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Well, I would love to hear at least some of what you have cooking right now. Since we're not going to talk on Skype I'm going to write most if not all of the ideas that have been brewing in my head today. (Note #1: "My" "vision" for what this game could be may be a huge undertaking, so it may be more fitting for a sequel but I really hope (for both our sake) that something like it could be in this one. Note #2: Everything I'll be writing now is going to be under the assumption that you already thought of it and that it's completely obvious, and all credit of course goes to you for making this wonderful gem.)

Firstly, only due to ease of implementation, I suggest a score (self explanatory, something like StS's) and Acheivements (Same way in Dream Quest, where they're all outlined in the first place and you can choose what to go for). It's easy to come up with Acheivements for it, and I've even thought of a pretty good example: No Royalty For This (or something along those lines) for beating the game without ever using a king nor a queen. (Tons of other options: Never taking hearts, never losing hearts, etc. etc.) People dig Acheivements. And now I've misspelled that word for the third time.

Okay, now we get to the meatier stuff. In one word: Choice. Choice between ways to further the progression of your character. For this, we need to discuss some pertinent concepts, and following that I will provide examples for what I mean:

1) Action points: Starting with the obvious, this is a very powerful way to upgrade your character. More action points, more chances to kill and avoid damage.

2) Stop: The ability to stop a long range piece, as an upgrade for a piece or as some sort of ability. Somewhat helpful and  especially for combos with other pieces. Perhaps a Stop and Go as an upgrade for such piece or an ability, which let's you stop and then go again, allowing you to change a direction with a piece mid-move.

3) Upgraded pieces: A Knight+ may move twice in a row (reasonable upgrade for a short ranged piece on a bigger board, which, btw, I think it should be), or perhaps is now allowed to attack one move diagnoally too (Similar to the Wizard in Omega Chess), Or say a Pawn+ may get a range increase for both his movement and as mentioned, a Rook+ or a Bishop+ could have a Stop or a Stop and Go.

4) Removal: Those pesky pawns bothering you? No longer need those old unpgraded pieces? Remove them and cycle your deck better to boot.

5) Hand size increase: Very powerful, obviously. Allows you more choices to play and cycles better.

6) Invincibilty:  Take no damage this turn. Implementation example: Once you take it, you can use it once per level.

7) A bunch of other stuff.

So, now we can return to the concept of choice: I think every level, or 2, or 3, doesn't matter (Or even better, allocating experience points to monsters and leveling your character that way, which among other things would mean you could level mid-level. level mid-level. heh.), you should get a choice between two somewhat equally upgrades. For example: Gain 1 hand size or Invincibilty. Another example: Upgrade 2 pieces or gain one Action. Another one: Remove 2 cards or Gain  Triggered 2 Action Points per level. And so on and so forth. The upgrades to your character should become more and more powerful as you progress, naturally.

Yippity yippity yippity, that's all folks!

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