The Chess Variants Game Courier

The Name

Game Courier is a powerful, open-ended play-by-mail system for strategy board games, particulary Chess variants. It currently supports around 600 different games, and users can design and program more games for it. In this respect, it is especially suited for the Chess variant inventor who would like the opportunity to play his inventions online with other people. But it is also well-suited for those who would just like to play games. It features nice graphics, enforces the rules for many games, and provides a pleasant user-friendly interface for playing games online. The name reflects its role as a messenger between players. It is also a play on the Courier Game, a Chess variant of the middle ages whose Courier piece moved as the modern Bishop.

Features

Game Courier lets you play Chess variants against other people on the web. Here are some of its main features:

For Users

• Play by email or in real-time.
• Lost email is not a problem. The Logs page will keep track of all your games for you. Check it anytime to see whether it is your turn to move in any game.
• Log comments with your moves and annotate as you play.
• High quality graphics.
• Choose the pieces you want to use.
• Sophisticated time controls.
• Enforces rules of selected games.
• Browse through old games on the Logs page.
• Play rated games and get a Game Courier rating.

For Developers

• Custom design your own games in Edit mode.
• Choose from several piece sets, or even draw your own and have us add it to the site.
• Choose from several different board images, draw your own and have us add it to the site, or have Game Courier draw your board for you.
• Choose from different types of cell shapes, whether square, hexagonal, or some custom shape.
• Choose from different rendering methods, such as HTML tables, CSS code, or auto-generated image files.
• Use its programming language, known as GAME Code, to program it to enforce the rules of games and to automate complicated moves.
• Design games without any automation or rule-enforcement, which allows you to quickly get to playing your game if you're not a programmer, and which allows you to play games whose rules GAME Code cannot handle.

Comparison with other PBM systems

The main thing I don't like about other PBM systems is that none of them support my own games. I like Game Courier better than any other PBM system out there, because I can easily support my own games with it. If you're as much of a fan of my games as I am, you will realize what a substantial benefit that alone is. But even if your tastes run in different directions, you will appreciate that Game Courier supports more games than any other PBM system, and it is user-expandable to support almost any two-player strategy board game you would like to play or can imagine. Unlike the other PBM systems out there, Game Courier was invented by a game inventor for game inventors. Although other PBM systems might support user features that Game Courier lacks, Game Courier is really the best PBM system for game inventors. Its main drawback, compared with other PBM systems, is that it does not enforce the rules for all the games it supports. But it can and does enforce the rules for many games, and its ability to support games without rule enforcement allows it to support many more games than it otherwise would.

Comparison with Zillions of Games

Zillions of Games is an excellent program for playing Chess variants and other strategy board games. Like Game Courier, it is user-expandable, letting users design and program many different games. The main advantage of Zillions of Games over Game Courier is that it will provide you with a computer opponent. On this strength alone, Zillions of Games is worth getting if you have a Windows OS or can run Windows program with Wine or another Windows API. No other program for playing Chess variants against your computer is as versatile or as customizable as Zillions of Games. Game Courier is as versatile and as customizable as Zillions of Games, but it won't provide you with a computer opponent. Compared with Zillions of Games, its strengths lie mainly in how it is better for playing games against human opponents. It more reliably connects you with human opponents, allows you to play games with more people, and keeps track of all your games for you. Also, its programming language is more of a full-fledged programming language. It includes features lacking in the ZRF language and allows support for games that can't be played with Zillions of Games. For developers who aren't artists or programmers, Game Courier has the advantage of allowing dumb presets that don't enforce rules and of drawing your board for you. This makes development easier than it is for Zillions of Games.

Reliability

When you play a game by emailing ZSG files, your game will be disrupted if an email isn't delivered. But with Game Courier, you can check on your games even if you don't get any email. When you use Zillions to play a game in real time, your game will be disrupted if your computer crashes or your opponent's does. But with Game Courier, you can play in real-time without worrying about this, because crashing your computer won't affect the log of your game. You can alternate between playing a game in real-time and playing it asynchronously. If your session is disprupted by a computer crash or another event, you can just continue it later. When you move in Zillions of Games while playing in real-time, it is possible to make the wrong move because of a slip of the mouse. With Game Courier, you can more reliably enter the move you intended, because it requires moves to be entered notationally, and it has you preview and confirm your move before logging it.

Platform Independence

Zillions of Games is a commercial Windows program. This limits your opponents to other people with the Zillions of Games program and a Windows OS. As a server-side web-based program, Game Courier will work for you no matter what operating system or web browser you use. This expands your range of potential opponents to Macintosh users, Linux users, Amiga users, etc.

GAME Code vs. ZRF

The ZRF language used by Zillions of Games is very limited in its capabilities. It has no math, no string manipulation, no functions, no subroutines, and limited control structures. In contrast, GAME Code is a Turing-complete programming language with math, boolean, and string operators, user-defined functions and subroutines, and all the usual control structures normally found in other languages, as well as various functions and commands designed specifically to aid rule-enforcement in Chess variants. It generally takes more programming skill to program game rules in GAME Code, but more can be done with it. It can be used to program rules for games that can't be programmed for Zillions of Games, such as Marseillais Chess. It can easily be used for games that could be done in Zillions of Games only with large, bloated code, such as Xorix Shogi. It can handle the finer details of rules that Zillions of Games can't, such as the Shogi rule against checkmating the King with a Pawn drop. It can easily be used for games with random elements, such as Vegas Fun Chess, and it has a set of commands for using cards, which can allow games similar to Knightmare Chess. This is not to say that it is more versatile in every respect. Game Courier cannot support multiplayer games, whereas Zillions of Games can. But other than that, Game Courier is more versatile than Zillions of Games.

I tried to solve the problem of unusual move orders by letting one party do an empty
move (e.g. swapping the bishops or knights) thereby relinquishing his move-right to
the other party, but it was somewhat awkward for the players. I wonder if it would be
possible for Game Courier to make an 'empty move' for the moving party if a boolean
variable was set to true.
/Mats

Fergus, multiple moves per turn is not possible with point&click(?). Only by manual
typing. 
/Mats

http://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/index.html
Last Modified: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:58:43 -0700
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