Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Sep 13, 2008 05:44 PM UTC:
[Apologies for cross-posting, but with some topics, it's all but inevitable.]
In comments on specific games [Mega-chess, Beyond Omega, Rococo], George has brought up issues of board size, or what constitutes a 'large' game, and questions of quality, or why bother?
Earlier in this particular thread, Graeme Neatham offered a classification of board sizes that he then expanded and put in the wiki. It's a very good size classification in the wiki, and drops the size adjectives [ie: 'large']for a scale based on the board's number of locations. [Given the rampant individualism here, few are likely to adopt it.]
Why bother? '90% of anything is crap!' That famous quote says 10% isn't crap, maybe 1% is good, and maybe 1% of that is great, if you look at the quote from the other end. I'm interested in that 10%, and accept that I'll see a lot that doesn't do much for me.
Why extremely large boards? Cross-fertilization of ideas can be very fruitful [and maybe even show some hybrid vigor]. Two areas that are of interest are wargames and cellular automata. Both use 'boards' with hundreds to thousands of locations. Both can lend unique ideas to chess variants that can only properly be played out on larger scales than CVs normally see. There are undoubtedly many other great areas to cross with chess. These ideas, certainly, are worth pursuit, even if much that's presented is absolutely terrible. [This thread is on large sizes, so a long discussion on piece types is inappropriate here. But new piece types is another area that is worth exploring. Even refinement of existing piece types is worthwhile on occasion. You do get some good with the bad. C'est la vie!]
In comments on specific games [Mega-chess, Beyond Omega, Rococo], George has brought up issues of board size, or what constitutes a 'large' game, and questions of quality, or why bother?
Earlier in this particular thread, Graeme Neatham offered a classification of board sizes that he then expanded and put in the wiki. It's a very good size classification in the wiki, and drops the size adjectives [ie: 'large']for a scale based on the board's number of locations. [Given the rampant individualism here, few are likely to adopt it.]
Why bother? '90% of anything is crap!' That famous quote says 10% isn't crap, maybe 1% is good, and maybe 1% of that is great, if you look at the quote from the other end. I'm interested in that 10%, and accept that I'll see a lot that doesn't do much for me.
Why extremely large boards? Cross-fertilization of ideas can be very fruitful [and maybe even show some hybrid vigor]. Two areas that are of interest are wargames and cellular automata. Both use 'boards' with hundreds to thousands of locations. Both can lend unique ideas to chess variants that can only properly be played out on larger scales than CVs normally see. There are undoubtedly many other great areas to cross with chess. These ideas, certainly, are worth pursuit, even if much that's presented is absolutely terrible. [This thread is on large sizes, so a long discussion on piece types is inappropriate here. But new piece types is another area that is worth exploring. Even refinement of existing piece types is worthwhile on occasion. You do get some good with the bad. C'est la vie!]