Chinese Chess games

Today at the playground this old couple busted out with a game that I thought was chinese chess, as I could see a river in the middle of the board. One of the other mother's asked me if I knew the game they were playing. I was about to say it was chess, but I noticed that the tiles were square, and flipped over. When they did flip them over, they did appear to be able to move the pieces. And there were military words like the one used for pawn but most of the tiles had two characters. There was the character for long. There was on that said "grounf thunder." But when I looked at it I thought it said ground lightning because my chinese is horrible.
Luckily there was another dad at the park who is actually a Mandarin speaker. I mean I have never seen this game. And the old couple playing are Mandarin speakers. So I was guessing that the fact I had never seen it, ever, means it must be more popular in other parts of China.

I explained to him what I had just seen, and what games I knew it wasn't.

"Oh that's dark chess. It's like  chess but it's by luck. You don't know if you're general is next to you or not."

That sounds pretty cool. And in retrospect, and from a search on Wikipedia, I have seen kids play that game at Kwong Kow. But it turns out that was not the game.

I descrived some other stuff and the dad said, "Oh that's another game." And he described something with land mines and that sort of thing. Land mines! In Chess! That is freaking cool. Now I know there are all sorts of modern warfare strategy games and all that. But are they as simple as a board and little square tiles. Later, when his kids were occupied, this younger dad you speaks mandarin was able to walk over and glance at what the old couple was playing.

"Oh that's another game."

What! How many games are there? Why have I never seen this freaking cool versions of Chinese Chess with modern weaponry. And I tried to find what the hell this game is so I could post this article with a picture or video but it doesn't come up. I really want to learn this game now, and maybe play this old people. I don't really care about losing. I just can't believe I have lived for 30 years around Chinese people and don't know the existence of this game. I never had much of an interest in learning Mah Jong. Maybe because of how people play in halls for money etc. But learning it as a fun little game might be okay. But then it takes so long. No never mind. But these Chess games. Like the five chess games that this other father mentioned which I did not even know existed. I have to learn those now.

Maybe I should get a Chinese chess set. I mean that's one way to teach characters to Noah right?

Okay never mind I figured out it is called Luzhangqi
Time to study this. Youtubing showed know results.
But wikipedia does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzhanqi