Ratings & Comments

Note that it is possible to control the way the captured pieces are placed next to the board by defining arrays Model.Game.handLayout[color][handIndex]. This array should contain the square numbers where you want the first captured piece of the given color (1 or -1) and hand value to be placed. (A second piece will be placed at sqr+color, and after that counters will appear between the two shown pieces.)

Currently the default assignment is used, which places the white pieces on the first 'file' on the right of the board, the hand number equal to the rank number (which starts at 0). By defining a handLayout you could also use the ranks under or above the board to place pieces, thus requiring fewer extra ranks.

E.g. with a single extra rank (instead of the 4 you have now) you could place 6 white pieces below the board, and 14 white pieces to the right of the board.

Thanks for the catch. I only just recently realized my error there. I'll go fix that, both here and in my games where it appears, today and tomorrow.

It's good to know that you can use the bottom squares for that. Does it mean that we have to specify something like Model.Game.handLayout[1][{2:18,4:17}]; // eg : square 2, hand 18 for the white for each piecetype?

281. Mei (Chinese Rose / Rao). If a Nao is a Chinese Nightrider, then could there be a Chinese Rose? Well, of course there could! Like the Nao, the Mei (the best translation into Chinese for the word "rose" that I could find*) moves without capture normally, but must jump over a hurdle to capture. It's just that the Mei moves like a Rose. (mqNcqpN)

I don't think a move diagram is needed in this case, since most of us here knows how the Rose moves. I can vouch that the above XBetza does work; I tried it out in the XBetza Sandbox, and it behaves just as intended.

As I was informed in a later reply, this piece is called a Rao by chess problemists.

Creating this led me to discover some serious design flaws with my original Rose piece, which I've now corrected on my own system and will upload some time soon (Thingiverse is still having problems.)

*I have no doubt -- and, in fact, much hope -- that someone well-versed in the language will correct me if I got it wrong.

No, you have to write something like

Model.Game.handLayout[1] = [0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,30,46,62,...];

if you want the first 8 'hand squares' for white to be at the bottom, and the rest along the right edge.

I still have Astra (Rosetta) on your queue, but also I’ve recently created Astromech (even squares diagonally or odd ones orthogonally, AA[W?DD]). Try to guess who is Astromech)

I gave it a try here. I think It looks better this way.
@Adam: apart from the adjustments linked to the changes, what do you think?

An army with your pieces. What'd you call this army? Greenwade Gravels?

By the way, Chinoise Rose in problemist language is called Rao.

I guess the drop model still needs some tweeking. The square painting on the hand ranks should be the same as that of the other hand squares. Now there seems to be no coloring at all, so that the rim texture shines through. I suppose the logical way to do this is that the square-painting array that has to be defined in the game's view file should include the extra ranks.

It is also not clear to me why the 'counter piece' in the lower-right corner is larger than the others.

[Edit] The array boardLayout defined in the view file is accessed in two places in grid-board-view.js, inside nested loops over rows and columns. The loop over rows was modified to skip the extra hand ranks. I suppose this was a bad idea; especially in the 'paintCells' function it should have run over all ranks, requiring the boardLayout to also specify how the cells in these extra hand ranks should be colored. There is a second routine 'paintInCoordinates' that also loops over all cells, which does more complex things and might need more subtle modification than just changing the loop limits. But it seems this function is not normally used.

The handLayout[-1] in the view file appears to have a 16 where there should be a 17, which causes misplacement of the 'counter piece' on 15 rather than 16.

Strange. 13 should be a valid index for an array of length 19. That means the array should have some internal elements that are undefined. What happens if you print

console.log( this.cbView.boardLayout )?

Random Pocket Omega Chess

Should I add : Should I add " ##############" before and after?

Indeed, you should, because you want the extra hand ranks to be colored black as well.

An army with your pieces. What'd you call this army?

If it's a CwDA set, probably "Mad Movers."

By the way, Chinoise Rose in problemist language is called Rao.

I should've suspected that it would be something that rhymed with the others.

thanks for the advice.

I have modified accordingly

I stumbled across 'GC Preset for Reche's Super Faceoff Masquerade' again, and I'm wondering again how to recognize in the course of the game how an a-Rook takes as Knight, h-Rook as Bishop; b-Knight takes as Bishop, g-Knight as Rook; c-Bishop as Rook, f-Bishop as Knight (according to the description). The two rooks, bishops and knights do not differ and can no longer be distinguished in the course of the game. How is a strategic game supposed to come about then?

Looks good, save for a few errors:

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Setup Errors
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White Kirin and Phoenix are swapped from where they should be in the initial setup

Black King and Great Elephant are swapped from where they should be in the initial setup

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Promotion/Drop Errors
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Lance, Running Rabbit, Knight, Gold General, and Great Elephant are currently allowed to promote immediately if they are dropped into the promotion zone (this should not be the case)

Both Pawns in the hand spaces can be selected when multiple Pawns are in the hand)

282. Sandworm. This spawned from a recent comment on this list, like a throwaway line in a movie that becomes a classic.* This is inspired by the creatures from well-known desert planets in the Star Wars and Dune franchises (Tattooine and Arrakis, respectively), but it's not the full-sized version (which probably would be something to go into a four-square space, though with rather similar moves). This can be thought of as a "Juvenile Sandworm."

A main feature of the fictional sandworms is that they burrow underground, so as a piece the Sandworm simulates that by jumping others. At its basic, it slides in any radial direction, like a Queen. In the interest of game balance, I limit that to two pieces that it can burrow under, though in games with particularly large armies that may increase. If there are no pieces to burrow under and the Sandworm moves no more than 4 spaces to capture, it may continue to capture another piece in the next square. ((paf)2QcyafQ4)

In this (hopefully not overly confusing) diagram, the White Sandworm is able to capture any of the Black pices on the board. The only two that it can capture in a single move, however, are the Knight (i9) and Queen (j10), since the Knight is only 3 spaces away, the Queen is in the next adjacent space, and there are no intervening obstacles.

I probably could've posted this much earlier, but (aside from the previously-mentioned issues at Thingiverse) the shape kept coming out so that Thingiverse's sample-graphic (above) made it look like... well, something that probably shouldn't be shown on this site. It still kinda does, but I think it reads OK. (I might see about making the teeth large enough to be visible in the image.)

*It's even happened to my own comments, at the Super-Team Family: the Lost Issues blog. I was only kidding when I mentioned Snow White and the Seven Soldiers of Victory -- which became my first idea to be published there -- and my remark about Bugs Bunny vs. Doctor Doom was supposed to be an example of things we probably wouldn't see done!

The two rooks, bishops and knights do not differ and can no longer be distinguished in the course of the game. How is a strategic game supposed to come about then?

You can differ them:

• in offline play by sticky markers;
• in online by notation used.

BTW I have recently done the rules page.

It should be ok now