Who would ever play a game on such strategically uninteresting terrain? Well, I would, and so would you, for we know that in Chess, the Pawns create a kind of terrain by locking themselves into immovable formations; and yet, the idea of terrain features in Chess deserves some attention.
Xiang Qi has rivers and castles, and several historical games have citadels. Here are some new ideas.
As a specific example, a Re1 trying to go to e8 must do it in two turns: first, it plays to e4 or e5, and then it may go to e8.
Notice that I allow you to continue as long as you start next to the speed bump. The reason for this is that otherwise it might be too easy to ambush the pieces trying to cross it.
The effect of this rule is to make the board seem a little bit bigger. For example, if you wanted to play Great Chess on an 8x8 board, this rule might help.
Walls can simply not be crossed by long-moving pieces. Jumping pieces ignore walls. Pawns, I suppose, simply climb over the walls. Kings cannot cross walls because it is beneath their royal dignity to climb over.
The effect of this rule is to allow you to add some empty space around the edge without at the same time making new open files that will encourage the early exchange of Rooks.
Suppose that e4/e5/d4/d5 is a hill. A Re1 must stop at e4, but next move may continue to e8. A Pawn e4 may move normally to e4, or capture downhill by taking f5 and g6 in one move. A Pawn e5 may run downhill to e7, or it may choose to walk down hill and stop at e6.
The effect of this rule is that Knights and Pawns in the center become very strong.