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Bellows Chess. The board expands and contracts from turn to turn. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

💡📝Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sat, Jan 8, 2005 04:24 PM UTC:

Larry, 

You got me! This is what could be called the 'Zillions Effect.' I
usually design my games in Zillions first and then write the article. I
initially wanted to have the game work like you suggest, but I could not
think of an easy way to program it. 

Instead, I created a special random-moving (?)neutral pin piece that
toggles through a special move direction from an 8x8 corner to a single
10x10 corner to a single 12x12 corner and back to the 8x8 corner. The pin
makes a random, but unidirectional, move automatically before White. Each
piece has to verify the location of the pin piece before moving into the
corresponding board area. The corner pin is also a visual reminder for the
players. Simple. 

However, I could not think of a move direction that reverses from the
12x12 corner back to 10x10 back to 8x8, or another simple method to move
the pin in a reversing way! 

So, I decided to abandon the reversing rule in the interest of programming
simplicity!! Oh scandal, to let computer considerations determine the rules
of chess! Ok -- I'm not a purist. I'll post the ZRF soon.