I am very busy at the moment with real-estate matters (renovation of one apartment, and attempts to buy and move to another place), which leaves me very little time to work on chess programming. So the general AI written in C will still stay on the back burner for some time. The mandatory-capture feature was surprisingly simple, because it used the already existing capture matrix, and took me just a few hours, so I could squeeze it into my schedule. What also helped is that it was a feature that potentially had wide application, amongst which one of the most popular chess variants (Suicide Chess). A generalized Joker seems a niche application I never heard of before you brought it up. It would probably require more work, and that I generally dislike imitators didn't help its case either. But if you are eagerly waiting for it I will try to give it somewhat higher priority.
I like Scirocco (as well as Chu Shogi, by which it is clearly inspired) because the emphasis is on relatively weak pieces there. Most variants have a disproportionally large fraction of queen-class pieces, often not adding any minors at all. And I like subtlety better than the brute force this leads to. In large variants the goal of checkmate is usually impossible to achieve until very late in the game, the King sheltering behind several layers of defending pieces. In the mean time you can only hope for a tactical mistake by the opponent leading to a trade that gains some material. In Scirocco promotion can be a second objective, which often gains you more than a piece exchange. It is difficult to defend against even when most of the pieces are still there, because the initial pieces on average are pretty weak. And the large depth of the promotion zone makes it readily accessible even if there are still many pieces; you don't have to fight your way to last rank, like you would have to do to get at the King. And all pieces promote, even the relatively fast ones. So you are always in danger, during every phase of the game.
In addition Scirocco has some peculiariarities that are not very common, such as Checkers-like capture and move induction. (Like Chu Shogi has the multi-leg moves.) Without overdoing it by making too many pieces have these exotic properties. That there are many different pieces might be intimidating for an orthodox Chess player, but as a veteran chess-variants enthousiast I am already familiar with most of those.
I would not say your Apothecary creations are very complex; Brouhaha squares seem pretty easy to grasp. They are just large.
I am very busy at the moment with real-estate matters (renovation of one apartment, and attempts to buy and move to another place), which leaves me very little time to work on chess programming. So the general AI written in C will still stay on the back burner for some time. The mandatory-capture feature was surprisingly simple, because it used the already existing capture matrix, and took me just a few hours, so I could squeeze it into my schedule. What also helped is that it was a feature that potentially had wide application, amongst which one of the most popular chess variants (Suicide Chess). A generalized Joker seems a niche application I never heard of before you brought it up. It would probably require more work, and that I generally dislike imitators didn't help its case either. But if you are eagerly waiting for it I will try to give it somewhat higher priority.
I like Scirocco (as well as Chu Shogi, by which it is clearly inspired) because the emphasis is on relatively weak pieces there. Most variants have a disproportionally large fraction of queen-class pieces, often not adding any minors at all. And I like subtlety better than the brute force this leads to. In large variants the goal of checkmate is usually impossible to achieve until very late in the game, the King sheltering behind several layers of defending pieces. In the mean time you can only hope for a tactical mistake by the opponent leading to a trade that gains some material. In Scirocco promotion can be a second objective, which often gains you more than a piece exchange. It is difficult to defend against even when most of the pieces are still there, because the initial pieces on average are pretty weak. And the large depth of the promotion zone makes it readily accessible even if there are still many pieces; you don't have to fight your way to last rank, like you would have to do to get at the King. And all pieces promote, even the relatively fast ones. So you are always in danger, during every phase of the game.
In addition Scirocco has some peculiariarities that are not very common, such as Checkers-like capture and move induction. (Like Chu Shogi has the multi-leg moves.) Without overdoing it by making too many pieces have these exotic properties. That there are many different pieces might be intimidating for an orthodox Chess player, but as a veteran chess-variants enthousiast I am already familiar with most of those.
I would not say your Apothecary creations are very complex; Brouhaha squares seem pretty easy to grasp. They are just large.