Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Incidentally, for any designers, it has been mentioned once every 1 1/2 or 2 years, anyone wanting to use Falcon with conventional pieces on 8x10 and larger, just plug in co-authorship, as Aronson does here with Complete Permutation Chess. And mention the patent number. On 8x8 anyone can use Falcon without restriction, as Joe Joyce does in 2007 with two Presets, one called Royal Falcon.

Thank you for the comment 'Even in 8x10 or 10x10 there is no infringement with unusual piece mixes and Falcon.' That applies to my Armies of Faith 1.

Weird: wired: wider. Excellent article 'A Taxonomy' yet nowhere mentions complementarity. RNB: Rock, Scissors, Paper: R/S S/P P/R: dead or alive. RFNB: Rock Fire Scissors Paper: R/F F/S S/P P/R: alive or dead. [where Knight = Springer and Paper = Book] Metaphorically, Rock breaks Fire, Fire cures Scissors, Scissors cut Paper, Paper covers Rock; Rook, Falcon, Springer, Bishop. There can be seriously but one complement to Falcon, Knight and Rook, namely the Bishop; and so on around the cycle (either way) in four-fold complementarity. Or, think of I.Q. test questions, e.g. one that sequences 'arrow up', arrow right, arrow down and then complete the pattern. '(e) none of the above' is incorrect in the instance there is an 'arrow left'. [So, complementarity existing, any such weird, inferior piece as the old Chu Shogi Lion, mentioned by 'Levi Aho', overlapping fundamental units Bishop, Knight and Rook as that one does, restricting the movements to at most two steps away, is ultimately all too inconsequential -- except in its domain of esoterica. From standpoint of complementarity, 'Chu Shogi Lion' would be in the nature of one more incorrect answer. Any number of such 'wrong' pieces can be dreamt up intellectually in infinite universe of mis-direction. One and all they can even be endlessly classified and played out, simultaneous with only those above four 'complementary' pieces able to clarify a complete and correct picture. Their particular piece-movement dynamics together are forming a sort of saddle point of convergence having in all just the one solution.]

Complete Permutation Chess was made 4 years ago and a GC Preset added this month. Thanks to PAronson for the fine concept of a Carrera-Capablanca extension. The whole point of 8x16 Chess is to apply all possible combinations of the 4 fundamental pieces. There is a common misconception. Rook one-step(Wazir) and Bishop one-step(Ferz) suggest their indefinite continuations and so are not fundamental, and actually they should be characterized as 'fractional' pieces instead. Rook and Bishop themselves are the fundamental line pieces of course. No one would be interested in a design keying off four 'elements' 'Ferz', Rook, Falcon, Knight. Nor in 'Wazir', Bishop, Falcon, Knight. Knight is ever more the only true leaper because it has no 'obvious' pathway(s): are they 2 steps compounded of Ferz and Wazir, or the other two of Rook 'fractions' alone; or all 4 of those? Mathematically to be developed in Game Design thread, Falcon is the first among equals, because the other three RNB derive logically from previously-hidden Falcon by itself, and not vice versa. So, it is unique that way. No Car-Cap extensions work with RNB and Camel, a colourbound leaper imitative of Knight. Nor with RNB and Zebra, a coulour-changing leaper imitative of Knight. Nor with RNB and anything else except (exemplified in that RNB's very deriving from the 'Falcon template') this 3-step 3-path primoridial-piece precedent.

OK, this page has returned from the dead! Or, at least, the hidden.

Thanks for the information about Zillions of Games. It sounds like a reasonable organization. As to Complete Permutation Chess, this is a good 'idea game' of Aronson. I can evaluate because all I added was the Pawn two-move option. Having parallel in Betza's Tutti-Frutti Chess, the implementation of all possible compounds makes especial sense. Aronson e-mailed two years ago also about opportunity to explore Falcon compounds, meaning F-N, F-B, and F-R. I knew right away that was not particularly worthwhile. Falcon does not work well compounded and in fact doing so confounds or even ruins play of stand-alone B, N, and R. This CPChess is not really a very playable game, nor intended to be. Other 'concept games' would be Divergent Chess, Delegating Chess, Avalanche Chess, and a lot of other Betza games for that matter. Monkeying around with F-N, F-B, and F-R also enables one to see clearly the inferiority of N-B(Cardinal) and N-R(Marshall) too, compared to say Gryphon, Cannon, and Canon. Knight and Falcon are not properly compounded at all in serious Chess. They made the right decision when coming up with Queen(R+B) about yr. 1475 in Italy/Spain.

With reference to games patent coverage, 8x8 board size is not reserved in the Falcon Chess patent claims, so variant designers are free to use Falcon on the standard small board. Even in 8x10 or 10x10 there is no infringement with unusual piece mixes and Falcon. As ex., Beastmaster Chess' unifying concept of leaping pieces might be interesting combined with Falcon, Scorpion and Dragon on large boards 10-square or 12-square. George William Duke

<i>(Approximate answer -- George is the authority.)</i> <p> As I understand it, the patent covers games that are equivalent to, or a superset of, Falcon Chess, which is a Chess variant played on an 10x8 or larger board containing the regular Chess pieces <strong>and</strong> two Falcons that move like described. <p> Falcon Chess is patented just like Gothic Chess is patented -- what the superset business means, I believe, is that if you took the game of Falcon Chess, and added, say, a pair of Omega Chess Wizards in citidel squares, it would still be covered by the Falcon Chess patent. Complete Permutation Chess could be considered an extreme form of that.