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Ramayana Chess. Chess variant inspired by the Ramayana epic. (Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
George Duke wrote on Mon, Mar 9, 2009 06:25 PM UTC:
Thanks, Charles, we'll re-look at those. I am assuming Campos means Giraffe for reasons that will become clear. Any board size has it factors, prime and non-prime. If you want a board of 77 squares, you're stuck with 7x11 and 77x1. 7x11 is about right, but ''1-Dim'' (as termed in the field of CVart) 77x1 is high and narrow. Ramayana(2002) is just about the first to solve the problem by innovative outliers. Incidentally, Luiz Carlos Campos and myself are in minority giving rank first then file rather than more conventional x first and y in two axes. Either way, horizontal or vertical first, the context well clarifies the meaning. Now outlier squares after Ramayana warrant board of 8x8 squares and distribution of 13 more symmetrically after some fashion. For 77, try an Omega-Chess-style triple corner at each of the four corners, like Falcon Chess 100 does in wrap-arounds of a1, a8, h1, and h8: we call them there y0, y1, y8, y9, a0, a9, h0, h9, z0, z1, z8, z9. That's (12 squares) + 64 = 76, and now one more as multiple occupancy super-square over, beneath, or through central d4, d5, e4, e5 covering all four of them at once. That does it. 64 + 12 +1 = 77. Symmetry, even for 77, thanks to outliers Ramayana-like. Think of possibilities that any board size whatsoever is attainable and representable. Instead, subverting rotational symmetry that we expect in boards, Ramayana elects outlier squares confined to Yellow's right (to be continued), still exhibiting reflection (bilateral) symmetry rotated pi/2 radians, since the whole board is mirror-symmetric about the line midway between the Untouchables.