Comments by JamesSpratt

Terrific graphics, Gary.
(Having just read the instructions, a short clarification:)
I like the bright, strong colors; I like the fact that the capital pieces
are multi-colored, underlining their relative importance, and I like the
way they look on the board for the Mini-Pillars-of-Medusa game, where I
first spotted them. Now I'm prompted to go digging around to see what
other interesting piece-sets are hiding in the links.

Gary, I could do the 8 Spearmen, if you don't mind them looking sort of
like the Pikeman in Imperial Chess. I'm thinking about expanding that
piece-set, but maybe you'd prefer your own look?
Jeremy, the Bent pieces are going to be difficult to symbolize, I think. 
I'm a little in the dark about background colors, so I'll just send you
what I've got so far in jpg and you tell me if you can work with it or
not.  Once I know we've got the technical part of it whipped, I'll feel
freer to get down to drawing.

Thank you, Magritte; yes, a very stimulating and productive exchange. 
C'est bon.

I've dug around to find the location of David Howe's Alfaerie set
additions, and for the life of me I can't find that goofy Frog I swear I
saw in it somewhere. He was so funny-looking I almost fell out of my chair
laughing; I want to know what that Frog has been smoking. I think it was at
the bottom of a long piece-list of a new game that Jeremy posted not long
ago.  Is there a complete list of the Alfaerie pieces somewhere?
I've noticed that there are lots of fractions of that set here and there;
I've also looked for some kind of Piece Index that a user could go to to
find out what piece does what, what it's called, what its other names
are, what other graphic versions of it look like, etc., but what I can
locate seems piecemeal and scattered. Piececlopedia seems fragmentary,
too.  
The Alfaerie set looks like it's building into quite a toolbox of generic
pieces that could be used for almost anything.  They look clear and
workmanlike to me.

I don't know if drawing a piece in a way which describes its move, or
including some kind of graphic move indicator, like the Drapt pieces, is
practical, mainly because the icons may be adopted for another variant
later and its move altered.  I tried marking the bases of my Jetan variant
sculpted pieces at first with graphic indicators, but that locks you in to
one type of move for that piece, which isn't always desirable if you want
to use the same piece differently in another variant.

A few things I realized while studying Jean-Louis Cazaux' set:

Icons can be either instantly recognizable by most people, such as most
animals are, or they must be memorized, such as abstract or heraldic
images must be.  While abstract or heraldic icons can lend dignity to the
look of a board, they can steepen the learning curve of a new game a
little due to the fact that a new player must first labor to remember what
the pieces are, in addition to how they move. That's okay if you like the
game to look more mysterious to newcomers, or make them work a little
harder; the experienced player will have a stronger advantage over a
newcomer at first, also. 

All the icons in a set should look like they were drawn by the same hand.
Consistency of size, color, or line quality and execution tend to unify
any single piece with its brothers.  Although realistic draftsmanship can
be a nice feature, it is not a necessary feature, except for easy piece
identification at first; consistency of 'look' across a piece-set is
more important, and there are an infinite number of ways to stylize icons
homogeneously.

I am partial to realism, or possibly a cartoony but recognizable type of
whimsy, as the best look for icons, based on my experience with art, which
has always shown me that more people like realism than abstraction, mostly
because they can tell if you got it right or not. I've always had to keep
an eye out for the new customer because I believe that to expand the
client-base I have to make it easy for them to recognize the subject, then
show them something new about it (content) and feel that the same thing is
true with any form of art, such as chess icons.

After several days of prompted pondering, I now realize I was holding these
icons to a standard of representational accuracy, which only applies here
in small measure, but which has ever been a critical concern with my own
artwork.  Without going into human recognition patterns and windows of art
imprinting, I'm content with the fact that others like them well enough to
so pointedly reject my critique and provoke my further education in what
makes a piece-set good. 
Magritte, thanks for the lesson.  Jean-Louis, maybe the Editors will let
me make it up to you with a better rating, which maybe I ought to do twice
to get the average up.

I think these graphics need more work; they don't look like much effort
went into them.  One must remember, when doing artwork, that there are 100
ways to portray anything, 3 good ways, and ONE best way, which very few
artists are able to achieve on the first effort.  I'd suggest drawing
several versions, walking away for a few days between efforts, then coming
back to appraise them with a fresh eye, at which point improvements will be
obvious.  There's no point in hurrying something that might be around
forever.
A player's connection to a game is via the icons; a good game deserves
good icons.

Um, I think that was Greg's question; since I get an Active-X Alert, to
accommodate which I won't trouble myself one keystroke, I can't see
their site, have never seen the game, and it doesn't look like I will
unless they authorize a (maybe temporary?) preset here from which to
derive some qualified suggestions for improvement, I'll never know enough
to even ask any questions about it.

Jianying, you might be right, about the inexperience part; we don't know
how much we don't know, do we?  But when you put dollars and deadlines
into creativity equations, they don't balance any more.

It might be a really good game; the box looks very nice.

Nothing made for profit is made as well as it can be made--the profit could
have been applied to making the product better.
Employers (of creatives) in the US hold copyright by default, unless
otherwise agreed in writing, which is rare, which further compromises
product quality; the (hired) creative, not having a long-term interest in
the product, need only please the boss between paychecks.
'Front-line' control is when the sales staff direct product development
based on previously-observed market interest in similar products, i.e.
'copycatting' or 'knocking-off'; 'back-line' control is when the
creative staff comes up with something really original, which is rarer. 
The boss is usually interested in sales, not originality or even, really,
product quality.
This may account for some of your complaints.