Chess with Area Control and Set Collection

Sounds interesting to me. I can't think of anything off-hand that does area control + chess-like pieces. Perhaps the defunct miniature game Dreamblade, in which players win each round by who controls the most point-scoring cells on a 5x5 grid; but a dice-driven combat system is a huge portion of that, and the point majority is only used in the one way.

If by "chess-like" you are also describing a style of game that has perfect information and no random elements, then I think there's a market for that. The game Dungeon Twister is a brain-burning 2p game with a fantasy theme, and it has solid reviews and sold well (I'm guessing, judging by how many expansions they put out, etc).

I wonder if part of the hesitation is the concern that it might be too complicated to learn/teach? Depending on how many types of pawns there are, a game like this could have a steep learning curve. That said, I don't know that it really has to be a problem, if you make sure that there is some reason/sense to what each piece can do, or at least that it's clearly indicated.

Personally, any game claiming affinity with chess makes me run screaming, but a game like you are describing intrigues me, because of the hidden information and potential randomness. As long as it doesn't look like chess:)

I don't think it's designers who are avoiding it -- check out http://www.chessvariants.com/ for hundreds of them, which include not only differing pieces, but the addition of dice, cards, etc. -- but instead it's publishers who avoid it. Games that seem like chess variants don't seem to sell well at all. Whether that's a self-fulfilling prophecy or not is hard to say, but I suspect due to that concern, there's less interest.

That said, bgg has nearly 100 games with the word "chess" in them. And there are certainly plenty of games that have pieces with specialized movement, with Hive coming to mind first.

I understand that your game isn't a chess variant per se, but I suspect the perception -- which would come up in reviews of the game -- is enough to make it less appealing to pubishers.

to start with, the base idea sounds fine, though "different pieces with different movement attributes" applies to a LOT of different games.

moreover, i think you underestimate the number of people who use chess as a basis for their design.
in fact, i mark it as one of the MOST common games new designers try to "re-invent" or "fix", along with risk/a&a, magic, d&d, and of course monopoly. because of how often people do that, i agree with the above poster that said he would run screaming at the chess-relation. but since what you described sounds different enough, i say full steam ahead.