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here's the latest version of the sprites  I use for shogi.

To identify the promoted silver, we could also consider putting color on 2 stars?

here's the latest version of the sprites I use for shogi.

Do you play Shogi with those pieces yourself, or do you just think they are good enough for other people?

It's an attempt to find a more accessible representation to accompany the reference implementation for the drop model that HG Muller gives to Jocly. So yes, for the moment I'm using it, but I'm going to align myself with the choices made for Jocly.

From your answer, I gather that you're just using these pieces for testing purposes, but you do not normally use them for playing Shogi. Speaking as someone who normally does use western pieces for Shogi, I find these pieces inadequate. They are inconsistent in design, they make little distinction between Gold and Silver Generals, and they make no distinction between different promoted Knights, Lances, and Silver Generals. Also, they come in different colors instead of appearing on wedges with different orientations.

The most accessible western set I use is based on the Chess Motif font and is featured on the Shogi page here. The other one, which is entirely my own design, is featured on Cut-Out Symbolic Shogi Pieces.

'Wedges' are awful. They make the the pieces look more alike than different, and take up valuable space that could have been used to express the difference. Distinguishing sides by color is infinitely superior than distinguishing sides by orientation, as the brain is hard-wired to recognize it by parallel processing. There really is no significant difference between playing with traditional kanji pieces and playing with wedge-like pieces with other inscriptions, for a game with so few piece types as Shogi; they equally suck, for the same reason. But due to the rules of Shogi and physical limitations they are a necessary evil for over-the-board play.

If we would prpose to orthodox Chess players that they should draw wedges around the pieces in their diagrams, they would laugh themselves silly, and think we are insane. And there is no real difference between Chess diagrams and Shogi diagrams; the purpose is exactly the same.

We could easily add an extra skin inspired by Chess Motif, but we'd have trouble I suppose managing the orientation of the pieces.

If you want to suggest a sprite set (100*100px) we can make a try to give a choice close to the preferences of the player.

The existing generals, lances are used in some variants now and will be kepts for coherence among variants but can still evolve a little I suppose.

Perhaps. Ideally, each piece should be easily distinguishable from the others.

Since the move of the generals is very similar, I never considered a big problem that the pictograms for them are somewhat similar too. In Japanese also don't consider it a problem that one of the two kanji on the pieces are identical. I would not have any trouble to play with the generals as they are.

Of course the various promotion Golds should be distinguishable. And I don't think it is a good idea to represent the Tokin as a Pawn; they all move as Gold, so I think it is best they all look like one. I would propose to have 1, 2 or 3 red dots on the cap for promoted Pawn, Knight and Silver, respectively, with as mnemonic that these have 1, 2 or 3 forward moves. That keeps the same symbol for the Tokin as in the larger variants. That leaves the matter of the Lance. Perhaps we should just draw a horizontal red line on the cap for that, to symbolize it is a slider.

We could easily add an extra skin inspired by Chess Motif

I made these with the help of Game Courier, which I used to position the pieces properly.

I made the first one based on the colors used for the western set, but based on the orientation of the ones in the Japanese set, I think the second is actually the correct one.

but we'd have trouble I suppose managing the orientation of the pieces.

Game Courier handles this with a variable called $flip, which when set to true switches the pieces for the upsidedown orientation. You might do something similar in Jocly.

If you want to suggest a sprite set (100*100px)

These pieces are normally sized for 50x50 spaces, but I increased the scale to 200, which doubled them in size.

Game Courier handles this with a variable called $flip, which when set to true switches the pieces for the upsidedown orientation. You might do something similar in Jocly.

I cannot speak for François, but it seems to me you severely over-estimate our abilities to modify Jocly. It is not a program that we wrote ourselves. Implementing new games is one thing, because the original developer intentionally tried to make that easy, and published tutorials for how it should be done. Altering the Jocly core is a completely different matter.

Looking at the code there makes me realize that I only master about 20% of JavaScript (the part it has in common with C); trying to understand the wizardry used there is somewhat similar to reading a Chinese text armed with only the knowledge of the Latin alphabet.

So in short: doing what you propose would be approximately as difficult for me as it would be for you to do it yourself, and comparable to the task of rephrasing one sentence in the Chinese translation of the bible...

I'm fine with that, for me the most important thing is that jocly get

-a sprite set and not just the kanjis tiles

-that the pieces used are similars from one variant to the next.

As far as the representation is concerned, you're entitled to decide on the final touch since you're making the contribution.

here's a quick first draft to see what it would look like: select 2d motif in the drop down.

Of course, transparency need to be improved . I don't know if the orientation will be correct in all situations (if you change player and/or view as ...).

I won't be available in the next few days, but we'll be able to try again at the end of the week.

Note that even the Japanese don't draw tiles around the kanji when they publish diagrams (e.g. tsume puzzles).

We could also consider a 3d motif instead, for a presentation reminiscent of tiles.

I just wanted to point out that several skins could be envisaged, and that everyone could make their own selection according to their preferences.

here's a quick first draft to see what it would look like: select 2d motif in the drop down.

Right now, you're using the pieces that are upsidedown for the first player. I would recommend including both sets, so that the player has the option of choosing which set is rightsideup for the side he is playing.

transparency need to be improved.

I had meant to make them transparent, but I suppose I forgot a step in the process. So I reloaded the images, made sure to complete all steps, and tested the results for transparency. You just need to refresh your browser cache to see them.

So in short: doing what you propose would be approximately as difficult for me as it would be for you to do it yourself, and comparable to the task of rephrasing one sentence in the Chinese translation of the bible...

The simpler solution is to provide the set in two different orientations and let the player choose which one is rightsideup for him.

That's a good idea. The 'Classical' representation also suffers from the flipping problem, and this could be used there too.

Note that even the Japanese don't draw tiles around the kanji when they publish diagrams (e.g. tsume puzzles).

Traditionally, these were published in print media, such as newspapers and books. Since they were already printing Japanese text, it wouldn't be difficult for them to print half-Kanji piece names, whereas it would probably take extra equipment, such as specially made typefaces, to print full representations of Shogi pieces. It would probably also take up more space if they printed full representations of pieces in their varying sizes, and in print media, extra space costs more. At least, Japanese readers could easily tell which pieces belonged to each side by their orientation. For them, this would be as easy as it is for us to tell when Latin characters are upsidedown, and maybe even easier, as we have some letters that look the same upsidedown (O, I, H, X) and some that look like each other upsidedown (M and W, p and d). For westerners with less familiarity with the Japanese language, it helps to have pieces in wedge shapes. A computer interface for playing Shogi does not have the limitations of print media, it is not targeted at just a Japanese audience, and since it is used for playing the game instead of just solving puzzles, every way it can simulate the experience of playing across the board helps.

Well, it would be very easy for westerners and Japanese alike to see whether the traditional glyphs for chess pieces are printed upside down, so there is just as little need for drawing tiles around them as it is for the Japanes to draw them around ther kanji. And space is more cramped on a computer (or telephone!) display than on a newspaper page, so that would be another important reason for not drawing them.

Simulating the experience of playing across the board helps??? To chase people away, most likely! Playing Shogi across the board is an absolutely horrible experience. It is the main reason why the Dutch Chess Association has about 150,000 members, and the Dutch Shogi Association only 56...

Well, it would be very easy for westerners and Japanese alike to see whether the traditional glyphs for chess pieces are printed upside down

Only for westerners with enough experience using Japanese pieces. For beginners or for players who choose to stick with western pieces, not so much.

And space is more cramped on a computer (or telephone!) display than on a newspaper page

Yes, space is cramped on a phone. Even when I loaded Jocly into my iPad earlier today, the display of the board and pieces was too small. However, the issue I raised was not that newspaper pages were cramped. It was that everything printed on a newspaper costs money to print. My desktop monitor, while still smaller than a newspaper page, is more than large enough to comfortably play Shogi.

Simulating the experience of playing across the board helps???

I should say simulate or enhance with a preference for enhance. Computers can enhance the experience of playing Shogi by enforcing rules, showing legal moves, and letting each player use a set he is comfortable with. But using evenly-sized half-Kanji characters without wedge shapes is not an enhancement unless that is how a particular player prefers to play, which might help on a phone, though it's harder to imagine anyone would have a preference for them on a larger display.

Only for westerners with enough experience using Japanese pieces.

I was not talking about japanese pieces. The issue is whether people without any experience whatsoever could see the difference between this  and this , or whether they would need help of a surrounding pentangle before they could spot the difference. Seems to me the pentagle is totally useless. Of course it would be far easier still to see the difference between this  and this .

There is no accounting for tastes, but some representations are just objectively inferior. This could be measured by how long it takes people not familiar with any of the representations under test can see the solution to trivial problems (like "what is the best capture in this position", while PxQ is possible). That there are people that like the inferior doesn't make it any less inferior.

Seems to me the pentagle is totally useless.

In my Symbolic set, it's the only thing that will distinguish between Pawns or Gold Generals on each side.

While they could more easily tell Silver Generals apart, it would take some learning, but the wedge shapes help a player immediately tell which is which.

If it weren't for the baselines in the Motif set, it would have similar problems. But even when players can recognize the orientation of each piece without wedge shapes, these shapes provide a consistent means of recognizing which side is which that doesn't require further knowledge of the individual pieces, and that can be helpful even when you do already recognize the pieces.

Also, in the western set I criticized, the Silver and Gold General images would be too unfamiliar to players for them to easily tell which is on which side right away if only orientation was used to distinguish them. When I first looked at them, it seemed like they were oriented differently than the other pieces, and it took me a while to figure out that they probably represented epaulettes on a shoulder.

In my Symbolic set, it's the only thing that will distinguish between Pawns or Gold Generals on each side.

Well, that just shows how unsuitable the set is. You would not have that problem if one of the two players used black pieces.

Also, in the western set I criticized, the Silver and Gold General images would be too unfamiliar to players for them to easily tell which is on which side right away if only orientation was used to distinguish them. When I first looked at them, it seemed like they were oriented differently than the other pieces, and it took me a while to figure out that they probably represented epaulettes on a shoulder.

The point is of course that orientation is not used to distinguish them at all. They will never be displayed upside-down, but one is white and the other black. The stars are just to distinguish the 'rank' of the generals; the more stars the higher. And this number happens to coincide with the number of non-forward moves, which offers the oppotunity to place them in a pattern that is slightly mnemonic for the direction of these moves in the white POV.

Well, that just shows how unsuitable the set is. You would not have that problem if one of the two players used black pieces.

No, it is not unsuitable at all, and it is not a problem, for it follows the Shogi convention of using pointed wedges to distinguish sides instead of the Chess convention of coloring pieces differently.

Yes, and that is exactly what makes over-the-board Shogi such a terrible game. That convention is highly inferior.

Yes, and that is exactly what makes over-the-board Shogi such a terrible game. That convention is highly inferior.

Well, this helps illuminate what you meant when you said this:

Playing Shogi across the board is an absolutely horrible experience.

Anyway, I disagree with you. I find the Shogi convention better for Shogi and the Chess convention better for Chess. At least with computers we can let players use whichever convention they prefer.

Anyway, I disagree with you. I find the Shogi convention better for Shogi and the Chess convention better for Chess. At least with computers we can let players use whichever convention they prefer.

Well, as I pointed out, it is not a matter of opinion. What is a better representation for playing a game is a verifyable fact, measurable by the average rating drop or raise people would get when having to play with one representation or another. E.g. representing all pieces by empty squares (aka blindfold chess) usually greatly degrades the rating of non-GM players, and can thus be considered an unsuitable representation for playing Chess.

And 'disagreeing with facts' is also known as 'being wrong'.

For people that want to experience the difference between using pictogram and tile pieces, I set up a simple speed test cq dexterity game here.

The idea that Shogi and Chess would have different needs does seem rather inconsistent, as they are practically the same game. I have difficulty identifying any aspect of either game that would cause such a difference.

But it is indeed good that people can choose their representation on a computer independently of that used by the opponent. If there is at least one suitable representation amongst the choices.

Dear friends, I'm following your interesting discussion. From my perspective, I feel that you are both right with your respective arguments, difficult to say.

HG, I found your little game quite funny. Well, I did 2.6 for pictograms and 4.3 for kanjis, but is not so meaningful. First, I am an European, not used to see kanjis. I guess a Japanese or a Chinese would go faster. Second, it just mean that color is perceived quicker than the orientation of a wedged shape. So what? Chess nor chu shogi is a game of speed, it doesn't matter if my brain needs 2s more to identify a situation. Third, the problem just focuses on identifying an anomaly in the setup, things can be quite different for a full evaluation of the situation on a board. There is difference between the two systems might be reduced to an unsignificant number. I mean if I need 1 mn to evaluate a full board, spending few seconds more because of the color-or-orientation system is not a problem per se. Especially if I were an Eastern-educated person.

Now, speaking of my personal experience, I just played once shogi on-board, against my French publisher, who was more at ease than me with kanjis, and it was a ... massacre. I remember being surprised of how difficult it was to identify the opponent pieces because the kanjis were upside-down for me. Even though I knew of all them. I concluded that I would probably need a 1-kanji set instead of a 2-kanji set. And, I confess, I bought a second set but with ... pictograms! Shame on me.

Well, as I pointed out, it is not a matter of opinion. What is a better representation for playing a game is a verifyable fact, measurable by the average rating drop or raise people would get when having to play with one representation or another. E.g. representing all pieces by empty squares (aka blindfold chess) usually greatly degrades the rating of non-GM players, and can thus be considered an unsuitable representation for playing Chess.

And 'disagreeing with facts' is also known as 'being wrong'.

The pictograms are better at distinguishing the sides visually (e.g. the Mnemonic pieces for the large variants). However, Shogi uses Kanji pieces by tradition, and it has been this way even before the drop rule was added. Most Japanese players use this system, and even Western players (such as myself) have a tendency to use the kanji system as well. It doesn't take that long to learn and recognize the Kanji pieces.

The idea that Shogi and Chess would have different needs does seem rather inconsistent, as they are practically the same game. I have difficulty identifying any aspect of either game that would cause such a difference.

In theory they would be the same, but Shogi uses the drop rule, which by its nature necessitates a way to distinguish pieces that is not dependent on color.

Some years ago the 81doju server was also offering Chu Shogi, and I spent many hours there watching games, as my Chu Shogi program played there as a bot. One of the things I learned is that people tended to play at blitz speeds. Considering the much larger number of moves in a Chu Shogi game than in a Chess game, games of 30 min already require blitz speeds, and people don't want to play real-time games that last more than an hour.

Another thing I learned was that they tend to blunder because they overlooked an enemy piece that had ventured amongst their own pieces. (And then apologized "oh sorry, I had not seen that was your piece".) So it is not just a matter of the speed with which you identify the intruder; this directly correlates with the reliability with which you spot intruders. A deviating color sticks out, and attracts attention whenever it gets in your field of vision. Opposit orientation is only noticed when you are looking for it.

I did only play a handful of regular Shogi games in my entire life, but in one of those I beat a dan-rated player. Not because I outplayed him, but because he forfeited the game by 'nifu' (= dropping a Pawn in a file that already contained one). The other Pawn was hidden between my pieces. I don't think any player would make such an error if his pieces would have had a different color, but in the Japanese Shogi competition is appears to be a very common error. So much that it is considered part of the game there, and that the people running the 81dojo server did their utmost to prevent people from using their own client to connect, out of fear that such a client would provide 'computer help' by highlighting legal moves, and thus prevent forfeit by an illegal one. It seems the Japanese Shogi Association does not endorse Shogi servers where you cannot lose by an illegal move.

And what you are saying is basically that under easy conditions anything flies, and the negative impact of crummy equipment or other adverse conditions has less impact than in a stress test, where every advantage counts. Well, I cannot argue against that, but to judge the value of things you should test them under conditions that are sensitive to this value. That I can drive through Harlem at night in a tank, without experiencing any problem does not imply it is a safe neighborhood...

Anyway, nice chat. Good points from all parties. I appreciate.

In theory they would be the same, but Shogi uses the drop rule, which by its nature necessitates a way to distinguish pieces that is not dependent on color.

I did mention this as "an inconvenient necessity due to physical limitations in over-the-board play". And it is not entirely true; it is the combination of promotion and the drop rule that requires this. Otherwise you could have used different color on the backside. As this newly discovered 'South-African Chess' (Oatlali) does. (They replaced promotion by zone-dependent moving there.)

Personally I think it would have been better (in the sense that the player handling the pieces would play stronger) to flip pieces with differently colored sides on capture, and reorient them on promotion.

What is a better representation for playing a game is a verifyable fact, measurable by the average rating drop or raise people would get when having to play with one representation or another. E.g. representing all pieces by empty squares (aka blindfold chess) usually greatly degrades the rating of non-GM players, and can thus be considered an unsuitable representation for playing Chess.

Your example describes a handicap that would be universally detrimental for anyone playing against someone without this handicap. This points to some minimal requirements for piece design, namely that the pieces should be visible and clearly distinguishable. Both fully western sets and fully Japanese sets meet this requirement, and what makes the difference in how well someone can use one set or another will depend on more subjective, psychological differences, such as which set the person is more used to, or whether the pieces are written in a language one is able to read. Japanese people, and even Chinese and Korean people, will have an easier time with Kanji pieces than westerners will, because they can read the language the piece names are written in. Likewise, western players who are used to Staunton pieces will have an easier time recognizing pieces based on Staunton designs. To a lesser degree, western players may be less comfortable using wedge-shaped pieces than Japanese players would be. That is the preference you have indicated you have, though I have been playing with wedge-shaped pieces since I discovered Shogi in the late 90s and have no issue with them. So, my own preference is for pieces of a Staunton or my own Abstract design on wedge-shaped pieces.

And 'disagreeing with facts' is also known as 'being wrong'.

And what facts have you presented? You have not shown any data regarding which sets make it easier for people to play Shogi. The closest you have come to arguing for the superiority of western style Shogi pieces over Japanese style is this:

Playing Shogi across the board is an absolutely horrible experience. It is the main reason why the Dutch Chess Association has about 150,000 members, and the Dutch Shogi Association only 56...

While your data on membership counts may be correct, your explanation is not. This difference in membership counts is simply because the Netherlands is in Europe, where Chess is the dominant Chess variant, and not in Japan, where Shogi is. For similar reasons, you will find that Christian churches are more common in the Netherlands than Shinto shrines are.

For people that want to experience the difference between using pictogram and tile pieces, I set up a simple speed test cq dexterity game here.

So my response time for the pictograms is about half what it is for the Kanji tiles. But I'll point out that this is comparing two factors instead of just one. One is using either color or orientation, and the other is using Kanji or using pictures. Additionally, the Kanji pieces were at a smaller size, which made them harder to recognize, a more squarish shape, which made it harder to spot the orientation, and they included pieces not used in Shogi, which meant I could not always use my familiarity with the Kanji to recognize pieces.

The idea that Shogi and Chess would have different needs does seem rather inconsistent, as they are practically the same game. I have difficulty identifying any aspect of either game that would cause such a difference.

Two very big differences between Chess and Shogi account for this difference. In Shogi, pieces can switch sides, and promotion of each piece capable of it is to a fixed piece type. With wedge-shaped pieces that have different characters printed on each side, Shogi can easily be played with a single set of pieces. To play Shogi with western style pieces, you would need an extra set on hand, and each set would have to include separate pieces for the promoted and unpromoted versions of each piece. So, instead of requiring just 40 pieces, you would need up to 146 pieces if my calculations are correct.^* Playing Shogi with fully western style pieces has become feasible only with computer graphics, which do not require physical pieces to be kept on hand. While this may be the preferred way for some people to play online or against a computer program, people with experience playing it across the board will have had to get used to using wedge-shaped pieces.

But it is indeed good that people can choose their representation on a computer independently of that used by the opponent. If there is at least one suitable representation amongst the choices.

That's the important thing. Some will prefer the traditional Japanese style, some will prefer a fully western style, and some will prefer a hybrid.

* 40*2*2=160. 160 - 8 promoted Gold Generals - 4 promoted Kings - 2 normal Kings = 160 - 14 = 146.

Proof for who is right or wrong has to be collected. So far we have only seen that kanji tiles are no good for westerners. Would Japanese do better? I doubt it, but that is not proof. That the kanji are small is a feeble excuse: they must be smaller as a consequence of tiles being drawn around them. Which I claimed to be a bad idea, as it that unavoidably leaves less space. That there are now complaints about this smallnes sort of confirms that.

Upside-down pictograms would be better for westerners? Well, you can try that here. (Prepare for disaster!)

Funny to play with Bigorra. Yes, it takes much longer to spot an upside-down pictogram than to spot a wrong color. Neat. And the difference is much higher than with an upside-down kanji. Which would mean that it's easier to play with kanji than with oriented monochrome pictogram.

But I doubt of this conclusion. As a Westerner, I also need some time to decipher an upside-doown kanji whereas I need no time to decipher a pictogram (or almost).

It was not completely fair, as Bigorra used Archers, which look the same upside-down (or nearly so). I replaced them by Vaos now.

I guess the kanji were much easier, because at least the tiles all had the same shape, so you could search for the deviating shape you expected. The pictograms are all totally different (which is of course good for recognizing type rather than side, but we don't test that here). I therefore suspect that the kanji, which are also all different, are not much help even to those that can read them, and that they would mainly look at the tile shape.

Distinguishing the upside-down pieces is a little easier than being completely blindfolded. But only a little...

pictograms 18 1.831 kanji tiles 17 17.078

It feels like it's easier to spot orientation when all the pieces have the wedge shape than if they're all differently shaped pictures. Couldn't a similar point be made regarding 3D piece descriptions (which jocly uses) as opposed to the 2D alternatives?

The Jocly 3D pieces are kanji tiles, and for the Shogi variants are little more than a flat diagram viewed in perspective. So I guess what holds for the 2D representations pretty much holds for 3D as well: for recognizing the side a piece is on you go mostly by the tile orientation, but you will only notice that when you consciously focus your attention to it.

Even when the "spot the intruder" game had not been explained, a person that is shown a case that uses colors would almost instantly and spontaneously remark upon a wrong piece being amongst the army.

I meant the 3D pieces for other games. Flat pictographic boards feel generally easier than any alternative.

Upside-down pictograms would be better for westerners? Well, you can try that here. (Prepare for disaster!)

Now you're not using wedge shapes. No one is advocating that we play Shogi simply with upsidedown images for one side.

I think the best answer to this whole debate is that there is no right or wrong answer as to whether color-based pictograms or orientation-based kanji are better for Shogi variants.

However, I would never EVER recommend using orientation-based pictograms, unless they either:

• all have some universal defining feature that makes it easier to tell each side apart, like the wedge shape with the kanji Shogi sets.
• are mnemonic representations of the piece moves and are also color-based, like with the mnemonic Shogi variant sets.

Well, I have no Chu-Shogi pictograms on tiles or any other game that has that. Furthermore, to program such a test with reasonable effort requires sets that have compatible piece names for sufficiently many piece types. I don't think we have that here.

But this latest test shows that the pictograms themselves offer almost zero help, if they have all the same color. You would decide almost exclusively based on the surrounding tile, without looking what is inside. And then it would not matter much whether the inside is kanji or pictograms. And the kanji tiles also did not do very well.

Well, I have no Chu-Shogi pictograms on tiles or any game that has that.

Since we have been talking only about Shogi, we should stick with Shogi pieces and not bother with Chu Shogi pieces. I recommend doing a comparison between the Motif Shogi set, which places Staunton-inspired pieces on wedges and turns one side upsidedown, and the Alfaerie Shogi set, which just uses differently colored Staunton-inspired pieces:

I meant the 3D pieces for other games. Flat pictographic boards feel generally easier than any alternative.

Ah, OK. Indeed, it could be that statue-like pieces in 3D are not optimal at all. But even a flat pictographic board lying flat between the players would suffer from some similar problems. I guess the traditional equipment suffers from the boundary condition that it must treat the players equivalently, just as traditional Shogi equipment suffers from the fact that the pieces have to be usable for both players, and must be able to promote.

The Motif Shogi piece images do not have filenames that are compatible with any other piece set. The pieces of the different armies are not distinguished by a prefix, but have suffixes 'Flip' in the name part. That makes it much more work to program a comparison. But I suppose one could do an 'asynchronous comparison', i.e. have one applet to measure the time needed for the Motif pieces, and another for the Alfaerie pieces. Provided that we compare freshly shuffled position every time, as just flipping one piece would immediately identify it. Perception of motion is as efficianly processed in the human brain as perception of color.

Maybe tomorrow, if nothing else comes up.

The Motif Shogi piece images do not have filenames that are compatible with any other piece set.

You can use /play/pbm/showpiece.php?set=motifshogi&piece= and /play/pbm/showpiece.php?set=alfjapanese&piece= with the labels used in Game Courier sets for Shogi as the piece names.

You can use /play/pbm/showpiece.php?set=motifshogi&piece= and /play/pbm/showpiece.php?set=alfjapanese&piece= with the labels used in Game Courier sets for Shogi as the piece names.

Showpiece.php-generated pieces are not useable in the Interactive Diagram, as they distinguish the armies by case rather than prefix. The underlying files offer a better bet, as there the armies are distinguished by an extra 'Flip' suffix in the filename, and by defining them all as 'extraneous pieces' in the I.D. we can indicate where in the pathname of the file the 'color-prefix' should go. And then define blackPrefix=Flip and whitePrefix the empty string.

[Edit] I now set it up so that the non-believers can try it. Because of the incompatible piece names I had to make different applets for Motif tiles and Alfaerie, and to prevent you can see the piece flip when a slightly altered position in the same representation is shown, it now sets up a new random position of 40 randomly chosen sente pieces on a 9x9 board, and then changes one of those to gote.

You find the applets here: Alfaerie Motif Tiles

Showpiece.php-generated pieces are not useable in the Interactive Diagram, as they distinguish the armies by case rather than prefix.

That’s not true. The showpiece script accounts for this difference and makes the appropriate conversions. That is why I have been able to successfully use it with Interactive Diagrams, as I have previously pointed out to you.

OK, my mistake then. I have never used showpiece.php, and I would not know how to do that. But I already managed by using the raw gif images.

It went more quickly with Alfaerie, because it's easier to spot differences in color than differences in orientation. However, while doing it with Alfaerie, I was not taking any time to get any sense of the position, yet I would certainly have to do that if I were playing Shogi. Also, Shogi does not progress from one random position to another. The position changes incrementally, starting from a position where I already know where everything is without even looking at it. So, I would be able to use my knowledge of previous positions to understand what the slightly new position is.

There are only two cases where I might need more time to figure out what the position is. One is when I am doing problems instead of playing a game, and the other is when an opponent has taken a long time to move in a correspondence game, and the position is no longer fresh in my mind. In each of these two cases, though, I would have time to examine the position.

Using Kanji pieces, I can sometimes not be aware of what every piece is, but I am aware of what each piece is with the Motif pieces, and in actual play, I have not had any problem telling my pieces from my opponent's.

So I do not expect that using differently colored pieces instead of differently oriented pieces would seriously improve my ability to understand positions while actually playing Shogi. And if there is any performance improvement to be gained, it remains less than the performance improvement gained from using pieces I can easily recognize.

Additionally, using wedge-shaped pieces adds some authenticity to the experience of playing Shogi, sort of like watching anime with subtitles over the original audio instead of dubs in my own language, and it allows the use of color for distinguishing between promoted and unpromoted pieces. By not using color to distinguish them, the Alfaerie set makes it harder to spot promoted pieces. So, if you made a similar test for spotting promoted pieces, Motif would do much better than Alfaerie.

It went more quickly with Alfaerie, because it's easier to spot differences in color than differences in orientation. However, while doing it with Alfaerie, I was not taking any time to get any sense of the position, yet I would certainly have to do that if I were playing Shogi. Also, Shogi does not progress from one random position to another. The position changes incrementally, starting from a position where I already know where everything is without even looking at it. So, I would be able to use my knowledge of previous positions to understand what the slightly new position is.

Yeah, sure. Who needs the reminder of pieces? You might as well play blindfold... Well, for GM players that is actually true.  When they think far ahead they intentionally don't look at the board, because it just distracts them with the current position. But for mortals like us playing blindfold is a huge handicap. The sole purpose of having a board and pieces is to constantly remind us of what stands where. And the test shows that Alfaerie des a better job at that.

Recognizing the piece type is of course at least as important as recognizing the color. (Some servers offer an interesting 'semi-blindfold' mode, where you can see the side pieces are on, but not their type, like playing with blank tiles or checkers.) This was never contested. Coloring the pieces does not have any effect on the ability to recognize the type symbol, though. (I hope we agree on that, rather than having to prove it with a 'Spot the Queen' applet...) So it isn't really relevant that you also have to recognize the type; there is no need to degrade the side recognition for improving the type recognition. (And it will probably also not be contested by anyone here that for westerners kanji are doing a poorer job at that than pictograms, as far as type recognitiion is concerned.)

From whatching Chu-Shogi games by experience Chu-Shogi players, I noticed that these frequently blunder in an elementary way (such as overlooking a discovered attack on a high-value piece), and that I, as a non-player, could almost always predict when they were going to blunder. Because I was viewing the game with mnemonic pieces on my bot, while they were using the standard kanji pieces of the client. So it was obvious to me they suffered a iszable handicap by not seeing the board and pieces as I did it. It will of course make a great deal of difference how much time you have available. In correspondence play, where you think perhaps an hour per move, chances are good that after some time it will start to dawn on you that you misidentified a particular piece, and when you do you have every opportunity to think again. In real-time games you often will move before realizing your mistake.

As to the auhenticity... Seems to me you pretty much threw that out of the window when you abandoned the kanji. No Japanese would ever agree that there is any authenticity in these pieces. In fact I noticed they tend to even deny that you are playing Shogi, when you use non-kanji pieces.

Yeah, sure. Who needs the reminder of pieces? You might as well play blindfold...

That's just a false equivalency, as I was saying nothing of the sort.

Recognizing the piece type is of course at least as important as recognizing the color.

I agree that recognizing piece type is at least as important as recognizing sides. But I want to emphasize here that it recognizing sides that is important, and recognizing sides by color is just one way it can be done. In a regular Shogi game, recognizing sides by orientation is not difficult for me.

Coloring the pieces does not have any effect on the ability to recognize the type symbol, though.

Coloring the pieces of each side differently can limit the use of color in distinguishing between types of pieces. The Alfaerie set, for example, does not use color at all in distinguishing between promoted and unpromoted pieces, whereas the Motif set does. The western set for Jocly makes some use of color in distinguishing promoted from unpromoted pieces, but it doesn't make promoted pieces stand out as much as the Motif set does.

So it isn't really relevant that you also have to recognize the type; there is no need to degrade the side recognition for improving the type recognition.

My point is that multiple factors go into the suitability of one set over another, and it would be wrong to say that one set is unequivocally superior on the basis of one metric.

And it will probably also not be contested by anyone here that for westerners kanji are doing a poorer job at that than pictograms, as far as type recognitiion is concerned.

I believe there are westerners who claim to have no problem with Kanji, but you and I are agreed on preferring pictographic pieces.

From whatching Chu-Shogi games by experience Chu-Shogi players, I noticed that these frequently blunder in an elementary way (such as overlooking a discovered attack on a high-value piece), and that I, as a non-player, could almost always predict when they were going to blunder.

I don't play Chu Shogi at all, but this is the kind of error I'm more prone to when playing Shogi with Kanji pieces.

As to the auhenticity... Seems to me you pretty much threw that out of the window when you abandoned the kanji. No Japanese would ever agree that there is any authenticity in these pieces.

It's not for you to say what Japanese people would think, and it is not for Japanese people to judge whether one of my experiences feels more authentic than the other.

In fact I noticed they tend to even deny that you are playing Shogi, when you use non-kanji pieces.

I have not had any communication with them on this, but it would be as objectively false as saying that you are not playing Chess if you don't use Staunton pieces.

I added the two skins on the same link

Coloring the pieces of each side differently can limit the use of color in distinguishing between types of pieces.

Not really, because there are more than two colors. It is very possible to pick two different dark colors (black and blue), and two different light colors (white and yellow) where for each pair the "Spot the Intruder" game is just as easy, and then use blue and yellow for promoted pieces.

Most Shogi sets I have seen do not have red kanji for the promoted pieces, btw. They just write different kanji on them. (Well, people tell me they are really the same kanji, but in different fonts. But they look different enough.)

It's not for you to say what Japanese people would think, and it is not for Japanese people to judge whether one of my experiences feels more authentic than the other.

I am just relaying what Japanes people said, on the Shogi forums I visited, and at the OTB Shogi tournament in Kanazawa and Yokomama that my Shogi engine participated in. And you surely give a whole new twist to the concept 'authentic'.

I have not had any communication with them on this, but it would be as objectively false as saying that you are not playing Chess if you don't use Staunton pieces.

This has puzzled me too. We have no trouble recognizing a game with, say, Star Wars puppets as Chess. For Shogi that would be unthinkable. The Japanese seem to consider the physical representation just as much part of the game as the rules for how to move the pieces. That explains why the Japanese Shogi Association is so conservative in endorsing any kind of on-line play. They insist that the experience behind the computer screen must be as identical as can be technically expected to playing over the board with the prescribed equipment. Including the possibility to play illegal moves.

I suppose it must be that way, because the over-the-board equipment, being subject to physical limitations, is inferior to what you could do on a computer screen. (Funny story: when I was playing in Kanazawa, my program was of course showing the position as pictograms, even though the official board on which I had to perform the move used of course kanji tiles. And it puzzled many people, both opponents and audience, that I used different color pictograms for both sides. The said ro me: "How can this work? When you capture a piece, it has the wrong color." It did not occur to them that a computer can change colors at will.) So if they would allow people to use arbitrary representations, these would quickly move away from the traditional representation, and use one that doesn't hurt their rating so much. If they would have been confident that kanji tiles were the superior representation, they would not have little reason to forbid anything else. But as it is, they consider it cheating.

This is one of the most important reasons that a good game like Shogi has failed to conquer the world: people that try to popularize it usually have as their main agenda to spread Japanese culture. No to spread a good game.

For the pullrequest in progress, I'd be interested in a skin that suits you for the shogi, with pictograms and colors.

I don't know if you have the time to come up with one right now, but it would be an important step in finalizing the work in progress.

A distinct file would have the advantage of being easy to customize.

I'm back on the subject of adding a skin with black and white pictograms in jocly for the shogi in addition to the kanjis, at least on the current pull request. For the moment, the candidate skin can be seen on this link.
I remembered that having a tokin appear in this form was not consensual, it could be replaced by a gold general or the icon could be different...

Tell me if it's acceptable as it is, if we should wait for another one or leave it as it is.

For CVP we could add even more skins but I think we need at least one alternative skin for the basic jocly.

How about using the Prince fairy sprite for the Jeweled General?

Sorry I had so little time to spend on Jocly; there was an emergency at the talkchess.com forum, for which the hosting was terminated per March 1, and for which we had to set up a new server. We managed to do that in time, but there still are some imperfections that have to be ironed out. But I will try to update the shogi picto sprites.

no problem, Jocly can wait, we'll talk when you're free.

OK, I pushed the reworked sprites to pullreq, under the name shogi-picto-sprites.png.

Thanks.
I've added the skin that uses these sprites as well as the rule files I had already created.

Feel free to rework them as you want, I just wanted to have a minimum doc by default.
Would you be inspired to do the same for shogi tori?

I tried it out but it wasn't very accomplished, but perhaps you have some pictograms that might be suitable ...
Maybe there'll be some artists on the cvp site who'll be inspired...

We can also rework the sprites to be finalized if we agree on a first draft

It is always a dilemma whether one should pick the representation based on the move or on the name. I tend to go for the move; names you can in principle do without. E.g. in Elven Chess the Warlock is represented by a Lion, not by a Wizard symbol.

A move-inspired pictogram representation for Tori Shogi would use the King for Phoenix, Leopard for Crane and Elephant for Falcon. The Goose, Pheasants, Eagle and Quails are unique to Tori Shogi. We happen to have a good Eagle pictogram, but for the others 'anything flies'.

Name-based pictograms offer the challenge to make many different distinguishable and recognizable birds. That is hard, as some of the birds would look very similar. The sprites you used are all very much out of style with the Eagle. We do have a Phoenix and a Falcon in the fairy-sprites, and as far as I am concerned the Stork we have there is indistinguishable from a Crane (other than by coloring, which the pictogram does not show). That also leaves Goose, Pheasant and Quails. For the Quails this one would be in style. (But is seems to be copyrighted...) For a Pheasant this one is the closest I could find. (But it is too wide; to match it in scale we would have to cut off the tail feathers. But a long tail is the main charcteristic for a pheasant; otherwise it looks like an ordinary cock. This one has the right style, but I don't recognize it as a pheasant.) This seems a good Goose. (But again a copyright issue.) Perhaps something based on the top-right drawing here (omitting the colors).

[Edit] This could also make a good Quail.

And the head of this one could be a good basis. I recognize it as a pheasant even without the tail.

for my part I prefer representations based on the move.

I made a second try. What should be kept / improved / abandonned ?

For the quail, I was not inspired, I tried a quail chick (hieroglyph) or origami (japanese theme). But I can try more.

For the pheasant : 4 candidates ...

The Goose is excellent. For the Pheasant and Quail, I made these:

Looks good to me. Do you have all the sprites for a set?

I think so. The Stork, Elephant, Leopard and King are all in the fairy-sprites.

There only is the matter of diversifying the Quail. It is probably best to have the Left Quail look left for both colors. Then the pieces are flip-invariant. I does mean that in player A view the white Quails look inward, the black Quails outward.

I made the Tori sprites, and pushed those to pullreq. I did demagnify the Goose somewhat, as it seemed unreasonably large for such a weak piece.

To have the white Quails look towards the center, the Right Quail had to look to the left. I don't know if that should be considered confusing.

Good idea. Note That I have amended the rules of shogis included chu shogi.

I like it this way. It will make the game much more accessible. I've also added a draft file of rules that you should feel free to revise.

There are still some 'quick wins' for jocly, I'm thinking in particular of Team-Mate Chess. If you use phoenix, cobra and may be mortar sprites. It would be easier to start with.

After I know that you might use a spider for the acromentula, but if you don’t, a rhino would be easier than the eagle.

I was wondering if we could finalize the 2d and 3d visuals for team mate.

I have a feeling it's the last remaining important task for the pull request. It might be an opportunity to reconsider the choice of sprites for phoenix, cobra and acromentula, which might have also an impact on the rules as well. I can help if needed.

I was wondering if we could finalize the 2d and 3d visuals for team mate.

The following things would have to be done there:

• The 2d Cobra image would have to be improved. (There were complaints it looked too much like a tennis racket.)
• The Spider must be added to the fairy piece set. This requires:

1. Creation of a 2d Spider icon for in res/fairy/icons.
2. Adding that to the wikipedia-fairy-sprites.
3. Some hand-editing of the 3d mesh file, for shaping up the inner legs.
4. Making a visual of the 2d+3d representation for in res/rules/fairy.

• Making the team-mate view use those.
• Make 2d and 3d visuals of the team-mate setup.
• Making a new thumbnail.

I think I will start with the mesh editing.

Well, I think the existing cobra is okay. I don't know whether to look for a better one or make slight improvements to the existing one.

I'm going to try it out.

Would the existing spiders in the musketeer editor be suitable?

Here are some cobra tests:

• the same without the tongue
• another in profile
• the last one less round, I'd thicken the lines if it's worthwhile

The rightmost board-painter image looks like it would fit well within the set. But are we allowed to use it?

I will redraw the Cobra more like the opper part of the rightmost image.

I have already tweeked the 3d Spider enough to make it acceptable.

The inspiration comes from here. Same kind of drawing tutorial here.

I'd say you can take inspiration from a drawing tutorial to make your own drawings, as long as you customize them enough.

I made these SVGs:

But I am still not sure whether it wouldn't be better to only show the head+hood part. Like this:

I think I'd rather vote for the first, but frankly I'd be happy to go with the general choice because I like both.

I like both too.

Spider SVGs:

Perhaps the inner lining of the black one still needs some work. Maybe I should make it entirely black.

It looks good, but for the black one might expect the reverse color drawing for the hooks and mandibles.

yes, I would say entirely black for the black one. I think it's better. Or just the small top triangle in the head in white.

I now used the new pieces in Team-Mate Chess in the Jocly on my own website. (With an all-black Spider for the 2d.) The white Cobra might still have a little too fat outlines. I will still have to put the new sprites in the move diagrams in the rules description, and then I am ready to push it.

I also want to use Spider and Octopus in Scirocco; these occur there as promoted pieces.

Bravo you have graphic talents.

As for my understanding of the fairy set, I was wondering what the owl and flamingo would be used for.

I hadn't anything special in mind for Owl or Flamingo. I made these mainly as test cases for the Tube tool, to try out whether the newly implemented feature for tilting the rings and defining multiple tubes was workable. (The Owl used a second tube for its beak.) Up to that point I had only been able to make pieces that consisted of a single, vertical tube consisting of stacked ellipses. The Flamingo is associated with a (6,1) leap (which is pretty useless on an 8x8 board).

Another detail about minjiku: the rules don't match the sprite for the ninja. Even if you don't have time to make a 3d ninja, it would be nice to have an updated model.

I am afraid that it is more a matter of being tenacious and making long hours, than of talent.

I am still not entirely happy with the eyes drawn by the Tube tool. The mapping of the tube surface onto an 80% x 80% area of the diffuse/normalmap sometimes causes very poor resolution in one of the dimensions. Especially in designs with long legs, such as Spider or Octopus. It divides the entire height of the maps over the sum of all the lengths, while each tube can use the full width of the map, no matter how tiny the tube diameter. I already improved the situation a bit by allowing parts that need little detail to be vertically compressed, to make more room for other parts, but this doesn't help enough, and can still result in eyes being drawn with very poor vertical resolution.

What is really needed is to keep track of the ratio of the total tube length (along the surface) and the maximum circumference. If that gets extreme (say > 3), it would be better to map it to a rectangle that is 4 times higher than wide, and split that into an upper and a lower part, which are then displayed side by side to fill a square. The maps nor also always leave room for a disc in the upper-right 20% x 20% to which a cone segment can be mapped, even if no such segment is used. (And I hardly ever use it...) Without the disc the map could be structured as two side-by-side 50% x 100% areas, and even with a disc the left part could be 50% x 100%, and the right part 50% x 75%.

It would probably a bad idea to have discontinuous mapping of a single tube onto the maps, but very long tube length typically occurs because there are multiple tubes in the design. So it can roughly split the tubes into two approximately equally long sets, one going into the left part, the other in the right part. It might also be useful to make it pay attention to the diameter of the tubes. Those with very small diameter, such as the Spider legs or Octopus tentacles could be mapped into a narrow area on the right. Perhaps it would in general be better to not split the width of the map 50-50, but 70-30, mapping the narrow tubes onto the 30% half.

I will take a look at Minjiku.

There also is the issue that I amended the rules of Team-Mate Chess here on CVP with the possibility of a 'double promotion' to a pair of inverted Silver Generals. And that the Jocly implementation still uses the old rules. This would require extra code. While Team-Mate Chess so far was the only variant I did for Jocly (and therefore did first) that didn't need any code modifications.

Another detail about minjiku: the rules don't match the sprite for the ninja. Even if you don't have time to make a 3d ninja, it would be nice to have an updated model.

I now used the Gate in the game implementation as well. This is not such a bad choice, as this piece was intended to represent the Ski-Rook, the hole at the bottom symbolizing it would skip the nearest square. I used it in Scirocco for the Wagon (which is a lame Ski-Rook). And the Ninja has a sideway Ski-Rook move. The only good idea for having a dedicated easily recognizable Ninja representation was to use a shuriken, but this is not tube-like, and would have to be made entirely by hand. (But we could have used the Star...)

Unfortunately there was a lot more wrong with Minjiku Shogi. Apparently I broke the SkiGraph routine for doing ski-slides when I enhanced it for doing the Osprey. So it was doing a normal Rook move rather than a ski-slide. This must be fixed in locust-move-model.js.

And that is not all; the flying generals do not respect the ranking as promoted pieces. The ranking is part of the piece-type definition, but to make testing of it more efficient, I copy that to the piece object, so it can be easily tested by the move generator or GetAttackers function (which is called really often). But promoting a piece just alters the number of the piece type (piece.t). It does not add or change the ranking number if that new type had a ranking. This must be fixed in base-model.js, which handles the flying pieces.

And when I am at it, I might as well provide a method for requesting 'double promotion' in base-model.js as well. Perhaps I should allow specification of negative numbers in the promotion-choice arrays returned by the user-supplied promote() routine. The base model could then interpret these as their absolute value, but whenever such a promotion is applied to the board, call a user-supplied custom routine for adapting the game state. In the Minjiku case this routine could then set the ranking of the promoted piece, and in Team-Mate Chess it could add the extra promotion piece to the origin square of the move. (Problem: the legality testing, (through cbQuickApply), which ignores promotion, might reject the move if it doesn't realize the origin square is not evacuated. But I guess it even has that in common with the ranked pieces; the promoted piece might block a flying attack that the unpromoted piece would not. This will require some careful thinking.)

it's a good point to detect and be able to make this type of finish now.

It appears that the configuration of all the variants I added still needs fixing in index.js. I never realized that he AI's evaluation is controlled from there, and always just cloned the same game definition, only changing the build scripts and filenames of visuals and such. But I just found out that the weights of the various evaluation terms are controlled in the property config.model.gameOptions, in a property levelOptions.

It appears that the version I cloned was referring to config_model_gameOptions_2, which is a setting for Shatranj or mini variants, and doesn't award advance of passers very much. Most of the variants would need the settings used for classic-chess.

The name doesn't really speak for itself. Don't hesitate to make any necessary changes, maybe for the shako too.

I implemented pair-promotion to Brutes in Team-Mate Chess, and updated the rule description accordingly. I also improves the evaluation, making it recognize insufficient material draws were all remaing pieces are color bound and on the same shade. I think that should finish it.

well done, that changes everything. Do you want to change gameOptions in index.js on games like elven, spartan, werewolf, scirocco? even makromachy, minjiku?

The rules refer to aanca, is it the acromentula?

Yes, I am already working on the others. For some the custom evaluation was entirely wrong. (E.g. in Elven Chess the testing for insufficient mating material made no sense, as by using fairy-piece-model all type numbers had changed. And the bonus for advance Pawns did not take into account that the promotion zone was 3 ranks rather than 1, and was only awarding the bonus when the Pawns were already in the zone.)

And Aanca is indeed Acromentula. I thought I had replaced that everywhere, but apparently I missed some.

[Edit] I have now fixed the obvious evaluation errors in my non-Shogi variants. But:

• Makromachy has no dedicated evaluation at all. So it won't encourage Pawns to advance, no matter what set of eval parameters it uses, and it won't recognize insufficient mating material. (But it is so large that the latter might not matter.)
• Scirocco needs to encourage many other pieces than Pawns to advance towards the zone. Especially the very slow ones, such as Ferz, Wazir, Steward and Commoner, but to a lesser extent also the range-2 leapers Alfil, Dababbah, Stork, Goat and the enhanced Knights.
• That holds also for other Shogi variants without drops. (Scirocco is a sort of Chess-Shogi hybrid.)
• Minjiku Shogi currently also has no dedicated evaluation.
• Chu Shogi still has the unmodifed Classic Chess evaluation, basing its 'insufficiant mating material' judgement on the idea that piece types 4 and 5 are Knight and Bishop, and Pawns promote on last rank only.
• Shogi, Tori Shogi and mini-Shogi have empty evaluation functions. They would really need some King-Safety term to play sensibly.

I now have added a promotability evaluation to Scirocco that doesn't seem too idiotic. The idea is that the promotion gain of each piece is multiplied with the estimated probability the piece will promote. Sliders then get 90% of that value added to their piece value, while for leapers it ranges from 20-90% depending on how far they are from the zone. (Measured  in the difficulty to go there, considering the size of their leap, but also the number of forward moves with such a leap; a Dababba would be discounted more than an Alfil in the same location.)

The probability estimate assumes there is a certain minimum army strength required to defend the zone, and that you first have to reduce the opponent army to that level by equal trading before you can promote. What you have left at that point will promote.

This doesn't account for the fact that some pieces gain more on promotion than others, and that you will try to selectively preserve those in the unpromoted-trading phase. Because the opponent of course will try to preferentially trade your good promoters away, I am not usre how successful such a strategy can be on average.

Another subtlety is that there are fast promoters (sliders), which will start promoting as soon as the entire zone cannot be defended, and slow promoters (leapers), who will take some time to get there even if unobstructed, and can much easier be defended against because of their low mobilty. You would only have to defend the entrance of the zone, and can often even prevent they reach the zone by meeting them far before they get there with your own leapers.

In a contest where one side has fast promoters and the other slow ones, of equal total value and gaining equally on promotion, the player with the fast promoters would promote those before the slow ones can promote, and then try to trade those according to their increased value for the yet unpromoted opponent pieces, leaving him a surplus after the slow ones are annihilated. This is currently not yet accounted for. In Scirocco it might not be that important, as there are very few sliders in the initial setup there. (And the Scirocco's don't have such a strong promotion.) But it would be for Chu Shogi.

Yesterday I forgot to push the patch of base-model.js that Scirocco needs to work; for evaluating the promotability it needs the total army strength. Rather than having it calculate that again, I now pass it from the standard chessbase Evaluate function, (which already calculated it, but then only passes the difference of the two armies in evalValues), as the 4th parameter to the dedicated evaluate().

Perhaps everything that Evaluate() puts so much effort in calculating (by looping over all pieces) should be put into a single object, rather than just variables private to Evaluate(), so that the dedicated evaluate() can use that directly by passing it this object. Rather than having to rely on the often useles combinations that are made of the results and passed as evalValues.

BTW, I was a bit shocked how weak the Jocly AI is. I tried a game of Scirocco against the Interactive Diagram, with Jocly on level Medium (~10 sec?), and the I.D. at 2.5 ply (~0.1sec), and even though the I.D. did some trades I considered bad (but were good according to the piece values it guestimated) it massacred Jocly (until it finally lost with a huge advantage by not knowing that repetition is forbidden). It appears that Jocly at this level still overlooks quite elementary tactics, such as the only protector of a piece being traded away so the piece hangs, or by relying on protection from a piece that is soft-pinned.

It's true that Jocly is not very strong, which is not necessarily a problem for introducing games to the general public. They need a game that is intuitive, beautiful and against which they can hope to win without too much research.

To assess relevance you need to select "strong" level to have realistic results. One day the jocly UI will perhaps serve as a basis UI for a more specialized application for chess variants.

Are you going to continue to improve the evaluations for your shogivars? Do I have to wait to push the latest changes to scirocco?

I did push the required patch of base-model.js now, so the current version should be fully operational.

Next I will make a similar evaluation function for Chu Shogi.

your git server seems stopped

Do you have a way to reactivate your git server, I haven't retrieved the patch from base-model.js yet.

Well, this is a bit tricky, since the webspace I use there is not really my own, but is hosted by someone I cooperated with long ago for the development of XBoard. And the problem appears to be that someone (not that person, so presumably someone from the hosting company itself with root access) renamed the gitweb.cgi script to 'gitweb.cgi_disabled_by_HL'. Now I could of course rename it back, but I suppose they intervened with the private files of their customers for a good reason (probably to do with security), and don't want to anger the hosting company and create trouble for the person that allows me to use his webspace. So I am still trying to figure out what to do that would keep everybody happy.

BTW, that gitweb.cgi is no longer there should not prevent you from pulling from the repository.