Game Reviews by ultimatecoolster

This is a creative game. I have a suggestion: Have the holes in the opening setup filled with a Marshall and Cardinal.

The pieces in this game don't coincide very well, and the King is too complex.

I don't like this game that much. You have strengthened the royal and defensive pieces while decreasing the amount of offensive pieces. The Point is covered by the Rook, too, which is unlike Minishogi where it defends against the opponent's.

You might as well call this game Ultimate Xiang Qi. The Ferry variant is a tiny bit more aggressive, however, which makes it OK, balanced by the awkwardness of the Ferry.

I think it would be interesting if you lose if all of your pieces can make a legal move.

Hmm. The problem to me does not seem to be the assymmetry, but, rather, the clockwise nature. The rear Pawns merely serve as a block for their own pieces, aiding in their attack.

You can play with Pawns promoting to Princes instead of Queens, as they lie on the second rank, as the Shogi Bishop and Shogi Rook do. You can even play with a naive promotion of Bishops to Primates, Rooks to Chatelaines, and Pawns and Knights to Queens. Of course, the Draughts variant is not playable. In Draughts, you must move forward, so there is no opportunity to permanently block. Rithe with capture, the board clears up and the pieces that can move backward cannot cower behind a wall. What defense there is is solved by zugzwang. Your variant fails in that one can move a King into an opponent's corner and blockade him with dropped Men and another King, providing only enough space for tempo moves, with the Men blocking any mandatory capture.

This is an interesting way of looking at Chess!

I helped, no? ;) One question: Why can a Panthan move obliquely orthogonally backward? Is this to preserve it's 'except this space' nature?

Your 4-player 16x16 Chess is a good idea.

A related game would be Zzo38 A. Black's Decay Shogi.

Can a player win by stalemating their opponent? Funny thing!; I actually created this variant before I read about it. I guess it's a good idea, then, right?

Interestingly, checkmate can be done with any piece, with imperfect play, and many pieces, with perfect play. I would prefer if Citadel occupation were a win, however.

This is like Chess without those drawish endgames! The koma are a wee iffy, though. Why did you choose them?

Note that there is no need for much backward movement as the pieces can be captured and repositioned. There is always at least one piece that can move backward. This game is different than simply a miniature version of Shogi, because the promotion is not as monotonous.

omg this is so cool its likke benidict ultima!!!!

How interesting! I wonder why you implemented it in Zillions, however, as it is has a very high branching factor.

Despite the improvement of the game via the Pawns and Elephants (and, of course, the modern rules), there are still two ridiculously weak pieces in the game: namely, the Queen and Schleich. I would recommend combining them into another Man, and using the Bishop Adjustment Rule.

Actually, the Pawns are, excluding the General, the strongest pieces in the game. The Prince is royal, the Bishop cannot access the Castle, and the Horses, Camels, and Elephants are more awkward than them. One suggestion to this game would be to lessen the General's power, somehow, to fit with the rest of the pieces, and to have the Bows on the right of the Swords, making more of them able to access the Castle.

There's too much promotion!

Arr! There be many draws!

You accidentally made one of the Kings a Rook in the Shogi variant. The Shogi variant is terrible, also, because Shogi pieces are meant to go forward, toward the enemy, or they're useless.

Please explain the movement of the pieces better. Of what I understand, this seems like more of a Go or Reversi type game than a Chess type game.

White has the advantage of a more quickly promoting centre Pawn but it is balanced somewhat by the reverse symmetry. The imbalance between the colours, both in terms of the board and the armies, makes the game ugly, as does the Bishop Adjustment Rule. This is one of the reasons I created Modern Makruk. The most obvious solution would be to include a Marshall, but that would just be another Carrera variant, which may be one of the reasons for the creation of this. I, however, consider the Marshall the lesser of the two evils. Shogi does not suffer from either of these flaws because symmetrical centre Pawn play is disadvantageous for the first player and the Bishops are naturally unbound both by promotion and drops.