Comments by ChessShogi

Pieces can be blocked from reaching a certain square, don't they?

Being blocked doesn't necessarily mean that a piece is unable to reach a square.

Now that I think about it, I guess the inability to reach a square part refers to the predators, and not the moving piece.

Hmm...I think simply showing the promotion options with a highlighted background is better. The plus and minus don't really tell me what my choices are (they are basically covering up the images), but do better at showing that a promotion option exists.

Personally, I'd omit the markers and highlight the background with the same color that is used for Chess-style promotions (#8080FF), while also showing instructions at the top (e.g. "Click icon of piece of choice").

Perhaps the color for promotion highlights could even be set with a parameter (e.g. promoHighlight=#8080FF) in case the selected board shades are too similar to the default color.

P.S. Also, it would be really nice to be able to deselect a piece in the holdings like you can with pieces on the board. Currently, this is not possible.

Much better.

However, I did notice a bug that causes the promotion choices to replace pieces on the squares they are shown on if you select something other than a promotion choice.

Replication Example: Have a Rook General capture the opposing Rook General, and then when the promotion options show up click on any occupied space other than the highlighted squares.

Let's not forget about betzaNewer.js (the one with the experimental Shogi promotion system).

I have moved the standard piece values to the Notes option as an additional variant to make it clearer which value set you are using.

red square. The checker pieces have to make a complete tour of the board. Their

I have removed the underlined sentence, as it doesn't really say anything.

• At least four checker pieces per player make a complete tour

I probably should have touched on this earlier, but I think this rule seems like another random addition. However, I do think it can work with the right tweaks.

First, the checkers should ideally have two sides, like with some checker sets that use a star for a Checker King. That way, you can flip the checker (or "promote" it, so to speak) when it makes a complete tour around the board.

Second, if a promoted checker gets captured, it would make more sense to keep it promoted, since otherwise, this condition is too unlikely to happen.

In that case, the two sided checkers would still be helpful, as they tell you which checkers are out of the game, by having the checkers that have completed the tour have one side up, and all other checkers having the other side up.

I am mostly referring to the physical game.

My reasoning is that if the two sides are indistinguishable, or there is no other way to tell which checkers have made a complete tour, then a player could easily mistake a checker which made a complete tour for one that had not and bring said checker back into the game.

Resegnation is a fact of life that cannot be prevented by any rules. The best rules can do is put a sanction on doing it, and the worst imaginable sanction is an individual game is that you would lose. Which is exactly the idea, and thus has zero value as a deterrent. You will have to find a better solution for when one of the palyers forfeits (e.g. loses on time because he simply walked away).

I have edited the resignation rule to remove the constraint on resignation.

Resegnation is a fact of life that cannot be prevented by any rules. The best rules can do is put a sanction on doing it, and the worst imaginable sanction is an individual game is that you would lose. Which is exactly the idea, and thus has zero value as a deterrent. You will have to find a better solution for when one of the palyers forfeits (e.g. loses on time because he simply walked away).

I have edited the resignation rule to remove the constraint on resignation.

They are stored in

/home/chessvariants/public_html/play/pbm/sets/

Thanks.

Do you know how to use SCP or SFTP?

Do you still have the passwords I sent you by email?

I have not used either SCP or SFTP before, but I should be able to figure out how to use WinSCP.

I still have the passwords you sent me. I figured out pretty quickly that it was best to save the email.

Edit: I have updated the set files, and now know the basics for uploading via WinSCP.

@François Houdebert,

I saw your Jocly implementation for Chu Seireigi. It works much better than it used to.

I went through and tested everything, and here is a comprehensive list of all known errors that I found:

-------------------------------
Piece Movement/Promotion Errors
-------------------------------

Ram's-Head Soldier and Prancing Stag are not forced to promote when reaching the last rank (these pieces must promote on last rank)

Strong Bear (Starting and Promoted) still has its old move (should move one square diagonally or sideways)

Whale is missing its forward orthogonal step

Flying Swallow is not forced to promote when reaching the last two ranks (this piece must promote on last two ranks)

White Golden Bird is missing its sideways orthogonal leaps, Black Golden Bird is missing its (1,-2) leap from White's perspective

Kirin promotes to Lion (should promote to Bishop) and White Kirin moves has extra (2,2) leap in all directions (should move as in Chu Shogi)

Phoenix promotes to Queen (should promote to Rook)

-------------------------------
Board Setup Errors
-------------------------------

There currently aren't enough spaces in the hand to accommodate all the droppable piece types (there are 19 in total). You will need a second column of hand spaces on each side to account for this.

Black Running Leopard and Black Running Wolf are swapped from where they should be in the initial setup.

Thanks. Hopefully we can also upload your implementations of Hectochess and Seireigi to the site soon.

I have tested the new moves and will update you on bugs to be fixed. Here are the errors I found as of the writing of this comment.

-------------------------------
Piece Movement/Promotion Errors
-------------------------------

Whale is missing its backward slide

White Golden Bird is missing its sideways orthogonal leaps

For some reason Flying Swallows that are dropped from the hand (not the ones present initially) have their move reversed

-------------------------------

As for the trouble with the hand spaces, maybe ask H. G. Muller about that? He is the one who made the original model if I remember correctly. It shouldn't be that hard for him to figure something out.

As far as I can tell, you should only need a second column of hand spaces on each side, but of course, it's probably not as simple as I am making it out to be.

Looks like you fixed everything, save for the hand spaces of course, but I won't bother you on that too much until you are ready to test the solution.

I would at least like the ones for Hectochess and Seireigi. Ideally, the files should be placed in such a way so that I know which files go where.

You may include Chu Seireigi if you wish, but I am doing one last update to make it easier to defend against a Lion:

• Renaming Prancing Stag to Running Rabbit (fBfR), which promotes to Prancing Stag (fBsRvW)
• Strong Bear moving the same as Chu Shogi Drunk Elephant

I had your Jocly implementation play out several games, and even though it played rather poorly (for obvious reasons), it was clear that there needed to be more defense.

P. S. I'm surprised you changed the Whale's symbol to a trident. I guess it makes sense if you take into account Greek mythology. I think the whale tail symbol you used before would look more accurate, but it really comes down to personal preference here.

I actually found a better replacement for the Old Kite with the Running Rabbit (fBfR).

Thankfully, this is the last time I will need to make any changes.

Here are all the errors I found in your draft:

Piece Movement/Promotion/Drop Errors

Old Kite should be replaced with Running Rabbit, which slides in any forward direction (fBfR)

For Pawn, Lance, Ram's-Head Soldier, Running Rabbit (currently Old Kite), Knight, Flying Swallow, White's promotion is always forced, while Black's promotion is never forced

When captured, White Kirin is not being placed in Black's hand

Board Setup Errors

White King and White Great Elephant are swapped from where they should be in the initial setup.

Other

The grid seems a little off, but you probably already knew that.

The forced promotion issue is fixed for White's forward-only pieces (Pawn, Lance, Ram's-Head Soldier, Running Rabbit, Knight, Flying Swallow) but not for Black's.

Much better.

The only improvements I can think of are reintroducing the 3d pieces, naming the game Chu Seireigi instead of Chu Seireigi Shogi (for the same reasons as with normal Seireigi), and maybe having the hand spaces all colored solid brown. But for the latter the wood is colored similarly enough that it doesn't really matter whether you do it or not.

Also, could you update that SVG for the laser cutter? I might want to make a plywood set in the future. But for now, the cutouts I made will do.

You also have to add a line to /play/jocly/dist/browser/jocly-allgames.js to make Jocly notice the files that you placed in /play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/.

I've done that. It shows up on the Other Jocly games panel, but when I try to load it, it doesn't work. I get the following error:

hectochess-model.js:257 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: JocGame.LetsTwist is not a function
    at ZobristInit (hectochess-model.js:257:20)
    at Model.Game.InitGame (hectochess-model.js:354:3)
    at JocGame.GameInitGame (jocly.game.js:3:7385)
    at JocGame.Init (jocly.game.js:3:1572)
    at e (jocly.core.js:1:1233)
    at eval (jocly.core.js:1:2511)

Looks like everything works properly.

Can you send me the updated files for Seireigi and Chu Seireigi (I have already taken care of Hectochess)?

Thanks.

Thanks.

Can you also do the same for normal Seireigi? It has the same problem with its 3d Kanji pieces.

Looks like it. I have uploaded the new version to the site and have adapted them so the implementation will work properly with the CVP files.

I notice that Lev nominated Seireigi, so in addition to my nomination of its larger cousin (Dai Seireigi) I'll throw in a second for Seireigi for future features.

You must really like Dai Seireigi...I'm honestly quite surprised. Sure, I consider the Seireigi family my best set of works so far, but I didn't think anyone would be so quick to nominate Dai Seireigi. If anything, I thought Chu Seireigi would be nominated faster (second to normal Seireigi of course). That being said, I can definitely see the appeal, with the homages to the large historical Shogi variants and all.

Note to (other) Editors: While Dai Seireigi hasn't been played in its current, final form on Game Courier yet, it does have a recorded history of development versions being played on Game Courier. Whether this would make it eligible to be featured is up for debate.

That's perfect.

You should only have to swap the King kanjis in the 2D Classic Seireigi sprites.

For the 3D pieces its as simple as swapping "sh-king" and "sh-jade" in the 3D piece definitions in the *-view.js files, so no problem there.

P.S. What I said above also applies to the Shogi Jocly implementations that use the King kanji on the biscandine site.

P.S.S. Also you have two extra rooks in your laser cutter SVG.

It not clear to me, when there's an apostrophe, it's the general of jade that corresponds to the blacks, right?

In kanji sets, the player that moves first always has the King with the extra stroke. And it is true that the player who moves first is called Black (or Sente) in Shogi. It's just that in Jocly and the Mnemonic sets by H. G. Muller, the player that moves first has the white piece images by convention to make it easier for chess players.

I'll send you an updated pictogram spritesheet that you can use. Currently, the pictogram images still have the Kanji for the Kings since they are pulling from those locations.

Here is my updated version of your spritesheet. (For best results, clear browser cache before downloading)

I also took the opportunity to clean up stray pixels in your other shogi spritesheets.

www.chessvariants.com/membergraphics/MSchuseireigi/jocly-shogi-sprites.zip?nocache=true

I also updated the seireigi-sprites file one more time so that the promoted Kanjis are all facing the right way.

www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/res/shogi/seireigi-shogi-sprites.png

P. S. GIMP is awesome.

I have done it but not sure it is a good idea because if you use "view as player B". It won’t be correctly oriented.

Well, that problem was kind of already baked in to begin with, unless you used a separate piece style like you do with the Shogi Motif pieces on the biscandine site.

The point is to make sure all the 2D Kanji are oriented correctly on the biscandine site. Anyone who has played Shogi long enough would immediately notice something was wrong with the second player's promoted minor pieces if they used the 2D Classic set for Seireigi.

Thanks. It looks much better.

I made one last change to Chu Seireigi, making the Lion move like its Cazaux form (a Chu Shogi Lion that lacks multi-move capabilities). If you could implement that on the biscandine site that would be great.

I'll even make it real simple for you on what you need to do. You'll need to go into your http://chu-seireigi-model.js and look for the Lion definitions (searching for "sh-lion should do"), which looks like this:

				66: {
					name: 'lion-w',
					aspect: 'sh-lion',
					graph: this.cbDropGraph(geometry, [[-2,0],[-2,-1],[-2,-2],[-1,-2],[0,-2],[1,-2],[2,-2],[2,-1],[2,0],[2,1],[2,2],[1,2],[0,2],[-1,2],[-2,2],[-2,1]],[[1,1],[1,-1],[-1,1],[-1,-1]]),
					value: 10,
					abbrev: 'LN',
					fenAbbrev: 'N',
					initial: [{s:1,p:55}],
					demoted: 67,
					hand: 18,
				},
				67: {
					name: 'lion-b',
					aspect: 'sh-lion',
					graph: this.cbDropGraph(geometry, [[-2,0],[-2,-1],[-2,-2],[-1,-2],[0,-2],[1,-2],[2,-2],[2,-1],[2,0],[2,1],[2,2],[1,2],[0,2],[-1,2],[-2,2],[-2,1]],[[1,1],[1,-1],[-1,1],[-1,-1]]),
					value: 10,
					abbrev: 'LN',
					initial: [{s:-1,p:168}],
					demoted: 66,
					hand: 18,
				},

Set the Lions values to 11 and replace the current graph definitions with the following:

					graph: this.cbDropGraph(geometry, [[-2,0],[-2,-1],[-2,-2],[-1,-2],[0,-2],[1,-2],[2,-2],[2,-1],[2,0],[2,1],[2,2],[1,2],[0,2],[-1,2],[-2,2],[-2,1],[1,1],[1,-1],[-1,1],[-1,-1],[1,0],[-1,0],[0,1],[0,-1]],[]),

Once that is done, the biscandine Jocly preset should play at least somewhat reasonably.

Thanks. I know you may be a little frustrated, and I apologize if you are, but it is an unfortunate truth of development for my more complex games that updating them can be quite laborious and tedious, especially when several options exist for playing them. As a general rule, I want my games to be well-thought out and high in quality, so I am willing to make changes like this to try and make my games better.

Check your rabbit in daiseireigi. they are promoted by default in stag.

Can you elaborate further on this, please? I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.

I did check the Running Rabbit in the diagram and the text, and everything seems to be in proper working order, including the text that shows the legal moves of the piece when clicked.

I'm actually starting to lean back towards the Bishop + Squirrel move for Chu Seireigi and Dai Seireigi, since in my test game of Chusei with you, if the Lion had the KNAD move you would be able to force mate in 3 with just the Lion, and I don't want one piece to steal all the show from the others.

Edit: Looking at the current position you can still force mate in 3, but you need to get more pieces involved.

@François Houdebert,

I made one last change to Chu Seireigi and Dai Seireigi, renaming the Lion to Lion Hawk to avoid confusion with the Chu Shogi Lion, while also keeping the Bishop + Squirrel move from before, whose Jocly code is shown below.

graph: this.cbDropGraph(geometry, [[-2,0],[-2,-1],[-2,-2],[-1,-2],[0,-2],[1,-2],[2,-2],[2,-1],[2,0],[2,1],[2,2],[1,2],[0,2],[-1,2],[-2,2],[-2,1]],[[1,1],[1,-1],[-1,1],[-1,-1]]),

(Keeping the Lion Hawk's value at 11 is reasonable, as it is basically equal in strength to a Queen, and may sometimes even have a light advantage)

In case you are wondering what a "Lion Hawk" is, I imagine it as a Japanese version of a griffin.

For the new diffusemap, simply use the Tenjiku Shogi Lion Hawk diffusemap.

For the 2D sprite, the best choice in my opinion for this piece may be the sprite two spaces to the left of the "gem" image in this spritesheet, as it resembles a griffin head with cat-like ears, at least to me. (If for some crazy reason you plan on implementing Dai Seireigi in Jocly, I would save the "falcon" image used for the griffin in other Jocly presets for the Flying Falcon or Cloud Eagle).

If you can implement these changes on the biscandine site that would be great.

P.S. Thanks for playing that test game with me. It helped me finalize the Lion Hawk's move.

I updated the 3d image.

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/res/visuals/chu-seireigi-600x600-3d.png

I'll update the svg occasionally, lightburn doesn't work at home (on linux).

I take it that's the program you use for making the SVG?

Also, while I was uploading the Jocly files to the CVP site, I took the opportunity to make the rule description for the Jocly Chu Seireigi preset more accurate. Your version has some discrepancies and doesn't describe everything, thought to be fair I was still finalizing everything then. I can provide you with the files you need if need be.

I did the same for the Seireigi and Hectochess rule descriptions to a far lesser extent, though I am not overly concerned about these two.

I saw that you copied the updated rules descriptions from the CVP Jocly presets, which is good. I made some fixes to these to improve clarity and remove a few typos I found. I will admit in advance that I am kind of a stickler for consistency, but if you can make those changes that would be great.

For Hectochess and Seireigi you can simply copy the code from the CVP rules files. The only thing you might have to fix is the Lance graph path in the Seireigi file.

view-source:https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/hectochess-rules.html

view-source:https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/seireigi-rules.html

For Chu Seireigi the rules description on the biscandine site is much better, but there are still a few discrepancies, and a few pieces are listed twice for some reason. I'd recommend simply copying the source code from the CVP Rules description to fix the text, and copying over the pictures whose links I have attached below.

Corrected Rules HTML

view-source:https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/chu-seireigi-rules.html

Corrected Movement Diagrams

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/res/rules/shogi/graphs/bear.png

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/res/rules/shogi/graphs/seireigi-whale.png

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/res/rules/shogi/graphs/teacher.png

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/res/rules/shogi/graphs/fox.png

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/jocly/dist/browser/games/chessbase/res/rules/shogi/graphs/bird.png

I believe it does not. I only set it up; H.G. will know how that functions. Logically, it should apply to anything but rifle captures (and Ghosts and Reapers [I think you meant Vampire here] would be immune), but I'm not sure how to set that up.

Well, if you mean that the contagion applies to anything but rifle/locust captures, then the diagram has you covered already (this is logically equivalent to it applying only to capture that stop on the victim square). In the current ID setup, the pieces that have rifle/locust captures (Vampire, Ghost, and Hangman) only transform when they stop on the Zombie Pawn's square.

This can be made a little clearer in the Zombie Pawn's description, but that is really simple. Just add the underlined text at the spot it appears in.

Zombie Pawn: Moves (with capture) one space directly or diagonally forward, or moves without capture one space directly behind. Any piece that captures it and stops on its square immediately becomes a Zombie Pawn (but doesn't change color).

What further kinks are with the Vulture?

I guess the Vulture's move description isn't too problematic, except that the ID move does not match up with it. It should be mHnFXnNY.

I saw that you copied over everything, which is good. However, an unfortunate side effect of this is that the Prancing Stag diagram in Chu Seireigi's rules description is that of the Shogi Flying Stag.

To fix this, you will need to copy the image below to the biscandine site without renaming it, and then update the HTML in the Chu Seireigi rules description (You can simply copy the HTML from the CVP file, which you can find here).

Thanks. Your stag looks nice.

I think it would look fine either way, as long as the symbols used are consistent (As you have probably guessed at this point, I am a bit of a stickler for cosistency). This is more of a matter of personal taste.

The only thing I'll say is maybe giving the black stag image a black border rather than a white one will make it look a bit better. The white border may make it look out of place compared to the rest of the pieces, at least to me.