Chess sucks because a lot of it is about planning 2 or 3 moves ahead. I hate strategy games like this, and I think that a lot of the fun of any strategy comes from watching it fall apart when it makes contact with play.  Fumbled executions are fun to watch, particularly when you see your opponent make a mistake under pressure.  In HOuRGLASS,a good amount of the pressure comes from within; you're trying for the perfect execution and that will usually lead to you looking back at turns and saying "shit, looking at those moves, I should have done THIS instead."  That constant, during-play assessment is more interesting to me than an analysis of a game that already happened (that's another reason chess sucks, you have to study a bunch of bullshit to be really good at it).