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Rook Mania. Game where all pieces have different sorts of Rook-like moves. (7x7, Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Tim Stiles wrote on Mon, Apr 7, 2003 06:02 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

I'd say you covered the majority of the orthogonal moving pieces here, though some are left out. The question is, with all the pieces moving in a similar way, is it still good and playable?

Nicholas Kuschinski wrote on Mon, Apr 7, 2003 11:04 PM UTC:

The board is about as intuitively natural as any 43 square board could possibly be. I'm not quite sure I like the array nearly as much though: It's crowded! With so many pieces that can move so far, it seems like they need a little more space. I like the pieces though, although I think that the two step and three step aren't quite as orthogonal as the rest of them. The basilisk and the pawns in particular, are extremely interesting. Kind of wondering what a Dabbah-rider is though, I've never seen the piece before and therefore can't understand what the role of the slip-rook is. The idea of making an offset array on an offset board sounds really cool when you think about it, but now that I'm looking at it: It's ugly. The previous comment about the pawns shouldn't really be so much of a problem. On a board that has only 43 squares and 14 pawns, they take up about a third of the board at the beginning, and they become a much more generally useable piece when you get rid of all but one of them. The two-step and three-step have a range that's much less limited than it sounds, considering the size of the board, and are more useful than initial impressions might make you believe. The king, however, seems extremely weak. With so many pieces that can move so far on orthogonal lines, and with the existence of the basilisk, it seems awfully easy to checkmate him. The gun is a nice try, and is really clever, but doesn't seem to do the trick. I think it would be more interesting if he wasn't restricted to orthogonal motion, althought this might make it too hard to checkmate him, considering that the other pieces are restricted to such orthogonal movements. On the whole, its kind of hard to tell what I think of this game. I like a lot of your ideas, but they don't seem very cohesive.

Tim Stiles wrote on Tue, Apr 8, 2003 06:07 AM UTC:

A dabbabah-rider leaps two squares othrogonally in the same direction any number of times.

Jared wrote on Wed, Apr 9, 2003 02:24 PM UTC:

Thank you, everyone, for your criticisms!  I am now realizing that the game
looks better than it plays, so I will be submitting some minor rule
updates shortly.  Hopefully the game will be a little cohesiver afterward!
 :P

--Jared

Michael Nelson wrote on Wed, Apr 9, 2003 11:45 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

I like the overall flavor of this game and am looking forward to your revisions. Personally, I don't care for the Coordinator. Pehaps the last pawn should instead promote to a piece its owner has lost (any time after the capture of the next-to-last pawn, counts as a move)--maybe you could extend this to the last two pawns, at the players option--this strengthens the pawn by making capturing them self-defeating beyond a certain point.

Antoine Fourrière wrote on Thu, Apr 10, 2003 11:25 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

The game is certainly interesting - I welcome in particular the Basilisk
and the Coordinator -, but it may need refinement with the help of
Zillions, which is not good at evaluating capture modes, however.
(Zillions also believes a Pao to be worth a Rook, when XiangQi masters
think it is worth only half a Rook, though on a less crowded board.)
I believe you're right to limit the custodian capture to a pair of Pawns.
Robert Abbott has long complained that the Pincer Pawns are too strong in
Ultima, whose armies are certainly stronger than they are in Orthochess or
in your game. Still, if the capturing force of one Pincer Pawn amounts to
nothing, the capturing force of two Pincer Pawns is also less than
threatening, and the players would decline to capture the last pair of
Pincer Pawns. Robert Abbott also wanted to use a pair of rookwise-moving
Coordinators, which would capture by coordination with each other. Why not
decide that the Pawns are Pincer Pawns until they are reduced to three
units, Coordinators - working with each other - when they are reduced to
exactly two units, and something else, maybe uncapturable and uncapturing
- but probably not unimmobilizable - Rook, or Withdrawing Rook, when there
is only one left?

Peter Aronson wrote on Thu, Apr 10, 2003 04:37 PM UTC:

Updated per author's request with modified King rules, and while I was at it, I added a link for the Slip Rook.

Michael Nelson wrote on Thu, Apr 10, 2003 08:34 PM UTC:

(I inavertently posted my comment to the wrong thread.)

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Mon, Jun 9, 2003 03:28 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

I have briefly play-tested the game, it is interesting and should be ranked as 'good', nevertheless, there is an observation: Basilisk seems to be extremely powerful on a board of 43 squares. Playability must be better on a longer board.

Carlos MartÃn-F. wrote on Mon, Jun 30, 2003 05:31 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I only wonder if 2 bullets per pistol are not too much, maybe just one shot would be OK.

💡📝Jared McComb wrote on Mon, Apr 5, 2004 09:40 PM UTC:

I am still waiting for my fifth-place prize here!

Or do I not get one?

Jeff Rients wrote on Fri, Jul 9, 2004 08:31 PM UTC:

If two foes are equidistant and orthogonally aligned to a Basilisk are both frozen?

💡📝Jared McComb wrote on Sat, Jul 10, 2004 05:46 PM UTC:

Any opposing piece in a Basilisk's line of sight is frozen, with the exception of the enemy Basilisk. It is possible to freeze up to four pieces simultaneously, none of which have to have the same distance from the Basilisk as any other frozen piece. Basically, any enemy piece a normal Rook couild capture from the Basilisk's square is frozen.

💡📝Jared McComb wrote on Wed, Apr 30, 2008 02:14 AM UTC:

I wonder whether this concept would work better in a hexagonal setting...

Flowerman wrote on Mon, Mar 8, 2010 02:44 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Is there game like this, but with diagonal moves instead orthogonal?

💡📝Jared McComb wrote on Wed, Mar 10, 2010 08:11 PM UTC:

What would be the point? Half the squares would be useless because the pieces on them wouldn't be able to attack the King, which leaves a game which is topologically equivalent to an orthogonal-only one.

Flowerman wrote on Sat, Apr 3, 2010 05:12 PM UTC:

Kings can be on squares of different colours (it was already used in some variants, where are pieces are colourbound). Or all pieces starts on squares of same colours (like in checkers). It must'nt be copy of this game, where orthogonal moves are replaced with diagonals, just uses same idea of this game.

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