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Comments by JaredMcComb
Umm, is it too late to submit a better name, now that it is on the site? I just thought that it would be cool to call it Chestria, as a nod to a TT clone that I have just recently heard about (but actually have not played... yet). www.questriax.com thedomain.chemical-e.com --Jared
You forgot the mention of the name in the first paragraph.
Well, whether you did or not, you still didn't catch my super-almost-secret reference to the old title in the first paragraph, and it's still in there! Authors have strange powers too! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!
Yes, Peter, those need to be removed, since they have no context now. And I pronounce it 'zerfolize', since I also pronounce 'zrf' as 'zerf', but that's just me.
Why, as 'zusguh', of course! I use Zog to load a zusguh of a zerf! :P
Well, I don't talk like this around people I don't know, of course! :P Hey! This is the fifteenth comment to this page, and not one of these fifteen has anything to do with the actual GAME. Hmmm....
It is obvious to me that no one on these pages has ever played Triple Triad before... No, Peter, flipping is non-recursive, and if you don't clarify the rules page right away then I'll start calling you 'Mithter Petey'! (j/k) If it was recursive, the game would degenerate into a race to see who could place the last link in a long chain, like John Lawson brought up. It would ultimately become cumbersome and boring. To Tony Quintanilla: First, it doesn't have to be a Fodder piece, but since it never attacks anything and is often taken on the opponent's first move, I decided to call it that. And I don't want to make the main board any bigger! I was going for something simple and elegant, much like the original (and brilliant) Triple Triad. So I used the extra spaces as 'holding tanks', because I can! (And what do you mean, 'Little 'Z' Man'?) This isn't a Chess/Go blend or a Chess/Othello blend! It's a Chess/TT blend! So there! I encourage EVERYONE here (and that means YOU TOO) to play Triple Triad Gold at ttg.qhimm.com and broaden their horizons! If you like this you'll love that! And while you're at it, go play an RPG! --Jared P.S. If this sounds irate, forgive me. I'm tired.
To Tony: RPGs (meaning video-game RPG's, not tabletop D&D stuff) are just plain cool, especially when you haven't hit twenty yet. (Incidentally, I haven't.) And, just to note, Qhimm, who wrote Triple Triad Gold, is not in any way affiliated with Squaresoft. To Glenn: Sorry! I didn't expect that anyone here would have played it! Are you under twenty, too? To Mithter Petey (tee hee hee!): Could you also note in the Setup section that a d20 is a twenty-sided die? Just so people who aren't familiar with that notation will know? --Jared (who is trying to come up with a Golden Sun themed CV, because Golden Sun (which is another RPG) is awesome)
Will the real Peter please stand up? Now will the real Peter please add the Chestria variant that gives the second player a copy of the first player's army to the page? (Also, will you ask your daughter why you couldn't make a GS-themed variant? Why couldn't you have one player trying to light the Elemental Lighthouses, and the other player try to stop them?) To Glenn: Did your nephews have any actual Triple Triad cards, which have been out of print since 1999 and are very rare, or did they show it to you on Final Fantasy 8? To Tony, if you're still around: Have you tried TTG yet? --Jared
Umm, it's May 2nd, and nothing is going on. --Jared
To Peter (sorry for the wait): Has Jenny played Golden Sun: The Lost Age yet? Because in it, you actually play as 'the dark side', except that it turns out that you're actually the 'light side'. (Also, rule clarification: A player may pass their last turn if and only if their only move is a special move and they have no pieces on-board.) To Mr. Kuchinski: CALM DOWN PLEASE and reread the rules thoroughly. Also, go try Triple Triad Gold (find it at www.qhimm.net or www.the-underdogs.org under 'T' if you can't get it at the former) to see where I'm coming from. There are no empty spaces at the end of a game, queens only attack eight spaces, SGs attack five, the most powerful piece is a Marshall/Cardinal (12 spaces if placed in the center). Blue can only have a clear advantage in the endgame if they can get over the disadvantage of having to place the Fodder, and if Red cannot play a good enough defense in order to try to nullify Blue's final moves (except for the special move, of course; if Blue gets a very powerful special, Red will have to work hard to overcome it). --Jared
Okay, this is a bizarre hybrid idea, but I thought I may as well come up with it... Why not a Chess/Pump It Up mix? (Pump It Up is one of those dancing games where you have to jump on big buttons.) It could be a kind of solitaire, where every turn you have to move all your pieces in order to hit every 'step', but you have to do it right so you can prepare to hit future 'steps' as well. --Jared
So now the twelve finalists are going to be judged as a single group? Is that it? Maybe someone oughta make a 'Round 2' page. --Jared
Tee Hee! I'm pretty sure that 8th vote was mine!
I voted for the first round! Can entrants vote in the second round? --Jared
If it's impossible to do that, how did he do it in the first place? It must not be impossible, or at least not to Europeans. Would someone please ZRFolize this? --Jared (EDIT) This should be under the Gufuushogi link! Oops!
Wonderful game! Would someone please ZRFolize this?
Wow! I've been called clever by the immortal variantist himself! *blush* But in this game, you win if you know the correct game, of course! Just like those stupid radio trivia thingies -- it's based on the honor system, but you get brownie points for being the first to call in. Also, in an attempt to be on-topic, how would you have doublewide games that don't have a 'home-row' type setup? Like Halma or Danadazo, for instance. --Jared
Danadazo is too a chess variant! I should know, too, because it's mine! Look under the 'boards with an unusual shape' section. What would doublewide hexagonal chess (a la Glinski or McCooey) look like? Or doublewide multiplayer variants? (Am I asking too many questions? Relative to you, I'm a CV 'n00b'.) --Jared
Can you let me know if you get/don't get mine too? Thanks. --Jared
Do entrants have to vote in this round? Are entrants banned from voting in this round? If an entrant may vote, may they vote for themselves? The rules do not make this clear. --Jared
Are you saying you don't know either, or are you trying to answer my question? I'm confused. (Incidentally, I'm also wondering what number Chestria placed.)
It seems to me that the Scorpion and Dragon are pretty clumsy, always having a fixed large range. Aren't they a little too difficult to use well? --Jared
The question that comes immediately to my mind is 'Why bother? Isn't it just a little too big to handle?' --Jared
Well, admittedly, it wasn't a very good game -- I designed the whole thing in less than ten hours. (Although I'm still honored that someone liked it that much!) If I could redo it, I'd remove the extra move and demotion rules, and make the board wider. Maybe I'll do that later.
The reasons I have a somewhat low opinion of this game are: 1. I did not spend very much time (in fact, almost no time at all) designing it. 2. I did not (and still do not) have a competent opponent to play it with. 3. I didn't win a prize with this game (admittedly, this is kind of juvenile, but it had a small influence nonetheless). I am honored, though, that so many people find this game attractive. However, I agree that the demotion rule is a very bad one (who was it who said a beautiful rule may not be a good one?), and would like any editor who happens to be passing by to remove the rule, and all references to it. I am working on a larger version of this, but I do not know how to say 'great dragon' or 'expanded dragon' in Japanese. In conclusion, if you would like to thank me for this game, email Steve Evans and ask him to incorporate it into his SV program. --Jared
I'm thinking about eliminating the entire double-move rule altogether. I do know that the demotion has got to go, though, and I like the 'no drops in zone 4' rule -- if you could drop there, they could drop adjacent to it and capture your piece with the just-dropped piece, assuming they have something in hand (unless I illegalize that, too, which I'm also considering). I'll probably send Mr. Aronson a revision sometime next week. (And I'm totally clueless when it comes to advanced ZRF programming techniques.) And as for the large version, the main reason I would want to do that would be to make more space (I'd like a piece density of about 40%). So I would probably be able to keep all the rules from the small version intact, and add a minimal amount of pieces. (And thanks, Mr. Lawson, for that name suggestion. Dai Ryu (Dairyu? Dai-ryu?) sounds good to me, too.) --Jared
I know Rules 2 and 6 are going, and Rule 4 modified to match. Rule 7 looks like it will be edited to say that a player with a bare king has the option of forfeit at any time. The Pawn-drop restriction will also go, except for the checkmate part (dropped pawns are much more powerful in this game than in normal Shogi). As for Rule 1, I like it because it forces the players to come up with somewhat more strategic methods of checkmate. (However, your suggestions have not gone unnoticed! How does Michael Nelson no Ryu Shogi sound for a variant name?) I will send an update in shortly. (My computer crashed recently, so I no longer have the original document. I will not be sending in a new file altogether, but rather some plain text.)
I've submitted the modifications, but I haven't got a reply from Mr. Aronson yet. Hopefully they'll be up by next week or so.
Grrr! I lost my Internet access yesterday and was in agony about the results, and I get online today and find that nothing happened! --Jared
Does anyone know who this 'under review' guy is, what he's doing, and what his messages mean?
I have always been an Ultima fan. This game was the major inspiration for Rook Mania (which incidentally spent about three years in development, and which I am developing a more 'traditional' version of). It amy be true that this game favors defense over offense, and it may not be a perfect game, but the concept -- having all the pieces move similarly, but capture differently -- is a purely beautiful one. I also agree with Mr. Aronson that the imbalance of pieces is not necessarily bad, although I do not necessarily agree with his analogy -- the reason those games faded out of popularity was probably in favor of more balanced ones.
It does look as if you may be waiting until 2004 (or at least November 2003) to announce the prizes, Mr. Overby. Also, when will the 44SC start? I've been working on my first entry for about a month now, because I just can't wait for you to announce it. --Jared
The first thing that I thought of was Double Royal Queen Chess, which should be self-explanatory. The second thing I thought of was Anti-King Chess or Anti-King Chess II with a queen replacing the original King, and thus removing the entire King Thing. I dunno about anything else, though.
Where is Mr. Overby? I am (and probably everyone else is, too) still waiting for an official prize announcement for the results of the 43SC and I'm positively aching to enter the 44SC! --Jared
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Isn't one king supposed to have a different marking, without the little 'tick' mark on it? --Jared
When will last year's winners get their prizes? Or did I miss something? --Jared
It would be really nice if this game could be linked to on the Oriental variants list. Could someone with mysterious editing powers do that for me, please? Also, I've been focusing on school and other variants lately, so Dai-Ryu is currently on the back burner. (I'm currently working on 44SC entries, a page for Yonin Shogi (which has precious few English resources available for it and which really ought to be a recognized variant), a page for a game which I compiled ages ago called Grand Shakomega, and a variant using Icehouse pieces which is based loosely on Yonin.) Thanks all, --Jared EDIT: Whoops, I forgot to mention something! I'm looking for someone who can provide me with traditional-style Kanji for the pieces of Ryu Shogi (and some pieces which will debut in Dai-Ryu). Anyone who can help, post here, please (don't email!).
Yes, that assumption would be correct. In fact, in the illustration, the white chameleon imitates four different types at once and puts the black King into check, since it could capture the King by replacement. This, however, brings another question to mind: Must a chameleon be adjacent to a King to capture it? Since there is an orthogonal restriction for them when capturing pawns, is there also a one-space restriction when checking the King?
--Jared
It seems to me that a true tetrahedral form of chess would have 'cells' which, in three dimensions, would take the form of rhombic dodecahedrons, which would allow the board to be pyramidial with 'hexagonal' tiled layers. (Rhombic dodecahedrons tesselate space quite nicely, you know, and naturally lend themselves to making tetrahedra with.) Does the current setup of this game allow for such an analogue? The board can be easily translated, complete with cell coloration and the same twelve directions, but can the rules be translated as easily? I'd love to see an attempt.
If anyone is interested, I have a problem of my own that could replace this one for the book prize.
Here's the deal. The boards are topologically identical, but I find the directions easier to visualize when the board is reoriented like that, since it is easier to see that the orthogonal directions are parallel to the edges of the board. I do not have any RT software at the moment, but I'm working on a variant using this setup myself, so you may see an MS Paint interpretation sometime soon. Here's a quick'n'dirty diagram of what I mean, on a 10-cell board: R Y G B R B R G Y R (Each layer is centered on top of the previous one.) As you may be able to see, when the board is reoriented in this way, each layer has a four-color tiling that makes Dabbabante (spelling?) moves about ten times easier to see, and it opens itself up to interesting interpretations of 'triagonal' movement. For example, the two green cells in the example above could be considered 'triagonally' adjacent. If you use a Glinski interpretation of a bishop, and extend it into all four 'hexagonal' planes that come out of a single cell, you get a non-colorbound piece. The problem with this setup is that it muddles your interpretation of pawn moves a bit, since 'forward' is in a totally different direction. If I'm not making any sense here, don't mind me. I came up with this a couple years ago on graph paper, and had been thinking about it a while before the 84SC, but I'm only now realizing the parallells.
I was going to use an order-4 octahedron for my variant, with armies on opposite faces. See if you can figure out why I'm using that shape.
Actually, I was thinking something along the lines of 'maximize the number of queens on a standard 91-cell hex chessboard,' because nobody's done that yet.
Oh, don't worry, I've got something in mind. *wink* Also, in an effort to remain on-topic here, I think it would be a very bad idea to make that sort of distinction between 'rook' and 'bishop' moves. since they are all topologically the same move. Rather, you could replace the 'rooks' and 'bishops' with differently defined pieces altogether. (For example, see D. Nalls' pages on the Zig-Zag, etc. pieces in the Piececlopedia.)
Sigh... The Internet is a mixed blessing.
Does anyone out there have a copy of the April 2004 issue of Games Magazine, which is in newsstands now? It has an interesting-looking variant in it which is being billed as 'The New Oldest Game in the World.' (Note the month of the issue.) I didn't have the opportunity to copy the rules down when I saw it (and besides, that'd be cheap), so does anyone else have a copy?
The Ascii diagram of the moves for the One through Seven are messed up.
One of the reasons I like Shogi so much is that you really do exchange pieces. 'Advantage in the exchange' takes on a whole new meaning, and there may be additional advantages to sacrificing a piece for the sake of being able to drop another. In fact, the very ability to drop makes the game so much deeper than FIDE Chess, yet the game seems so much more refined sometimes. I would suggest that another criterion, overall clarity, be added to the list. Sometimes when I read a new variant that has just been posted on the CVP, I think to myself, 'I bet it's fun when you figure it out!' Some games have learning curves the size of Omaha, and I find that a major problem. --Jared
I am still waiting for my fifth-place prize here! Or do I not get one?
You guys got my entries (and non-entry), right?
I was hoping you guys could cook up something. :)
By the way, a carriage return or two seem to have wandered away from their spot between the paragraph about Monks and the paragraph about Generals.
Can entrants vote for their own games in the second round? I would assume not, but I may be wrong.
This is not the place for asking about the ozone layer. Try an online encyclopedia.
Does anyone know of a good program which comes with a set of Tsume Shogi problems and which lets you try to solve them, preferably with a GUI?
It sounds interessting, except that *some* of us have already started working on 45-space variants! *growls*
It is impossible to read the text diagrams when there is no differentiation between players provided.
The references to Vantage Master Online should direct to the following link: http://www.falcom.co.jp/vantage/index_e.html I would encourage people to try this game, even if it is pretty far-fetched in the realm of chess variants.
If Regenbogen ends up being the only Extra entry, will it win by default or will it be disqualified and the category abandoned?
A quick observation: The contrasting black and white in those possible boards make my eyes hurt. Badly. A set of neutral colors would be much nicer looking.
'If there is only one, and also if there are two entries in the extra category, the judge (that is me) can decide to award no prize in this category.' Not even a li'l coffee mug for not following the crowd? ;) In all honesty, I would think that this decision would not be fair, as it would undercut the work I did on the game. I started designing this game months before the contest, and I would think that it should be possible for that work to pay off somehow, even if it is only a coffee mug. (Of course, if it is moved to the main category, I won't have any reason to complain, but I doubt that a preset could be easily constructed, and I am incapable of programming a computer version myself, for ZoG or otherwise.) Just my 2 cents. I'll shut up now.
I am aware that Game Courier is not well equipped to handle this game. It's actually one of those games which was designed to be played with... get this... ACTUAL, PHYSICAL PIECES, IN REAL LIFE! *waits for everyone on the CVP to gasp* Anyways, to answer your other questions: 'Clear' refers to the clear, colorless pieces, while 'translucent' refers to the colored pieces. Opaque means either black or white, not clear or translucent. Orientation is a term borrowed from videogames, to mean an orientation with a single part of the Spectrum, analogous to having an elemental orientation. And the number of Pawns and Drones which can be stacked depends on their function, be it to determine the owner of the piece, in which case the answer is one, or to determine how much health a piece has or how many spells left a Cleric has, in which case the rules should clearly state the number, unless I have forgotten something. And the references to VMO should still point to the link.
Hmmm... Fergus Duniho wants to see hairy men in bras... ;P I second the idea that the link be removed.
Will the CVP be covering this game in depth (i.e. with piece lists, etc., in the manner of many MTG sites) when it is released? I'm extremely interested in this game myself, and it being a chess variant, and a collectable one at that, I would think that it would be the CVP's duty to include in-depth coverage. (Of course, they could link to another fansite, but that wouldn't be as good, IMO -- what would be better for drawing in new visitors to the site than a good section on a game they want to know about?)
Oh, it has an antecedent all right. In the meantime, Fergus, shut up.
First of all, Magic the Gathering has caught on -- you just need to know where to look for it. I see MTG players all the time at our local community college, as an example. One of the things I keep seeing in this discussion is the lack, at present, of team-building rules. I would like to point out that most CCGs have no such rules, except those like disallowing too many of one card in a deck (and I would assume that this would eventually get a rule like that at some point). The reason for this is that there is a counterbalance to power and usefulness, that counterbalance being the rarity (and eventually, street cash value) of said cards. (There is often another counterbalance, too: the cost to utilize rarer and more powerful things. When playing Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, you can't play strong monster cards without either sacrificing weaker ones or obtaining a bunch of cards to 'fuse' together. This kind of counterbalance is already in Navia Dratp in promotion powers.) My two cents on the anthromorphic-style pieces, as opposed to abstract stuff: It's possible to create a set of pieces which are quite easy to distinguish from each other. Look at Battle Chess, for instance. Besides, I don't really see how you could get different pieces in Navia Dratp easily confused, since they all have that little descriptive disc on them. Finally, I hope that this game doesn't get a Saturday morning cartoon (or any other morning, for that matter) because when anything gets its own cartoon, it turns into a game that most older players 'wouldn't be caught dead with.'
It pertains to the discussion because he is trying to tell everyone who has dismissed any part of it, since it isn't necessarily the entire ruleset of a game which makes people dislike it -- sometimes a seemingly minor issue can cause someone to dislike an otherwise good game. I would like to know whether Matt Arnold is actually an inventor of this game, as its entry states. I know he did invent the four-handed variation, but I thought that was pretty much it.
One of the reasons that video-game adaptations of these sorts of games are so great is that the only money you spend is the $20-$50 on the game itself... Of course if successive versions are released, we all know how that goes. Still, there really isn't anything like playing a game with physical pieces with a human sitting opposite you. An average of $3 a piece may seem a little high, but do recall that you use much fewer pieces in an army for Navia Dratp than you do cards in any given CCG, meaning that in the long run you may spend less money to get a 'really good' set. Of course, none of us knows until it's released. I suggest we all wait until then, and *then* start to bash the game's little details.
Did you guys get my votes? I sent them in awhile ago.
When I submitted entries to the 44SC contest, I also submitted a third variant, entitled Glacial Shift, which had nothing to do with the contest. I am afraid that in the hubbub of the submission deadline and voting starting, the game was either lost or forgotten about. If necessary I can send it again.
Any opposing piece in a Basilisk's line of sight is frozen, with the exception of the enemy Basilisk. It is possible to freeze up to four pieces simultaneously, none of which have to have the same distance from the Basilisk as any other frozen piece. Basically, any enemy piece a normal Rook couild capture from the Basilisk's square is frozen.
Why not have 7 be the limit, and make a stack of 7 be a King, instead of having a royal stone? (Then you only have one type of piece, making the game much, er, abstracter, as well as adding more strategies!)
Okay, I know this isn't official at the moment, and there's really no point to this, but hey. Chebble Play on a Scrabble board. Each player has four each of Rook, Knightrider, and Bishop in hand, as well as one King. Kings start in opposite corners. Play Scrabble as usual. Before making a play, you must move a chess piece. Scrabble tiles may not be played to an occupied space, and chess pieces may not move through tiles (although Knightriders may leap them). Besides moving, a player may spend points they have accumulated to drop a piece adjacent to their King. It costs 10 points to drop a Knightrider, 20 points to drop a Bishop, and 30 points to drop a Rook. It costs double or triple points to drop on a premium square, depending on the premium (double word or letter costs double, triple word or letter costs triple). You may not drop a piece into a position from which it immediately gives check. Kings may remain in check, but cannot be mated. Instead, a player receives a point bonus for each piece of theirs checking their opponent's King at the end of their turn. You receive 5 points for checking with a Knightrider, 10 points for checking with a Bishop, and 15 points for checking with a Rook. Any checking piece on a letter premium square receives an appropriate multiplier which is applied to its checking bonus. Any checking piece on a word premium square similarly multiplies all checking pieces. It is of course possible to have a checking piece have its own multiplier as well as one or more other multipliers granted it by other checking pieces. Play ends when the game of Scrabble is over, after which the player with the highest score wins.
When did that happen? Did I miss a news post or something? And why did it happen?
I would like to make a nomination for Courier chess. This game is an interesting look at the historical development of the modern game of chess, as it includes both the archaic and modern forms of the bishop, and contains the Ferz rather than a modern Queen, thus suggesting that the modern Bishop's move was 'invented' first. In addition, according to these pages' entry for the game, the game was played widely throughout Germany during the Middle Ages, although it later died out (in favor of the modern game, I would assume). The game is very playable and would make a sensible addition to the Recognized list, in my opinion.
If I were to reconstruct the game based on the material given, I would have assumed it would differ from the rules presented on this page in two ways: Rather than cannons, there would be two rooks. The rook is a piece which is found in every historical game to date, and there is no reason which a piece that 'resembles a castle' shouldn't be one. The knight would not be able to move one space orthogonally (this might be the result of an inaccurate diagram on Kisljuk's part, however). As for the pawn move, since no information is really given, either a Shogi or a Changgi interpretation would work, although the latter probably makes for a more playable game. --Jared
The crystals are called gyullahs, and gold ones are worth 20, not 30. Also the pawns are called gulleds.
Thanks for clearing that up, Fergus. I would also like to point out that Fergus did previously state that new CVs would be added to the RCV list, but on a 'less frequent' than monthly basis. We're not just throwing everything we like on this list.
I, too, think Fergus's idea is excellent. I also think that 'time-testedness' is a perfectly good word, and wish I could find more opportunities in which to use it.
I agree that Changgi should be on the Classic list. Maybe Makruk and/or Sittuyin as well?
It seems to me that Courier Chess has been ommitted from the group of games which can be voted for. Unless this was intentional, I suggest we throw out the current votes and start again with it included.
It seems to me that this concept was taken by Christian Freeling and adapted to fit Grand Chess, where it works almost as well.
What happened to Dai-Ryu Shogi? I submitted it several weeks ago...
The assumption by the unnamed individual is correct. Also, a link to Ryu Shogi where it is referenced in the rules would be a very good idea. Also, I will not be renaming any pieces in this variant. See, I had this thing called a THEME going.
I had actually thought about that, but eventually decided against it. As it is, the Knights/L.D.s are still the only leaping piece, and besides, I think I've already added enough power to the original Ryu setup with the Platinum Generals/Dragons.
As stated directly in the moves section: 'As a general rule, the promoted forms of pieces retain the movement powers of their third-zone unpromoted counterparts.' In other words, promotion does not change the third-zone move so much as it changes the domain of the move by extending it back to the first two zones. This also happens to apply to Dai-Ryu.
The board is not actually spherical, but rather is a torus with a half-twist.
All the same, it would be nice to see who did. If you don't wish to disclose the information, though, why not just come out and say so? I would assume BWII wasn't disqualified and was in fact not voted for well, due to a bad case of rehash disease. I honestly don't know what came over me.
Would it be possible to create a printer-friendly version of this page, without all the links and stuff? I just got a set for Christmas (yay!) and I'd like to keep a copy of the rules with me.
Roberto: I actually got it from my mother, who ordered a board and a set of wooden pieces from www.yutopian.com. It's not too bad of a set, although it's obviously not professional quality. To stay on topic: Do we have a resource that lists the original Japanese names (and English translations) of the pieces? This page doesn't.
Or perhaps have it replace a Knight on the board, and play from there as Pocket Knight.
Or, of course, we could have it replace the Queen. This actually sounds the most interesting to me.
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