Comments by Bob Greenwade

Would Consul work for AZ?

I think that -- or, perhaps more accurately, Proconsul -- would make for a fine alternate name for Governor. Proconsul could also fulfill the space as an animal name.

The corners of the DZ move resemble mountains

Ah, OK. That somewhat makes sense, at least (certainly no less sense than my logic for Senator and Governor).

ND rotated 45° is AC

ND rotated 45° is NA. AC rotated 45° is DZ.

What about Mountaineer for DZ?

I don't see the connection.

AC should be related to whatever you'd call ND.

The ND is known by many names:* Templar, Kangaroo, Carpenter, Ouroboros, Scribe, or even (in my Tifinagh set) Yar. That said, the rotary counterpart to ND is NA, known as Hospitaller, Kangaroo, or Princess.

But some editing will be needed; I just noticed that I do have DC and AZ in the Butcher and Baker. Probably those two will become DZ and AC.

Sorry, I mix up DC and AZ, obvious mistake.

Well, it's not a problem of being American or French, although I think that considering that everything may be called according to an American reference is a little bit upsetting for those barbarians who live outside.

Well, I never said the barbarians are the ones living outside the US. :)

Senators have not been "invented" in the US. There are senators in my country too, and probably elsewhere. And they are colorbound also if I may say. Senator would evoke also the Roman Republic. SPQR. Finally, yes, it makes a good name. Your reference to US Senate made me loose that point.

The relationship with the US Senate is that it's in DC (District of Columbia); hence the connection.

And it was the Roman Senate that guided my design of the model, and partially the Governor as well.

I'm a bit reluctant to use Governor, or General, Counsellor, Minister, these sort of names because there are many accross the different chess in the world or in history. My own bias is to think too much universal maybe (maybe because I'm not American, I joke). For instance, the red "King" is xiangqi, the shuai, maybe translated as Governor. Maybe you could be inspired by some names of function coming from the Antiquity, Roman, Greek, etc. to go along with Senator?

My initial inclination, actually, was to go with East and West something-or-other for DC and AZ respectively, but nothing came to mind (it would be something good to do with an animal name). Also, I remembered that there were Governors in ancient Rome (the most famous being Pontius Pilate); I just wish I could've come up with a better representation.

Is there a Governor in some existing variant? That would be a decent motivation to resume looking for another name to contrast with Senator.

(It also just occurred to me that the moves of DC are closer to the center of the diagram than AZ, just as a Senator is part of the central government and the Governor works more remotely, in both American and Roman settings. That's part of why I didn't call it Representative -- that, and I didn't want to make this one too American!)

I'm contemplating the DZ and AC compounds, if I can think of good names (and models) for them.

I can understand your resistance to the Senator and Governor names; they're rather American-biased, and you're French. I initially was going to go for battlefield names making reference to how the corners of the moves point inward to the center, but nothing came to mind (though Iron Maiden might be interesting for SCZ). Animal names are worth considering too.

Oh, and it's the Senator (DC) that's color-bound, not the Governor (AZ). In a weird way, that's even more American (gubernatorial seats change party rather more easily than senatorial seats).

305. Senator. and 306. Governor. These are two pieces whose names are given indirectly from their Betza notation. The first leaps two spaces orthogonally, or (1,3) like a Camel, and -- at least, to an American -- Senator seemed like a natural name. (DC)

Less obvious was the name for the piece that leaps two spaces diagonally, or (1,3) like a Zebra; in the context of the Senator, though, the only thing that seemed natural was Governor. (AZ)*

I'd originally just looked at these the DC and AZ moves for the novelty, but couldn't find any existing pieces** with those moves.

The crossed spears are from the symbols used by the Roman Empire; the wedge on the Senator recalls the eagle that was used in the Senate's symbol. The five stars on the Governor piece are just a decision based on desperation (I couldn't think of anything else!).

*For those outside the United States, AZ is the postal abbreviation for the state of Arizona, which is adjacent to the lower end of California. DC, of course, is the District of Columbia.

*Outside of Gilman's Man & Beast articles, that is. And I'm sure that if something exists anywhere to show that I'm wrong, someone will graciously point it out.

304. Three-Toed Box Turtle. As (semi-)promised, here's the mirror counterpart to the Three-Toed Sloth from a week and a half ago. It shares the same history, except for the extra step of making it as a mirror. (And a special salute to HaruNY for the name.)

To recap: This piece moves one step directly forward, or diagonally backward and to the left; or leaps two spaces diagonally forward and to the left, or backward and to the right; or leaps two spaces forward and one to the right; or makes one or two leaps of two spaces directly forward. (fWblFfD2rfNflbrA)

This isn't necessarily the end of it, either; the fun thing about completely asymmetrical moves like this, as well as the Blue Gecko and related pieces,* is that mirroring and rotating allows for up to eight members of the move family -- sixteen, if you allow for turns of 45° as well as 90°.

Aside from an unwanted rendering artifact or two, this came out somewhat better than I expected. It's the same size as the Three-Toed Sloth piece, and thus much smaller than the full-fledged Turtle, and is pretty easily distinctive.

*Besides the Blue Gecko, I've created the Purple Finch as a left-to-right mirror, and Adrian King's original Jupiter game has a near-match front-to-back in the White Fox (if I were to use it in a game, I'd make a full front-to-back mirror of the Blue Gecko).

Well, the bell pepper kinda does, at that.

(Green ones and red ones taste pretty nice on pizza or in salads, too.)

This is funny!

Hopefully not for how bad it is. ;)

303. Bell Pepper. I had been going to do something else today, but then I got a pizza last night and realized that there were two vegetables on that pizza that weren't represented yet in the Pizza Kings, Food Fight, or elsewhere. What I'm giving today is the Bell Pepper.*

Like many (I think about half, just as a guess) pieces named for food, the Bell Pepper's move roughly draws an outline of the food itself. It steps one space backward, or leaps two spaces forward to sideways; or leaps (1,2) in any backward direction; or leaps (1,3) or (2,3) in any forward direction. (bWfsDbhNfhCfhZ)

I'm undecided as to whether I should put this into the Food Fight variant; maybe if someone were to point out how one of the pieces is overwhelmingly strong or uselessly weak. (The game's probably fine as it is, though.)

And of course the model is just as vague of an approximation of the actual fruit as the move diagram.

*I may or may not present the Onion at some later date.

You'll also find two listed as #12. I need to edit the entries from Pirate to Zip and subtract one from each number.

Now the one for today...

302. Yadj / Bishop's Dog. This is a piece that initially made as part of the Tifinagh set, only to find that there was already a piece elsewhere with the exact same move. I couldn't come up with a better move for the Yadj (ⴵ) than three spaces diagonally, so I left it as-is. (B3)

The other version of this piece, the Bishop's Dog, is one that I found in Adrian King's Jupiter, though I understand that its actual first appearance was in another of his games, Typhoon.

Whichever model is preferred, I think they'd be interesting not just in their respective home games, but as part of a CwDA set.

I corrected the XBetza as indicated.

And I'm pleased that the model triggered a positive response. It's what I was aiming for.

(Yesterday's PotD; I had a very full and tiring day.)

301. Bullet. This piece of Lev's is one that I've categorized as "technically a spear," though its truncated forward move makes it more of a Shogi-like piece. It slides normally up to four spaces forward, or steps one space backward. It also can move without capture one space sideways, though if the space is occupied and the next one over is not then it can push the occupying piece into the unoccupied one beyond. (fW4bWsmWsmpafabcduW)

On a particularly large board (at least 16 rows), this might even be usable as a Pawn.

I wasn't sure I could get an effective model for this, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I think the result is of a decent caliber.

I've also had the Linebacker Pawn, and the Left and Right End Pawns (those two haven't been in PotD yet, but they are described in Dealer's Chess). I know CwDA doesn't generally change around its Pawns, but they're something to look at.

I've also been toying with a couple of other ideas for American football-inspired pieces.

I think, too, that I'd rather call these the Gridiron Gamers. If you're going to put my name on it, I'd rather it was some of my sillier ideas like the Gerfod, the Springer, and the Portable Hole (not necessarily those specifically, but ones like them).