Ratings & Comments
Very few (or zero) server visitors being interested in Spartan Chess I think I can understand, but I am a bit surprised that the final form of 10x8 Capablanca Chess (the variant made by the famous Cuban World Chess Champion, i.e. not all the other similar 10x8 CVs) would attract very little interest too. Of course, if few people visited that server anyway...
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Feb 8 03:38 PM UTC in reply to Kevin Pacey from 02:54 PM:I have been running the open-source FICS code on my server for a while, mainly to organize on-line tournaments for computer programs. I did add a lot of variants on it too, such as Capablanca 10x8 variants, Spartan Chess. No one would ever play those, of course, but there were hardly any human visitors of that server anyway, and I never organized computer tournaments for those on that server.
I don't know if that old source still compiles on CentOS; otherwise it would be possible to run it on the CVP server as well. But it would have to be changed a lot for allowing a wider variety of variants, and in particular easier implementation of new ones. Furthermore, the only client capable to run the variants is WinBoard/XBoard, while nowadays people lose interest for anything you cannot play directly in your browser.
Here is a free online open source fairy chess server designed to play several CVs:
Free chess server sites sometimes even include a number of chess variants for play, such as on FICS (Free Internet Chess Server). Bughouse is even an option there, though I don't know if it's just for between two players.
I don't know if Game Courier can ever handle very fast-moving games played of CVs, but maybe a special interface like used for [even free] chess servers might eventually be possible, if it seems worthwhile. It might get more members (especially active ones) to CVP site.
Bn Em wrote on Thu, Feb 8 02:07 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Tue Feb 6 06:59 AM:The difficulties in Fr would be that "knight" is translated by "chevalier" in a general context and by "cavalier" (meaning a horse rider) in the context of chess. So a CV having Knight, Cavalier and Chevalier, will be difficult to translate in French. Or a CV having a Tower and a Rook, both being "Tour". A CV having a Lady, would be translated as "Demoiselle", as "Dame" is already the word for Queen. Etc.
In general, this is true, yes; my previous comment was referring specifically to Bigorra (and by extension the rest of the games in its family) which doesn't have such conflicts.
The difficulties with translating to French are mainly due to French being one of the main sources for Modern English
I'd say the difficulty is a little subtler: English, due to both its Lingua Franca status and its extensive acquisition of loanwords, simply has a lot of words in certain semantic domains that mean either the same or very similar things. Which is obvious when, as with French, there are actual clashes, but even in Russian I'd be a little surprised (perhaps @Lev can enlighten us?) if it had three different words for Knight/Cavalier/Chevalier.
For comparison, German might get away with that triplet using both ‘Knecht’ and ‘Ritter’, (cognate to ‘Knight’ and ‘Rider’ respectively, and with (I think) slightly different connotations), but even then only because the Chess Knight is unrelatedly named ‘Springer’ — it can thus even spare a word for ‘Horse’ (‘Pferd’ — or even ‘Ross’ if necessary, though that'd be a bit like naming two pieces ‘Horse’ and ‘Steed’ in English). It would have just as much trouble as French with ‘Rook’/‘Tower’ (both ‘Turm’), though.
At some point, creative license would no doubt become necessary.
Some English speakers would call [Cardinal and Marshall] Archbishop and Chancellor or Princess and Empress
And some would call the Amazon Ace or Terror. Yes, English CV nomenclature is a mess.
One might argue that's an accident of history: several people independently reinventing the same pieces under different names before any one convention got established. There's no reason a priori to replicate that in translation (this being the ‘opportunity’ I referred to).
The difficulties with translating to French are mainly due to French being one of the main sources for Modern English. Because of this, French and English share many words even if we pronounce them differently or give them slightly different meanings. Russian, though, has never been as much of an influence on English, and it uses a different alphabet. So, it's probably not going to have as many clashes over piece names as French has.
Fr: Cardinal/ Maréchal/Amazone; Loup Garrou/Soldat, yes those are easy. The difficulties in Fr would be that "knight" is translated by "chevalier" in a general context and by "cavalier" (meaning a horse rider) in the context of chess. So a CV having Knight, Cavalier and Chevalier, will be difficult to translate in French. Or a CV having a Tower and a Rook, both being "Tour". A CV having a Lady, would be translated as "Demoiselle", as "Dame" is already the word for Queen. Etc.
Litterature for CV exists in Fr with the pioneer works of Boyer in the 50s (which inspired Parton), then the rich book of Giffard and Bienabé (Guide des échecs), that I recommend even if you are not at ease with Fr. Bienabé wrote a very large section about fairy chess with plenty of information on fairy pieces, from the perspective of the 20th problemists (many were French). And, of course, my own French books on the subject, I should mention.
In Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian I have some literature too were I could find the adopted names for the most used ones.
And whilst i don't know the established French names (assuming there are any) for Cardinal/Marshall/Amazon
Some English speakers would call the first two Archbishop and Chancellor or Princess and Empress. If he's translating the rules of a game, it would be most appropriate to use the translation of whatever the piece is called in that game, as opposed to how it is more widely known. It would also be appropriate for him to put the original English name in parentheses. And if he knows a common Russian name for a piece, he might add a note about what it is commonly known in Russian as.
I would be interested to know if there is any substantial Russian literature on chess variants or fairy chess. It's possible that this kind of individuality was frowned upon in the Soviet Union and didn't get the same attention it got in the west.
Bn Em wrote on Tue, Feb 6 01:36 AM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from Sun Feb 4 06:45 AM:The problem of names of the piece, which is already an issue in English, may become a problem with other languages
Yeah piece nomenclature would definitely be the hardest part of this; as H.G. notes, there'll be some precedent in whatever exesting literature on CVs there is in a given target language, but that will almost certainly be limited in scope for most languages compared to what we have here (even, say, Die Schwalbe's relatively extensive glossary has some, from a variantist point of view, arguably major omissions). And as you say there's a certain amount of conflicting usage between languages that makes things less than straightforward.
Of course, that cuts both ways; would‐be translators have an opportunity (if they do their research appropriately) to avoid making quite as much of a mess of naming as we have in English :) Even if we don't go as far as attempting the likely‐futile task of trying to replicate the likes of Man and Beast in, say, French.
And depending on the pages Lev is interested in translating it may not be much of an issue at all; plenty of games on these pages use only the Orthodox sextet
If I had to translate Bigorra with its more than 30 different pieces, I may come to some difficulties
Might be an interesting exercise in itself, to see how feasible such a task would be. And whilst i don't know the established French names (assuming there are any) for Cardinal/Marshall/Amazon, most of the remaining pieces (with the exception of the Direwolf and maybe the Soldier) ought to be easily translated word‐for‐word. For Russian we might have to pay more attention to the Elephant and Ship (we could always take precedent from English and go with ‘Филь’ for the former at least), and Italian/Spanish/German might want something more distinct from ‘dame’ than ‘duchess’, but these are exceptions really.
Russian proverb: one trouble is not better than another.
Reflected in a contemporary American idiom: It's always something. :)
I don't get the point with "Хрен редьки не слаще" even with a translator.
Russian proverb: one trouble is not better than another.
@Lev: yes, sorry I wrote too fast. Yes Queen is Ferz and Rook is Boat (ladya). I knew that of course as you imagine. It changes nothing on what I was trying to say. On the contrary.
I don't get the point with "Хрен редьки не слаще" even with a translator. I hope this is not disrespectful on me.
H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Feb 4 07:07 AM UTC in reply to Diceroller is Fire from 06:50 AM:Well, being creative is not the main requirement, and might actually backfire. There surely must already exist publications in these other languages about chess variants, which name many of the elementary pieces. It would be important to conform to these existing naming schemes, rather than create entirely new ones.
Just to illustrate an Alfil is a Bishop in Spanish, a Cavalier a Knight in French. The Queen in Russian is a Boat and the Bishop is an Elephant. The Bishop is a Fool in French.
Incorrect, Queen is Ferz while Rook is a Boat. Хрен редьки не слаще, to be said)
The problem of names of the piece, which is already an issue in English, may become a problem with other languages. <…> Of course, things are getting even weirder with other names of characters and animals. If I had to translate Bigorra with its more than 30 different pieces, I may come to some difficulties.
I’m creative, so I’ll find the right way)
@BnEm yes I could help with French, also with Spanish and Italian or Esperanto, but I have realized that it is not easy to do such a thing with chess variants. The problem of names of the piece, which is already an issue in English, may become a problem with other languages.
Just to illustrate an Alfil is a Bishop in Spanish, a Cavalier a Knight in French. The Queen in Russian is a Boat and the Bishop is an Elephant. The Bishop is a Fool in French. Of course, things are getting even weirder with other names of characters and animals. If I had to translate Bigorra with its more than 30 different pieces, I may come to some difficulties.
We can rely on browser translations to make sure the translation is on target. To do this, we should add a LANG attribute to some major element, such as HTML or BODY. As a test, I added LANG="nl" to some Dutch pages and was able to get an English translation. While the translations we get may be imperfect, we can at least use them to make sure that the page is explaining the rules of the game. Actually, as a further test, I tried to get a translation of a Dutch page without this, and it still worked. As one more test, I was able to get an English translation of our Russian Chess Rules page. So, even if none of us speak Russian, we may be able to check the translations.
Bn Em wrote on Sat, Feb 3 09:58 PM UTC:The main problem here is that I don't think anyone among the editorship understands Russian (I can speak German and Spanish, I presume H.G. speaks Dutch, and Jean‐Louis, while not presently an editor, would be able to help with French, but as far as I'm aware that's about it), so it would be difficult to be confident in the quality of such a translation (though I suppose there are other Russian speakers on this forum, who might be better placed to help in this regard?).
That said, in principle I'm all for having more Russian‐language (or any other non‐English) pages, so if we can find a way to make this work by all means :)
I’ve seen how many pages are on Russian here. Just two! It’s a shame. Can I fix it? I can translate several game pages, please don’t stop me for doing so.
Refresh your cache or switch to another browser for a while. I changed some JavaScript variable names to match the PHP variables they were based on, but your browser may still be using the earlier version of movepiece.js.
XBetza for Base on an 8x8: (abaqaq)W(afabafaqaq)afW(afafabafafaqaq)afafW(afafafabafafafaqaq)afafafW(afafafafabafafafafaqaq)afafafafW(afafafafafabafafafafafaqaq)afafafafafWR
@Fergus ... I think the shogi series (perhaps all of them) is having a problem. (see pocket shogi copper). To do a move you click the piece and you get your square gray cube (so far so good). Legal moves show as blue squares. (again ok). You click a blue square, and the move never completes. (That is the issue)
I logged into Adsense and found out that Google was conducting an experiment in Anchor ads, and I stopped this experiment. I then removed NoScript from Chrome and loaded the logs page, and I saw a Google sidebar ad but didn't see any bottom screen ad. So, I think I've gotten them turned off.
Yes, I saw the Copilot symbol from Edge in your image and realized you were using Edge. So, I tried some other things. First, I changed my ad blocker in Chrome from AdBlock Plus to uBlock Origin, and it made no difference. Note that I had turned each one off to see the ads, but I wanted to see if either was blocking some ads regardless. Then I installed NoScript, and that did make a difference. Even with everything trusted, NoScript is still stopping the bottom screen ad from showing up, but it is not stopping a Google ad from showing up in the sidebar. So, it's probably that my other browsers, which I use more often, already had NoScript installed, and Chrome didn't.
I did click on the Chevron tab you wrote of, H.G., but today before Fergus made changes I was getting tired of clicking due to suddenly seeing way too many such sliding footer ads on pages I went to.
I use Google (and gmail) though I never knowingly became a Chrome user (Google all but tries to shove it down people's throats, similar to Microsoft's trying to force people to finish installing Edge). I cannot seem to figure out if I am still not a Chrome user, despite instructions online on how to find out.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jan 25 06:12 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 06:01 PM:Well, I am using the Samsung browser on my Galaxy tablet, and some pages ago I also got an ad that had settled itself at the bottom of my screen. It was easy to dispoe of, though (by clicking on a kind of tab it had).
Further testing shows that the bottom screen ad is still showing up on Chrome even when code I've added tells me there is no footer ad in the HTML. Meanwhile, I have not seen it in other browsers. This may be because Chrome is owned by Google. So, I would recommend switching from Chrome to another browser. If you want a browser that supports Chrome extensions, you can switch to a Chromium-based browser that is not owned by Google, such as Edge or Vivaldi. If Chrome extensions are not important to you, then Firefox is also a good choice.
For now, I'm going to allow Google footer ads again and do some further testing.
@ Fergus
A footer slider ad appeared again just now, at bottom of my Game logs page.
I got your email, and since the ad was placing itself at the bottom of the screen instead of at its place on the page, I purged the ads of google ads in the footer before selecting an ad.
@ Fergus:
I just sent you a fresh email. Letting you know in case it's mistaken for spam.
I edited my previous post, in case anyone missed it.
@ Fergus:
I sent you an email 'Kevin Pacey's screenshot' at 4:30pm today, at your email address XXXXXXX at yahoo dot com. I can forward it again to you if you cannot find it - unless my laptop has been unusually hacked, somehow.
After I wrote that I thought it was on second thought a footer ad, I searched for that term on Google and found on an early search result that apparently there is such a thing as a 'slider footer' - though I'm not sure that's what I am seeing on CVP site, especially on my own Game logs page (maybe such ads choose their 'victim' based on page(s) he visits a lot?!).
[edit: it just happened again, and I did not touch the sidebar to scroll, at all]
edit2: From a Google blurb (maybe there's other newish types of ads out there now?):
Slider ads (also called floating ads or catfish ads) are banner ads that slide in or fade in at the bottom of a page. The slider ad moves along with the page as the user scrolls up or down and stays visible unless the user closes it through the closing button.Oct 6, 2015
Yes Bob, that's what I think I am seeing - and clicking on the chevron makes the ad retreat to the bottom of the screen, as I found out later, too.
smallish ads appear sneakily from bottom, going upward on my screen
You might be speaking of the sidebar ads, though that's not quite an accurate description. There are no ads that change position on their own. The ads will move only when you scroll the page, just like other content on the page does. However, most of the content on the page has static positioning, which means it can move off the screen if you scroll far enough away from it. But the sidebar ads have sticky positioning, which means they stop moving up once they reach the top of the screen.
If what you're seeing is like what I'm seeing, there should be a chevron on a tab to the left. If you click on that, the ad will retreat into the bottom of the screen.
if that works for you/helps. The footer may be what you expect, but I find it gets in the way a bit of my game log list, until I scroll further down, or remove the footer ad.
The footer ad goes below the content and above the comments. So, it should not be getting in the way of your game log list.
Ben Reiniger wrote on Thu, Jan 25 01:03 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 12:58 AM:This description doesn't fit:
smallish ads appear sneakily from bottom, going upward on my screen
and I've never seen such, and I expect they shouldn't be possible.
I was able to email you my screenshot, at least (like the last time I did a screenshot for you, when I think I had a different laptop/desktop computer).
I didn't see your email, but I only asked for a screenshot when you were saying it was a pop-up ad, as I do not run pop-up ads on this site. Since you later said it was actually a footer ad, that's nothing unusual, as I do run those.
@ Fergus:
I was able to email you my screenshot, at least (like the last time I did a screenshot for you, when I think I had a different laptop/desktop computer).
It happens to me too, but not on every page. I have a large sidebar on the left. Sometimes I have in addition a large footer. Here it is a large header. Having both is a bit invasive.
I don't recall how to share a screenshot (maybe I had a different laptop when I once did for you, Fergus), but one image with a 'slider-footer' is located at (according to screenshot I took):
www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/logs.php?stat=ongoing&age=7776000&sort=priority&userid=panther
if that works for you/helps. The footer may be what you expect, but I find it gets in the way a bit of my game log list, until I scroll further down, or remove the footer ad.
C:\Users\User1\Pictures\Capture.PNG
Sorry, I guess I meant footer (i.e. not pop-up, I guess I don't understand that term - smallish ads appear sneakily from bottom, going upward on my screen). Maybe I thought it was a new trend by Google (and it's not?), but it seemed the footer ads appear especially when I am on my own game logs page.
The footer ads take up enough space (and my attention), at least today, that I wanted to get rid of them (maybe I'm just in a poor mood?), so I started trying to by clicking on the ads' small 'x' in the upper right of their 'box' - a never-ending exercise it seems, as ads (always say they are Google ads) are soon replaced by different ads.
Last week I went to a NY Post horoscope page that was evidently infected in some sort of way, but my Microsoft Defender later detected no fresh threats to my laptop. Since then, the only thing that might have changed, I thought, was detectible on this CVP site, but I guess I was wrong if footers are usual (I paid them no notice earlier, if they were appearing for a while now).
I have not seen any pop-up ads here. Ads should be limited to the header, sidebars, and footer, all out of the way of content. Can you provide a screenshot if it happens again?
Has anyone besides me gotten a sudden alarming increase in Google pop-up ads showing on this CVP site? They give me a way to get rid of each kind of ad, one at a time, after clicking through about 3-4 small boxes the size of the original ad.
I consider non-paired pieces possible exceptions. It's not an absolute rule. Of course, there are good games that totally ignore this idea.
That's not quite a good principle, if left unqualified. A queen can threaten just about anything and, except for a knight, other pieces can threaten the queen but be taken by it possibly, in FIDE chess, for example.
From Fergus' article on designing good CVs:
'Include pieces with differing powers of movement. Each can attack the other without being attacked back.'
I think what he might have wrote instead of 'Each' was 'Some' or 'Many'.
https://www.chessvariants.com/opinions.dir/fergus/design.html
Are there any principles you use to evaluate or design chess variants? One I like is where each piece type should be able to threaten each other piece type without being threatened in return.
I had changed slugify() to replace spaces with hyphens instead of underscores, but it seems that Game Courier depends upon changing them to underscores. So, I switched it back, and your game log displays again.
Fergus: your tests with hyphens might have broken things. For example, my game log with Vitya Makov, who just moved (i.e. he did not delete log apparently):
Thanks for sharing gitpod. I didn’t know it.
You can start on your fork with a good idea, demanding a small coding ambition. You can always improve your skill, learning by doing.
If you succeed in doing what you wanted, you can propose it to lichess. Otherwise, I'm not surprised that it's hard to convince the developers, who are no doubt in great demand.
For the moment, I'm interested in jocly, maybe in a few months I'll look at lichess but more with the idea of providing them with a contribution than making a permanent fork.
They will say me: go to hell)
Hexagonal chess on Lichess? Guy are you normal?!! WTFlame bro >,<? (I’m already banned in Lichess project in GitHub on both my accs because sparked by my ideas or off topic when devs were tired)
However, starting a new site from fork on recently announced GitPod is fine. Though I have almost no skill of coding. I’m ideaman.
The easier would probably to propose a variant in a contribution from a fork in the lichess project.
@Jean-Louis and @François,
this domain doesn’t exist. It’s just a sparkling idea…
@Bob, IDK, really… currently none of Lichess forks supports 3D/4D.
How well would 3D/4D variants be supported? (Like Chess on a Tesseract.)
same for me.That links doesn't work.
I haven't understood what this message is about, really.
You want to add variants on a fork of lichess, right? I can‘t find https://lishapes.org
I have an idea...
Of Lichess-based site on Scala with chess variants on non-square boards. https://lishapes.org
Variants should be available on it:
- Hexagonal Chess:
- Glinski's
- McCooey's
- Shafran's
- Koval's
- Tri-chess (on triangles)
- Pentagonal Chess
- Irrational Chess
- Accelerated Chess
- Rocket Chess
And probably:
- Crazy 38 Chess
- Grande Acedrex
- Metamachy
- Horizons
There'll no bullets, rapids, etc. — no rating differences for time controls. Correspondence games are rated. No AI (like Stockfish or Fairy-Stockfish) currently planned.
I tried laser cutting again with the svg from alfaerieSVG.
In my case, I printed about 50 double-sided tiles for the shogis :
I don't know if there's a real use case for shogi, which is perhaps more practical on software, but in any case it can be done easily in a few minutes and for a very reasonable expense.
@ Daniel
I still find this 24x8 invention idea (essentially yours, the setup of which I modified and called Bureau-Spiel) looking plausible, so I finally made a preset and sent you a personal invitation to play-test it, if you still are interested.
Kevin
Thank you, I hadn't read that article before.
I started indeed from the same pieces but I didn't want to use 3D printing to make plastic pieces this time.
I wanted to test laser cutting to make wooden or slate pieces quickly, easily and cheaply... in one ou two passes max for the set.
Unfortunately, these parts aren't perfectly suited to this, so I'll have to remake them. Maybe I'll do that later.
As I know that there are creators of pieces and beautiful libraries of SVG, there may be someone who would be interested to try. Apparently a lot of software allows you to hollow out a piece from an svg easily.
Yes I know about it since I've read Couch Tomato's useful blog post in Lichess where these colored pieces are shown on board.
These do look quite impressive!
I tested the possibility of making a physical shogi game from svg.
I started from
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4750301
which had hollowed out 3D pieces with SVGs in freecad.
In tinkercad I exported a svg for laser cutting with a set of selected pieces :
At the moment I can't cut the back of the pieces because, as the pieces are inclined, they are not horizontal on both sides.
I'm not going any further this time, but I'm sharing a photo because it might inspire someone to share sets for laser cutting from their SVG library.
You can download the latest version of joclyboard (Offline desktop version of jocly):
https://github.com/aclap-dev/joclyboard/releases/tag/v0.9.13
It should be easier to install than the previous versions and it includes a recent version of jocly.
As of today I've made preliminary Settings Files for my backlog of 28 CV ideas - they can already serve as (unofficial) presets for anyone who visits my CVP Personal Information Page, to look up the link for my Settings Files (then they are free straight away to explore the whole list of mine).
Here's a list of the names of the (28) CV ideas, to give possible insight:
24x8: (1) Bureau-Spiel
20x8: (1) Hurly-Burly Chess
16x8: (3) Officer-Spiel; Constable-Spiel; Accelerated Constable-Spiel
14x8: (1) Wide-Spiel
12x12: (1) Brawl Chess
12x8: (10) Accelerated Courier-Spiel; Capa-Spiel; Centaur-Spiel; Janus-Spiel; Hurly-Burly-Spiel; Lancer-Spiel; Horse-Wazir-Spiel; Kirin-Spiel; Warmachinewazir-Spiel; Waffle-Spiel
10x10: (2) Grandiose Chess; Hybrid Decimal Chess
10x8: (6) Centaur Princess Chess; Fibnif Lancers Chess; Horse-Wazir Chess; Kirin Chess; Hybrid Chess; Warmachinewazir Chess
8x10: (3) Officer Chess; Constabulary Chess; Accelerated Constabulary Chess.
Here's a direct link to my Settings Files:
https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/settings.php?author=panther
Also please respond here with any criticism so that I can receive the news in a centralized way.
There is now a way to view all comments for you in a centralized way. Go to "Comments for You" in the menu headed by your name.
@Fergus, I see you are checking submissions. May you please check the ones mentioned in this thread?
Today I'm feeling rather pensive about CVs in general. This thread easily might have addressed the future of chess variants (or which chess variant(s) might next catch on hugely, and/or how - could be the basis for a NextChess thread 2.0, if a new version of that thread is desirable), and it still could. Instead, for now, I thought the topic of how to promote chess variants, such as online, was of foremost interest to me and perhaps most readers.
A first question: how to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for websites, say especially this one, that feature chess variants at all? That is, how to get CVP site to pop up early in search engine results for when people type in a very wide variety of search keyword(s)?
[edit: One thing to try: feature the word(s) "'[online]' gaming" somewhere on CVP site - chess variant playing is arguably gaming; a search for 'are chess variants video games' returns a positive result in Google's top result, except CVP nowhere to be seen in top results at least.]
Has any editor had the time to look at the variants mentioned in this thread?
I have made the modification. I wanted to ask if any editor noticed this thread. It is about a collection of games I am proposing. They need reviewing. But no hurry. I know you guys are having a lot on your plates.
Catched is not a word. Do you mean caught, which is the past tense of catch, or cached, which sounds sort of like what you wrote?
@ any editor It seems no editor has caught this thread ! Please any of you take a look!
Hopefully an editor catched this thread. No worries otherwise, I just want to make sure that approving this is on someone's to do list!
Hello, I have invented six new very related games that can be found here:
https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/wafflechesswithmanticoreandfalcon
https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/wafflechesswithgryphonandfalcon
https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/hannibalchesswithmanticoreandfalcon
https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/hannibalchesswithgryphonandfalcon
https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/frogchesswithmanticoreandfalcon
https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/frogchesswithgryphonandfalcon
In the attention of any editor: the articles are very similar (some pieces differ amond these games) so it is sufficient to read one of them. Also please respond here with any criticism so that I can receive the news in a centralized way. Nobody will comment the same thing six times, and there is the risk of poluting articles with comments intended from other articles.
Bn Em wrote on Sat, Oct 28, 2023 11:42 AM UTC:Strictly speaking of the names Bob's proposed for the Bt[WzB], only Disciple is not also given to a piece in M&B; the Apostle is a (cubic) qB (moving in rings of 6 steps like the hex Finch whose dual it is) and the Evangelist is another cubic piece combining Picket (cf. Tamerlane) and Eunuch (2 steps nonstandard‐diagonally, i.e. unicornwise).
Only the Apostle has actually seen use though, and it could be argued that unlike the Metropolitan (a name I was surprised to see again tbh) whose move is available on the usual board, these are less important anyway, being 3D‐specific. And Evangelist certainly suits this piece well
I have a complete.zrf and should be able to submit as soon as I build the web pages. The game should be in the editor's hands tomorrow or the next day.
Good choices all around, I'd say. :)
I have a name: Colorful Osmosis Chess. Colorful refers to the importance of color-bound and color-switching pieces while osmosis is a synonym of absorption. I decided to not use triple and quadruple compounds. On the right of the King, the positions of the Bishop and Camel are reversed, thus using rotational symmetry as in Shogi rather than mirror symmetry as in FIDE Chess. This provides one Bishop and one Camel on each color. The absence of castling and promotion at the Pawn line rather than the back rank is also very Shogi-like.
The quad compound would be so singular that, based on what I can find on Zulu mythology, I'd want to call it Inkosazana.
I like the Evangelist piece name and I will experiment with triple compounds. The Knight-Camel-Bishop-Harvester quadruple compound would be strange a more than a little frightening. It covers more squares than the Amazon (aka the Terror), but unlike the Amazon, can't mate unassisted.
My mistake. You are correct--it doesn't cover one of the wazir moves even at the edge of the board. But it does confine the King rather nicely as you bring in the King or another piece to cover that square.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 26, 2023 05:54 PM UTC in reply to Michael Nelson from 04:39 PM:The Camel compound is the Imam, which has the property of mating a bare King on an empty board unassisted.
I don't see how it would do that, without assistance of its King.
My thoughts:
Absorber Chess is probably too close to Absorption Chess; Cannibal Chess is likewise taken. But you've probably already considered those, and others like them.
Power Eaters, perhaps?
By the way, the Metropolitan name is already taken, by a Bishop+Gryphon piece. Would something like Disciple, Evangelist, or Apostle work? (I like Evangelist best of these, as it applies to a religious "harvester" of sorts.) I really like the other two, though, especially the Battlemaster.
Incidentally, can your game have triple compounds? If so, I've already named the Gnu+Bishop as the Sangoma (a religious figure in southern Africa, where the gnu is native); the rest I leave in your hands.
I have invented a new variant and have a working .zrf. I don't have a satisfying name for it. (Rather reminiscent of my first variant Separate Realms.)
The essential idea is to use four basic pieces, two leapers, and two sliders. One of each type is color-bound, and the other is color-switching.
For the leapers, I have the Knight and Camel, and the Bishop is the obvious choice for the color-bound slider. For the color-switching slider, I'm using Jörg Knappen's Harvestman from Seenschach, which moves a wazir and then continues as a crooked bishop.
Also, simple pieces can combine with captured enemy pieces as in Assimilation Chess, but the compounds do not split, and there are no King compounds.
So Gnu, Cardinal, and Caliph can appear as well as three Harvestman combinations I've never seen before. I've named the Bishop compound the Metropolitan (a title used in Eastern Orthodoxy for a prelate ranking above an archbishop but below a patriarch). The Camel compound is the Imam, which has the property of mating a bare King on an empty board unassisted. I haven't done the endgame studies to see if mate can be forced. The Knight compound is named Battlemaster, after the Fighter subclass in D&D 5e.
The Harvestman is a good Rook substitute on the whole, though not as good at forcing mate. It does however move in a general rook-like direction with greater mobility. Intuition says this is a reasonable trade-off.
The game is played on a 9x9 board with normal Pawn movement including promotion at the enemy Pawn line rather than the back rank, allowing very FIDE-like Pawn play. Castling is forbidding, so the King is very exposed in the center of the back rank. This is rather reminiscent of Shogi.
A very playable game judged by Zillions vs. itself play. Now I need a name, and I can change some piece names if that fits the theme better.
I wanted to tell you the following:
Having the elephant move over the whole board is not that important as most of the time it will be dropped. Think about the knight or lance. having 4 moves will make it too powerfull. I think a fsAbW should be enough though. the back move would give the Elephant a different personality to the one of the knight. It is nice to talk to you again.
I just tried playing the game with the exact same moves, and I can't find the bug yet. I just deleted the game, so that you do not loose via a time default. I am going to examine the code, and modify the elephant move. Sorry about this issue. :(
It appears only when I try to drop, and it looks like this:
1Array ( [0] => Array ( [0] => !Ci [1] => !Ch [2] => !Cg [3] => !Cf [4] => !Ce [5] => !Cd [6] => !Cc [7] => !Cb [8] => !Ca [9] => !Di [10] => !Dh [11] => !Dg [12] => !Df [13] => !De [14] => !Dd [15] => !Dc [16] => !Db [17] => !Da [18] => !Ei [19] => !Eh [20] => !Eg [21] => !Ef [22] => !Ee [23] => !Ed [24] => !Ec [25] => !Eb [26] => !Ea )
[1] => Array
(
[0] => !Fa
[1] => !Fb
[2] => !Fc
[3] => !Fd
[4] => !Fe
[5] => !Ff
[6] => !Fg
[7] => !Fh
[8] => !Fi
[9] => !Ba
[10] => !Bb
[11] => !Bc
[12] => !Bd
[13] => !Be
[14] => !Bf
[15] => !Bg
[16] => !Bh
[17] => !Bi
[18] => !Aa
[19] => !Ab
[20] => !Ac
[21] => !Ad
[22] => !Ae
[23] => !Af
[24] => !Ag
[25] => !Ah
[26] => !Ai
)Can you send me a picture or text of your error message?
I think there is a bug in the code. It was apparently automatically generated by the applet and you have tried to modify it manually!
This message is for Catugo: oops, I did not see your message about Elephant Shogi not working. You have not made a move in a few days, so I thought you went somewhere on vacation. === I had the same problem with Elephant Shogi also. I am not sure why. The load of this game seems always seems sluggish to me. I copied the code from shogi, and added the elephants. I am far from an expert at coding at CV, but it starting working for me again. This is what I did to get around the issue. ==== on the top of the cv pages there is a header. Play, games, explore, shop, etc. The header on the far right should say catugo for you. === click catugo, and logout. log back in. then go to: https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/logs.php?stat=ongoing&age=7776000&sort=priority&userid=catugo === after the logout and login, it starting working for me again. ====
Is it a person's id?
Yes.
Hey! I have some comments for you the previous days. I had written them under the topic @wdtr2!
On the games invite page, I see once in a while "play tester". What is that? Is it a person's id? is it an AI program that plays CV chess, or something else?
Are you here?
wdtr2,
Have you seen my last comment?
The preset for elephant shogi does not work anymore!
ok, that is why I checked. :) I'll try again.
H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Sep 26, 2023 08:13 AM UTC in reply to wdtr2 from 01:03 AM:Well, I am sorry to say they mostly qualify as junk. The 100x100 images have a much lower resolution than that, and seem to be blow-ups of a 50x50 image. The Queen image is slightly better; even though it is not anti-aliased it at least really has full resolution; if it would be displayed at smaller size (which Jocly would), averaging the combined pixels would create intermediate colors as a poor-man's alternative for anti-aliasing. But the letter Q on the tile is of course much too small. (That also applies to DK.)
I don't really see the point of using shogi tiles for any representation other than traditional kanji pieces. The tile background hardly conveys any information on piece identity (even if the sizes are slightly different this is quite hard to notice), and take away at least half the area that would have been available for the distinguishing features of the pieces. Furthermore they are a very player-unfriendly method of distinguishing the side they play for; unlike noticing deviating color, for which the human brain can use parallel processing, recognizing orientation requires focus of attention.
So even if the image quality would be perfect (i.e. high resolution anti-aliased), I would still not be very enthusiastic about the design.
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We have had a Chess variants server since 2001. It's called Game Courier, and it supports more Chess variants than all the others combined.
If you stay on the same game instead of checking your logs, Game Courier will check whether your opponent has moved every 7.5 seconds and update the page with an audible beep when he has.