Comments by Bob Greenwade

I'm not sure, but I think some of the "gameless" pieces on your list could be found in Short Sliders (and the Leapers Who Love Them).

At the rate you guys are going with these, I half-expect you'll be able to make a diagram for Chess on a Tesseract by the end of next year. :)

Can you please spoil if there are my pieces also?

Right now, all I have in the set are four half-Walls, an unbroken Chain, and At-Sign and Hashtag symbols.

I'll let you know when it is fixed.

Yeah, I kinda figured youi would. But now I know how much work to expect -- which, thankfully, appears to be rather little. Thanks!

And a cleverly designed piece set, such as Bob's, can exploit the feature through having separate background and foreground symbols, which are intended to  be combined.

And thanks for this remark as well.

I suspect that mine's something similar, but more complicated....

I'm actually quite curious about it myself. I found the Moose Pawn in an existing set (it'd take a bit for me to find which one) and I couldn't find any variant that actually used it. I do havce it in Dealer's Chess, and I thought about putting it into Unnecessariliy Complicated Chess; but I, too, don't know where it was before I came along.

And now, because I have multiple things going on (including a trip away this coming weekend), the largest group ever for this collection...

335-342. Double Pieces. These are taken from David Howe's Growing and Shrinking article. I'm not aware of any variants that use them directly, but they're still interesting, and this listing might inspire something.

The brief description is that Double pieces are two pieces of the same type moving in unison, locked into (orthogonally) adjacent spaces, as if the entire board was made up of tiles of that size. Since they're orthogonally adjacent, a Double piece can be either horizontal or vertical (though the nature of the game would probably make horizontal more common).

Thus, the Double Bishops, rather than moving diagonally, would move one space along the short axis, and two spaces along the long axis, somewhat like a limited Nightrider. The Horizontal Double Bishop (#335) would have a sideways bias. (sNN)

The Vertical Double Bishop (#336), by extension, would have a vertical bias. (vNN)

The Double Rooks move like normal Rooks along their short axis, but two steps at a time (like a Dabbabarider) along their long axis. Therefore, the Horizontal Double Rook (#337) moves one step at a time vertically, but two steps at a time horizontally (vRsDD), while the Vertical Double Rook (#338) does the reverse (vDDsR).*

Since the Rook is fully symmetrical (turn it 90° and it looks the same), the same model is used for both.

The Double Knights are somewhat more complicated. Since making a Double Knight means doubling one of the two numbers in its (1,2) leap, both have (2,2) leaps, along with (1,4) leaps along their long axis. Thus, the move of the Horizontal Double Knight (#339) is like an Alfil and horizontal Giraffe (AsFX)...

...while the Vertical Double Knight (#340) is like an alfil and vertical Giraffe (AvFX).

Finally, the Double Queens combine their respective Bishops and Rooks, so that the Horizontal Double Queen (#341) is a Horizontal Double Bishop plus Horizontal Double Rook (vRsNNsDD), and the Vertical Double Queen (#342) is a Vertical Double Bishop plus Vertical Double Rook (sRvNNvDD).

Like the Double Rooks, the Double Queens only need one model, and for the same reason.

It should be easy enough to extend these principiles to any piece, creating Double Ferzes, Wazirs, Guards, Mastodons, Chancellors, Archbishops, Rhinoceroses, Ravens, Gorgons, Stewards, Satraps, Blue Geckos, or whatever else is called for.

*The two diagrams were made on separate days, a couple of weeks apart, and I didn't think to check one before making the other. I'll fix one of them presently, so they match.

BTW, it is not clear to me how a Wall would capture when it moves in its long direction. I would say it can capture only a single piece then.

I tend to concur, given that it moves one square at a time on that axis as well as the short.

Semi-related to other stuff:

I've initiated a study of Javascript in order to sit down and code a set of "weird" moves that could then be called upon for use in IDs. Some of my goals (roughly in priority order):

• Null move (mpabK) (click on the square twice, and if the piece can legally move back to the space using this or any other move, a popup asks if you want to make a Null move)
• Defining crooked/zigzag (zB, zR, zN) and rosy (qN, qC, qZ) moves as vectors that can be used for rifle captures and such.
• Same for the Windmill (pabs(abpabq)K) and Gorgon (KyafsK), and possibly Switchback (afq(afzafq)K(afqafz)K)
• Refractor/Counterrefractor (moving perpendicular or parallel to the board's edge)
• Edgehog
• Etchessera Guard (follows the King around)
• Root-N25 Leaper
• Alternate modifiers for "again, including backwards" (a(b)), "juggernaut capture" ((caf)), "flying jump" ((paf)), and similar constructs so they can be enclosed in parentheses without having to nest.

I'm figuring to assign extended Latin characters to each of these, but also have some sort of assignLetter command that can be put into the ID description so a user can assign whatever letter is preferred (including regular ASCII, of course).

And I know that there are solutions to some of these (like Edgehog and Refractor)  using complex algorithms; I'm looking to shorten them for the user.

I'll set any of these aside, of course, if you beat me to them. ;) (I actually don't figure you'll ever get to any but maybe the first two and last one.)

The Wall is in Ganymede Chess; Daniel pointed out Io Chess, which also has the Great Wall (which I'll probably post to PotD at a later date).

There's more oversized stuff to come with PotD, such as Twofold and Double pieces from David Howe's Growing and Shrinking article, and extensions thereof.

333. Tinker. 334. Tailor. With these two, I'm pretty sure I've never used the moves before, and they do (in my opinion) make for an interesting pair. I'd had the names and moves rolling around in my head separately for a while, but never at the same time until fairly recentlly.

Both have basic moves like a non-royal King, making a single step to any adjacent square. From there, they diverge: the Tinker moves without capture like a Knight, or moves only to capture like an Alibaba.

The Tailor (as you've probably guessed by now) moves without capture like an Alibaba, or moves only to capture like a Knight.

While the Tinker model came out even better than I expected. I'm not really happy with the Tailor one. I'd like to come up with something that's more suggestive of its name.