going to answer a few questions asked here (because I feel the need to answer them) as well as a few questions I think you might have.

-Why did you make this variant?
The purpose of the variant is to minimize the forcing advantage that regular Atomic has while adding new and creative elements.  

-Is the variant balanced?
We are not completely sure of this, as no evidence of an excessive advantage for White has been found yet. Many possible early opening attacks for White that have been played in the past have adequate defenses and responses for Black.

-Was I drunk while making this?
No.

-Why aren’t the Dragon Bishop and Xiangqi Horse (dragon Knight) allowed to jump?
A key component of the large advantage found in regular Atomic is the two Knights being able to jump over the pawns. The abundance of pawns and restrictions on jumping make the advantage much lesser. The General, while able to jump, can still sufficiently be defended against in the opening.

-Would jump spells work for this?
No, because a) the Rooks would be too powerful, b) the Dragon Bishops would be even more powerful than the Rooks, and c) White would have a forced win.

Thanks again!

it would have been so funny if castling was an instant lost

In that last game, I was really rooting for you to remember that the king of the hill thing is part of the game. Because having your position blasted open, does leave you with much more manouveeability for your king.

I was wondering why you weren't pushing your king in that last game, you probably could have got a King of the Hill if you'd remembered it was on the table

you'll become a variant master before becoming a GM

23:06 I was surprised that you didn't just try to run your king to the hill. I have a feeling that winning condition was not on your mind, and it is somewhat confirmed at 26:28 😂

7:38 that was not in the intro the pawn being able to move two squares twice!

0:32 GymnastLa... (1487)
2:16 GymnastLa...
4:18 CzarnyRes... (1928)
13:11 CzarnyRes...
19:35 CzarnyRes... (1938)

3:41 oh no your dragon bishop!
8:29 "but then i can just- ohh, i can't just do that. that is not a knight. this is a knight tha can't jump. oh my goodness. the bane of my existance"
10:21 "okay they're down to 25 seconds. i always feel bad, you know, excitedly mentioning how low on time the opponent is, especially when i'm really just not doing that well on the actual board, but it is something that you realistically need to take into account"
11:59 "oh, and i forgot to mention that pawns promote on this rank! that's not even in the intro! i'm so sorry!"
13:05 "oh, the offered a rematch! noo, come back! oh i wanted to play them again, but i was too busy yapping"
16:58 "can i castle in this variant, is that a thing? 'cause if i can, that would be an amazing way to get my king out of the way and my rook into play"
17:59 "oh, okay! we castled!"
21:29 "wow, that was a very deep find. or maybe not, i mean it was only like a 2 or 3 move tactic, but in my head it combined so many elements that's like the kasparov of explosive magic at play there"
25:13 "this is my way of coping with the fact that i got rock n rolled 30 times by a 1900"
26:30 "ohh it's king of the hill. [laugh] oh my god i forgot about that"
27:07 woah! new outro! it's probably not new but it's the first time i've seen it! that's actually so cool omg. there's martin with a spell, magnus, the roblox hamster, stockfish, the troll holding onto a chicken(?), shotgun king holding onto something, mage and ninja and angel, ouroboros king dude, medusa(??), dice chess, and of course the drawback cat awww

i've missed this channel. i have way too many videos to catch up on... this was such a joy to watch, i'm gonna try to resume my daily religious watching of this channel again! thank you so much for this video, for playing crazy variants, and for existing!

I love fianchetto bishops threatening 3 pieces from the other corner of the board

"it could be like a two hour episode" - and what's wrong about that? "iwantcheckmate - The movie" 😁

Him not moving his king forward in those losing positions pmo so much.

the explosion icon is just very lazily programmed and essentially always shows when you hover a piece over another

18:00 i burst out laughing at how amazed you where by the castling😂😂

6:56 Black fights to get WHAT1?!?!

I love that your videos come out when I have a lunch break

This game was so fun so many unknown tactics waiting for us to find

Here’s another example of “explosive magic”:



Go have really spicy food or tacobell, a stupid amount of it and wait… 😂

World fastest thumbnail click

This looks like an awesome variant!
Its gotten my brain jucies flowing for some game ideas of my own, but also I really appreciate the amount of "objectives" in the game this variant creates.

Would absolutely love more videos of you playing more

22:09 at this point, I would probably switch to win king of the hill style.