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Very Heavy Chess. A lot of firepower with all compounds of classical chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, May 5, 2022 12:28 PM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from 08:12 AM:

The drug is heroin. Heroine is the feminine form of hero, but its usage has become less common.Supergirl used to be called a superheroine, and now she and other superheroines get called superheroes. My main issue with the name heroine is that it is kind of generic.

I don't know what a Pythia or a Pythoness is, but the latter brings to mind a lamia rather than something religious.


Greg Strong wrote on Thu, May 5, 2022 08:12 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 06:06 AM:

Pythia is good. Pythoness sounds like a female python (a type of snake). I realize that's not what is meant but I think most English speakers will know of python but not this word so they will think of a snake.

Valkyrie is a good name. Heroine is not a bad name but unfortunately is also the name of a dangerous drug and that usage is probably more common.


💡📝Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Thu, May 5, 2022 06:06 AM UTC in reply to Greg Strong from Wed May 4 09:49 PM:

I had thought of Abbess but it doesn't sound high enough, and there is an Abbott (F4N) which is less than a Cardinal, so it would be strange to have the Abbess as Cardinal+King.

I like Baroness for the phonetics. But it lacks the religion field, and baron/baroness is a low noble rank.

Pythia is exactly the kind of word I was looking for!!!!

If Popess hurts people too much, why not Pythia. According to WP, Pythoness is also used. What is the best for English-speaking players?

As we are there, what do you think of Heroine for RKN (RFN actually). I wanted a feminine, warrior-like name. Isn't too vague? At a moment I was thinking of Valkyrie.

Do you have an opinion?


frogsandprincess[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, May 5, 2022 05:47 AM UTC in reply to wdtr2 from 12:57 AM:

Are you sure the diagram of the initial position is correct? There seem to be some Frogs missing, in an asymmetric way.

The Bishop might be weaker than the Elephant, and the Rook weaker than the Roo. I am pretty sure they would be weaker on 8x8.

The rules for game termination seem a bit illogical, and therefore needlessly complex. Easier would be to declare a loss when you do not have a Princess at the start of your turn, or a King at the end of your turn. (Combined with the usual checking rule that you are not allowed to do a move that causes an immediate loss.) I see no reason for making an exception for when the Princess is in check. For one, it is very unlikely that the King capture checks the Princess, so it won't affect the game much. And if you cannot solve the Princess check by converting a Frog when it should happen, you would just have lost.


what is play test applet[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, May 5, 2022 05:39 AM UTC in reply to wdtr2 from 01:01 AM:

You will find it in the alphabetical index under P. It can generate GAME code for rule enforcement / highlighting in Game Courier presets. But it has no provisions for uncommon rules like Frog kissing, or mixture of chess and shogi promotions. So it would be necessary to supplement it with code of your own.


wdtr2 wrote on Thu, May 5, 2022 01:01 AM UTC:

Based on some comments in the past. I think there is a playtest applet, that can make something (code?) to show/generate legal moves. Does that exist? If yes, I have a blank board that I would like to add code so that it will show legal moves, and would like the playtest applet to make the legal moves/code.


frogsandprincess[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
wdtr2 wrote on Thu, May 5, 2022 12:57 AM UTC:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/frogsandprincess

I think this is ready to be published.


Very Heavy Chess. A lot of firepower with all compounds of classical chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 09:49 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 07:10 PM:

Another suggestion I would make is Baroness. It has the B for Bishop, the N for Knight, and while it lacks a K, it is a royal title, and it has an R for roi, the French name for the King.

For what its worth, I like this idea a lot


H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 09:18 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 07:55 PM:

Just some suggestions: 'Pithia' is a kind of high priestess. 'Abbess' is a female abbot: head of a community of Nuns.


New Grand Apothecary Chess Error.[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 09:06 PM UTC:

Whether a piece can promote or not depends on its ranking in the piece list and the value of maxPromote. If you want a Pawn that cannot e.p. capture you just leave out the e mode. E.g. fmWfcF instead of fmWfceF.


Decimaka (revised). Game where pieces promote on making a capture. (10x10) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 08:38 PM UTC:

This article is ready to be published.


Very Heavy Chess. A lot of firepower with all compounds of classical chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 07:55 PM UTC:

Indeed, I wanted to change Templar for High Priestess. Then, I made a small search and found what Kevin is saying. This High Priestess is even referred on several places, so I can't ignore it. It plays as FAN. I thought about Reverend Mother, but it's too long. This how I came to Popess. The word exists.

Freemason is too heavily loaded. Several people are freemason and I'm not sure it won't be insulting for them, as they defined themselves as atheist too. That issue is complex, I prefer not going into it.

The 3 objections from Fergus are strange. Are Amazon, Gryphon, Manticore, Hyppogriff, Sylph, existing more than Popess? Are Bede, Bishopper, Barc, Ferfil, Vao, Ubi-Ubi more real? Is it possible to have 2 Sissa on the same game? Momess or something like this, would be an invention, not easily understandable.

Maybe I don't see the problem with Popess, the more I think, the more I like it.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 07:10 PM UTC:

Another suggestion I would make is Baroness. It has the B for Bishop, the N for Knight, and while it lacks a K, it is a royal title, and it has an R for roi, the French name for the King.


New Grand Apothecary Chess Error.[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 06:32 PM UTC in reply to Aurelian Florea from Fri Apr 22 06:56 AM:

@HG,

I have asked you a question earlier on this post. May you take a look?


Very Heavy Chess. A lot of firepower with all compounds of classical chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Kevin Pacey wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 06:10 PM UTC:

I'd note High Priestess is used for a different piece type than BNW, in a number of CVs invented years ago by Joe Joyce that are still played on Game Courier now and then.

For BNW some years ago I thought up 'Freemason' (made it to wiki on Fairy Pieces, somehow). Historically the name could arguably be extended back to masonry. Freemasonry also includes a religious element to it, a Google search revealed. Main reason I picked the name was that it begins with 'F', which no other piece type in my Sac Chess CV started with. [edit: I picked 'Ship' for RNF since RF I called Sailor, and I'd use 'H' as its initial]. However a drawback is that Ship is used for many piece types/CVs, I later learned.

Somewhere in CVP's Man and Beast piece articles Charles Gilman long ago offered different names for BNW and RNF types than any mentioned in this thread. I like the name that Very Heavy Chess uses for RNF.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 04:33 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 08:56 AM:

There are a few problems with the name Popess:

  1. Unless you're counting Pope Joan, there has been no such thing.
  2. Presumably, there would be only one Popess if there were one, because it would be a female Pope, but your game gives each player two of them.
  3. The word derives from a word meaning father. Presumably, the word for a female equivalent of a Pope should derive from a word for mother.

Here are some possible alternatives:

  • Mother Superior - the highest rank reached by nuns in the Catholic Church.
  • High Priestess - a common term for a high ranking female cleric, and it is used in the major arcana of the Tarot.
  • Bokononess - a made-up word formed from the name of a fictional religion portrayed in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.

Ironhouse. Members-Only Full tamerlane chess + Makruk + Shogi Pawns and Cannons. (11x10, Cells: 110) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Very Heavy Chess. A lot of firepower with all compounds of classical chess pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Wed, May 4, 2022 08:56 AM UTC:

I have abandoned the name of Templar for the BKN, because Templar is used in other variants with other moves. I have adopted Popess which seems unused (although I wouldn't be surprised to be wrong).

For fun, Bikini would have been a possible alternative too.


Ironhouse. Members-Only Full tamerlane chess + Makruk + Shogi Pawns and Cannons. (11x10, Cells: 110) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Leo. Moves on queen lines, but must jump once when taking.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Tue, May 3, 2022 08:41 PM UTC:

I found an interesting source. Encyclopedia of Chess Problems.-Milan Velimirovic Kari Valtonen.2012-Comprimido

in:

https://fr.scribd.com/document/536275573/Encyclopedia-of-Chess-Problems-Milan-Velimirovic-Kari-Valtonen-2012-comprimido

p96, the entry "Chinese pieces" says "introduced to a wider European publicity by P.Seyfert-Bitterfeld in the February 1936 issue of Die Schwalbe".

Also of interest the French book Le Guide des échecs, Traité complet" by Nicolas Giffard and Alain Biénabe (sadly passed away in 2021, see https://www.echecs64.com/2021/02/28/deces-du-problemiste-alain-bienabe/ ) has a very strong part dedicated to Fairy Chess (I don't know something as complete in English) written by Biénabé. Page 1200 it presents the family of Chinese pieces and says (my translation):

These pieces were "discovered" (from Chinese chess) by P.Seyfert in 1936, but it is T.R. Dawson who gave their first noble letters to this family!

According to British Chess News, https://britishchessnews.com/2019/12/16/remembering-thomas-rayner-dawson-28-xi-1889-16-xii-1951/ Leo (and Vao) had been invented in 1912.


Pandemonium (Surajang修羅場). Capablanca chess + Crazyhouse.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Daphne Snowmoon wrote on Tue, May 3, 2022 05:37 PM UTC:

I Fixed a typo

Pawn : Moves one square orthogonally forward

->

Pawn : Moves one square orthogonally forward or sideways


Lion (2). Moves on queen-lines but must jump exactly one piece. Appears in fairy chess problems.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 2, 2022 10:00 PM UTC:

I have now updated this page.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 2, 2022 09:16 PM UTC:

Judging by the diagram, this is the Korean version of the Leo, which combines the Cannon and Vao from Chinese Chess.


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Mon, May 2, 2022 08:18 PM UTC:

The verb "to take" is confusing on this page. Once it used to mean "capture" which is common understanding I think.

But it is also written "a lion can move more squares after taking the `hurdle'". I believe that the lion is never capturing the hurdle. So, "after hopping the hurdle" would be more correct, except if I have misunderstood that move.


Sign in to the Chess Variant Pages. Sign in to the Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 2, 2022 06:03 PM UTC in reply to Máté Csarmasz from Wed Apr 20 07:51 AM:

All that verification checks is whether you can receive our email. If you can't, then marking your account as verified won't fix that. If you really want to receive emails about your moves, I recommend using a Yahoo account, as it accepts our emails better than Gmail does.


Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, May 1, 2022 04:10 PM UTC:

I found some functions for converting between the RGB and HSL color spaces, and using them got rid of the problems I was having with making the Black Motif or Magnetic pieces white. However, using them to make the Black Alfaerie pieces white would turn them grey, and trying to make White pieces grey would leave them white. To avoid these problems, I had the function choose between the old RGB recoloring method and the new RGB->HSL->RGB recoloring method based on the relative luminosity of the two colors and on whether it was converted from a true color image. If the new color has a higher luminosity, and it was not converted from true color, it will use the new method. Otherwise, it will use the old method. In my tests, this seems to be working out for the Abstract, Alfaerie, Magnetic, and Motif pieces.


🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, May 1, 2022 01:53 AM UTC:

In modifying the form for customizing the appearance of the board for an ongoing game, all form elements were disabled, and it took me a while to figure out what to do. That clued me in that it wasn't working in an intuitive manner. So I changed how it works. Instead of expecting you to choose the Custom theme before you can change the appearance of the game, any change to a form element for changing the appearance automatically changes the theme to Custom. As long as your theme remains set to Custom, the changes you make will be accepted. If you change your theme after starting to make custom changes, it will go with the theme and ignore the other values you set for changing the appearance. I added fields for choosing the color of Black and White pieces. However, I have not integrated these into themes.


🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2022 10:03 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 08:55 PM:

But the anti-aliasing causes pixels on the boundary of the black outline and the colored interior to be darker versions of the interior color, by mixing in the black. So simply looking for an exact match of the original color fails to replace the boundary pixels.

I already took that into consideration.

This problem can be solved, though: you could test every pixel for the value of the brightest RGB component, and deduce from that by which factor it is darkened compared to the interior color. And then darken the replacement color by the same factor.

Here's what I'm doing. I collect all the color indexes. For each color index with a non-zero alpha value, I make a determination of whether it belongs to the outline of a piece or to its coloring. I do that with this conditional:

if (color_diff(array($cv["red"], $cv["green"], $cv["blue"]), $original) 
<= color_diff(array($cv["red"], $cv["green"], $cv["blue"]), "black")*2) {

The color_diff function returns the greatest difference between one color's minimum component value and the other one's maximum component value. I added the *2 to prevent some errors, and that part now seems to be working well. If it belongs to its coloring, I recolor each RGB component with this function:

function recolor_component_as ($originalvalue, $currentvalue, $newvalue) {
    if ($originalvalue == 0)
        return $newvalue;
    return min(255,round($newvalue*($currentvalue/$originalvalue)));
}

One remaining problem is that when I try to color the Black pieces white, I get an aquamarine fringe around the Black Motif pieces. In this case, $originalvalue will be 255 for the red component and 0 for the green and blue components, and $newvalue will be 255 for all three components. So, it recolors some edge pixels with positive values for green and blue but with 0 for red, resulting in aquamarine. So, I might have to factor in the value of each component when deciding how to recolor each component. But when I tried that earlier, I got some undesirable results.


🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2022 09:51 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 08:55 PM:

But the anti-aliasing causes pixels on the boundary of the black outline and the colored interior to be darker versions of the interior color, by mixing in the black. So simply looking for an exact match of the original color fails to replace the boundary pixels.

I already took that into consideration.

This problem can be solved, though: you could test every pixel for the value of the brightest RGB component, and deduce from that by which factor it is darkened compared to the interior color. And then darken the replacement color by the same factor.

Here's what I'm doing. I collect all the color indexes. For each color index with a non-zero alpha value, I make a determination of whether it belongs to the outline of a piece or to its coloring. I do that with this conditional:

if (color_diff(array($cv["red"], $cv["green"], $cv["blue"]), $original) 
<= color_diff(array($cv["red"], $cv["green"], $cv["blue"]), "black")*2) {

The color_diff function returns the greatest difference between one color's minimum component value and the other one's maximum component value. I added the *2 to prevent some errors, and that part now seems to be working well. If it belongs to its coloring, I recolor each RGB component with this function:

function recolor_component_as ($originalvalue, $currentvalue, $newvalue) {
    if ($originalvalue == 0)
        return $newvalue;
    return min(255,round($newvalue*($currentvalue/$originalvalue)));
}

One remaining problem is that when I try to color the Black pieces white, I get an aquamarine fringe around the Black Motif pieces. In this case, $originalvalue will be 255 for the red component and 0 for the green and blue components, and $newvalue will be 255 for all three components. So, it recolors some edge pixels with positive values for green and blue but with 0 for red, resulting in aquamarine. So, I might have to factor in the value of each component when deciding how to recolor each component. But when I tried that earlier, I got some undesirable results.


H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2022 08:55 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 01:29 PM:

The original alfaerie set should be considered obsolete now that we have alfaeriePNG, and its use should be discouraged. The anti-aliased version looks so much better. But the anti-aliasing causes pixels on the boundary of the black outline and the colored interior to be darker versions of the interior color, by mixing in the black. So simply looking for an exact match of the original color fails to replace the boundary pixels. This problem can be solved, though: you could test every pixel for the value of the briggtest RGB component, and deduce from that by which factor it is darkened compared to the interior color. And then darken the replacement color by the same factor. (This assumes the outline is pure black.) To make it resistant to multi-color originals you could even check whether the other two RGB components of the original are indeed similarly darkened (within some tolerance for rounding.)


🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2022 01:29 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 07:42 AM:

It works with the Alfaerie set. To work, it has to know the primary color of the piece. This is stored in the variable $originalwhite or $originalblack, and the value of each variable must match a color actually used in the image. I have set their values in the main body of the code for Abstract, Alfaerie, Magnetic, and Motif pieces, and I have set their values in individual set files for some other sets. I have thought about adding code that would identify the most common foreground color in each piece image, as it already goes through each image pixel by pixel to get the color indexes, but I'm not sure if this would be appropriate for some pieces, such as pieces with textured coloring from photographs.


H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2022 07:42 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 03:02 AM:

Does it also work for the anti-aliased piece sets?


🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2022 03:02 AM UTC:

I modified the showpiece.php script to change the color of the piece. This may later be used with the Table and CSS rendering methods to recolor the pieces, and I may modify the pc shortcode to include a color option. Here's a violet King.


🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2022 02:32 AM UTC:

I turned the code for recoloring pieces into a function, and I added the ability to recolor pieces to the circular and spherical boards and to the Diagram Designer. But I still need to do some work on the forms.


Design Contests[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Samuel Trenholme wrote on Fri, Apr 29, 2022 10:10 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Thu Apr 28 01:43 AM:

I think another design contest would be nice. I like having the option of two different numbers; I could do something nice with 62 spaces if we need more submissions.

(This is the same Sam Trenholme who made Schoolbook a long time ago. I’ve given up on password recovery, so I’m just using a new account. As an aside, Gmail isn’t getting the verification emails.)


Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Apr 28, 2022 08:52 PM UTC:

The recoloring of pieces is working very well now. Even with the Alfaerie pieces, it looks like they were originally the color they were recolored to. For some sets, there are some glitches when trying to recolor the black pieces as white, but that's usually something no one will want to do.


Design Contests[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Apr 28, 2022 01:43 AM UTC:

In the past, we had design contests featuring a number of spaces that corresponded to Hans Bodlaender's age. The last of these was 20 years ago when he was 42. Since then, we haven't done any more, because it is a lot of work. But maybe we should do some more since they do help encourage creativity. Since I'm younger than Hans, we could use my age to get some of the board sizes we've missed. I turned 55 on Saturday. It's also significant, given that Hans is from the Netherlands, and this site is physically located in the Netherlands, that the King of the Netherlands turned 55 today. And since we can't say for sure that we will be running a design contest in 7 years, we could do 55 and 62 together as a 55 or 62 space design contest.


Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Apr 28, 2022 01:05 AM UTC:

Today I've been working on allowing players to change piece colors when the board is displayed as an image. Recoloring is not available for boards rendered as tables or with CSS. It works best for the Abstract pieces, because they are the simplest in design. It also works for Alfaerie, Magnetic, and Motif pieces, but the greater detail of these pieces makes a perfect recoloring job more difficult. For the new Alfaerie pieces, there is one more issue. It has to convert them into 256 color palette images before recoloring them. So, they don't look quite as good as the unrecolored images. As long as you don't change the color, the pieces will not be recolored, and they will look as they normally do. I plan to work on this more tomorrow, but for now, I have copied my work to the main server to keep it from being overwritten by the backup at midnight.


Chess 66. Board based on the 8x8 arrangement - with the difference that 66 fields are now available. (8x8, Cells: 66) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Apr 27, 2022 04:21 AM UTC:

I'm looking at the diagrams on my Likebook Mars at night, and on its monochrome e-ink screen, I cannot tell apart the red and blue pieces in the diagrams. At best, they are slightly different shades of black. In the diagram I made, the red pieces, which belong to White, appear even darker than the blue pieces, which belong to Black, which is opposite to how they should look in black and white. For the sake of accessibility for color-blind people and people using e-ink displays or black and white printouts, piece colors with more light/dark contrast would be more suitable.


💡📝Gerd Degens wrote on Tue, Apr 26, 2022 07:24 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 06:37 PM:

I am very impressed, the changed look in Game Courier is a real enrichment. I am sure that many things can be better represented on this basis. I hope that I am not going too far out on a limb when I say that a variant such as Avatar Chess can be better conveyed. A very interesting upgrade.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Apr 26, 2022 06:37 PM UTC:

I have been working behind the scenes to get Game Courier and the drawdiagram.php script to display images better. They can now recolor loaded images for the grid shape, and they can display coordinates above selected boards, which is important for Chess66, because it helps dispell the illusion that a vertical line of movement begins and ends in the same file. Here is the closest it can now come to the diagram that appears in the article. I suppose I should work on options to recolor the pieces, since what I'm doing for this diagram is using a piece set with four colors of pieces and using different labels for all of the Red pieces.

Chess66 Diagram

Viking Chess Set. Game board and pieces in search of rules. (Cells: 37) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Michael Ireland wrote on Sun, Apr 24, 2022 10:45 PM UTC in reply to Pim Hovenga from Sun Feb 7 2021 10:09 AM:

Nice!


Game Courier History. History of the Chess Variants Game Courier PBM system.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 10:32 PM UTC:

Small palette board images with fewer than 256 colors that use the default colors can now be recolored like automatically generated boards. When the developer or user has chosen a different color than one of the default colors, the default color will be replaced by the new color in the image. For this to work, the original image must use the default colors, which are 339933, CCCC11, and 22BB22.


Chess 66. Board based on the 8x8 arrangement - with the difference that 66 fields are now available. (8x8, Cells: 66) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 01:45 PM UTC:

Here's are some guidelines to use in revising your description of the game.

  1. The rules should be made entirely clear in the written text. Illustrations should be used to illustrate what the text has already said, not to provide additional information that is not written down.

  2. The text should describe not only what can be done but how to do it.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 01:28 PM UTC in reply to Gerd Degens from 08:54 AM:

From the questions and expressions of confusion you got regarding what the rules are, it should be evident that you have not described them clearly enough. Also, you seemed to change your mind about some details in the comments. So, you should rewrite your rules to reflect anything you have changed your mind on and to supply the details that someone would currently have to read the comments to find out about.


💡📝Gerd Degens wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 08:54 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 02:08 AM:

"...once you have settled on the rules and have described them clearly."

With respect for the great job you are doing, but I can't accept that I haven't set the rules and described them clearly. You can have different perspectives, for example regarding the functionality of the switches. It is also possible to designate parts of it as non-essential. But it is not decisive what can be programmed with the available possibilities. It's a question whether the game can be played with my rules and that the rules are consistent. I had to move concerning the access to the switches because my rules weren't clear. That's it from my point of view. Had to be said. :)

I'm excited to see what happens with my other variants (Chees 69, an addition to Chess 66 and Avatar Chess).


New Grand Apothecary Chess Error.[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Aurelian Florea wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 06:56 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Thu Mar 17 07:17 PM:

@HG, Hello I want to use the dummy piece trick here the way you suggested a while ago. I don't know how to define the dummy pawn (a pawn with no capture, en passant or promotion).

EDIT: I mean without having to redo the diagram from scratch.

Can you help me?


Chess 66. Board based on the 8x8 arrangement - with the difference that 66 fields are now available. (8x8, Cells: 66) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 04:39 AM UTC in reply to Gerd Degens from Thu Apr 21 07:12 PM:

the main feature of a switch that I'll retain is that spaces in the switch share some routes to and away from them, and movement from the narrow end can go in either of two different directions."

I'm sorry, but I didn't understand that.

I mean I am retaining the geometrical properties of the switches, but I am discarding the other rules regarding them.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 02:08 AM UTC in reply to Gerd Degens from Thu Apr 21 07:12 PM:

Does that mean my variant is history? Or have I misunderstood something?

No, it means I am working on my own variant instead of putting pressure on you to change yours. You're free to go with the rules you want for your game. I'll see what I can do about programming it once you have settled on the rules and have described them clearly.


Oblong chess. Variant of Shatranj, played on a four by sixteen sized board. (4x16, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
dead dead wrote on Fri, Apr 22, 2022 12:26 AM UTC in reply to from Thu Sep 9 2010 03:29 PM:

Or with the modern Bishop and Queen.


Chess 66. Board based on the 8x8 arrangement - with the difference that 66 fields are now available. (8x8, Cells: 66) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Apr 21, 2022 11:27 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from 07:38 PM:

As I understand it, Fergus has decided to program a variant based on yours, and given it a different name to signal that it's not the same game.

Exactly this.

This game differs from yours only in that both a4 and 4, or both 5 and h5, can be occupied/passed through simultaneously.

There are some other differences. Here's a link: Reroute66. The rules are described below the board. I'll add individual piece descriptions to the rules later.

I'll admit I find it a little odd that such conditionally untraversible squares should be so difficult to implement (couldn't it be done with uncapturable dummy pieces that appear and disappear as the other square is occupied and vacated?)

That's the solution I already proposed. But I also think these rules are not essential to the core concept of the game, and I wanted to start with a variant that does not include them.


H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Apr 21, 2022 08:43 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from 07:38 PM:

One way to program it would be to have a single square 4/a4, and to introduce a number of extra piece types, each especially adapted to have the moves that the switches would allow. That is, you would have a special Rook for on a3, which would move forward both as a normal Rook, or with a move that switched file after one forward step. (And for a2 one that switched after 2 forward steps, etc.) When a piece of this Rook family would land on an edge file you make it automatically 'promote' to the kind of Rook that belongs on that square. When a Rook landed on a4 there would be a kind of promotion choice: it either stays/becomes a normal Rook, or one that replaces its forward move by a Left-Griffon move. Same idea for the other piece types.

I suppose that through this method I could even have the Interactive Diagram play Chess66. A user-supplied JavaScript function WeirdPromotion would take care of the 'promotions'.


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