Game Reviews by Fergus Duniho
Shogi is an excellent game. Like Chinese Chess and western Chess, it probably evolved from the Indian Chaturanga. Despite being very different from Chinese Chess and from western Chess, it has too many similarities to them to be coincidence. The main evidence for the direction of evolution is that (1) it is a huge improvement over Chaturanga, and (2) its main differences from Chaturanga are not seen in other regional Chess variants. One of its main differences from other regional variants is its drop rule, which allows players to drop captured pieces back on the board as their own. Despite still having some slow-moving pieces like Chaturanga has, this rule greatly speeds up the game. because a captured piece can (with some restrictions) be placed on any empty space on the board. It also makes the game more dynamic. Instead the game being decided by a single-Pawn difference early in the game, there is a greater chance of material shifting between players, and the outcome depends more on the quality of play throughout the game. Shogi remains superior to Chess variants, such as Chessgi or Crazyhouse, that have added a similar drop rule to Chess. The reason for this is that its piece set is better-designed to work with the drop rule. In general, the drop rule works better with weaker pieces than are found in Chess. For example, the Chess Knight can be a formidable piece to drop, possibly forking several pieces, but the Shogi Knight can move in only two directions. Although it does include one Rook in the game, it has replaced the two corner Rooks with Lances, which move forward only. Also, unlike Chessgi and Crazyhouse, the Rook is the most powerful piece that may be dropped. In those games, you can drop a captured Queen. Shogi is also superior to Shatranji, my own attempt to apply the drop rule to the weaker piece set found in Shatranj. Besides the regular Chess Knight, Shatranji has a Ferz and some Elephants, which are both short-range diagonal moving pieces, instead of the Gold and Silver Generals. The two Generals, while being weaker than the King, both have the ability to change color. Also, like the Lance and Shogi Knight, they are more powerful going forward than backward. Having greater power for forward movement improves the offensive ability of pieces while weakening their defensive capabilities. Giving greater power to several pieces that reach the back three ranks also favors offense over defense. This favoring of offense over defense helps make Shogi more decisive and less drawish. Overall, Shogi is a fun, dynamic, and decisive game that can hold interest throughout the game, it is a huge improvement over Chaturanga, and among regional variants, it is my favorite.
I'm moving a comment I previously posted on the page before the commenting system was up-and-running to the comments. This comment is basically my review of the game, which I wrote in 2001.
Conceptually, this game is very similar to my own game Cavalier Chess, though it is completely unrelated, as I was ignorant of it when I created Cavalier Chess. Both games increase the power of the pieces mainly with additional Knight moves, hence the very similar names. Yet they are also radically different from each other. Cavalry Chess just soups up the power of each piece, whereas in Cavalier Chess I didn't make the pieces as powerful as I could have, because I determined through playtesting that really powerful pieces would hurt the game. For example, I originally replaced the Queen with an Amazon (as Maus did in Cavalry Chess), but I judged that it was too powerful. I also tried replacing the Pawns with Chess Knights, but they merely wiped each other out, clearing the way between the other pieces. I found Chinese Chess Knights much more interesting as Pawn replacements, because they could block each other, something like Pawns do, and unblocking them would sometimes create extra threats. In contrast, I find the Pawns in Cavalry Chess much too powerful. They make forward movement very difficult, because a row of Pawns covers the entire two ranks in front of them. Considering that Pawns are the soul of Chess, as I think Philidor once said, I had to replace them with just the right pieces. I think I succeeded with Chinese Chess Knights, though I don't think Maus succeeded with these super Pawns. I also tried to keep the same balance of power in Cavalier Chess as there is in Chess. Maus has not done this with Cavalry Chess. I replaced the Knight with a Nightrider, which remains less powerful than the pieces replacing the Rook and Bishop, and all new pieces remained less powerful than the Queen (which I didn't change). Maus changed the Rook and Bishop into the same pieces as I did, but he replaced the Knight with a terribly powerful piece that throws off the whole balance of the game. Once it has the opportunity to safely check the enemy King, there is little the King can do to get away from it. Checkmate, and maybe some heavy piece loss along the way, will soon follow. Still, Cavalry Chess may have some appeal if approached from a different perspective. If you approach it like a game of Chess or even Cavalier Chess, you will easily be frustrated. But if you approach it with the strategy of safely checking the enemy King with your Knight before he can do the same, it might be an interesting challenge for awhile.
Since inventing this game 7 years ago, I haven't been very active in creating new games. While part of this is due to having distractions and other interests, it's also because I have been very satisfied with this game. Instead of being an exploration into new territory, which can be an iffy prospect, this game takes what I like about Chess and increases it to a larger scale. Using the guidelines I set out in an article called On Designing Good Chess Variants, it stands up very well.
Playability (Simplicity + Clarity) & Interest (Depth & Challenge)
Because it uses familiar pieces, it is easy to learn, and because of its size and its number and variety of pieces, it offers great depth and challenge. Despite its size, the pieces move in fairly straightforward ways, which makes it easy enough to understand and evaluate a position. One of the reasons I like Chess much more than Checkers is its variety of pieces. Having different pieces makes exchanges more interesting. With this game's several more types of pieces, it has a greater variety of possible exchanges than Chess has. This increases the odds of uneven exchanges happening, where players exchange different pieces. This allows for a greater variety of unequal armies that might face each other during the course of the game.
Enjoyment (Excitement, Decisiveness, Duration, Satisfaction)
As inequalities develop between sides, the game can become more decisive, yet because of the greater variety of pieces, it may be harder to call the game during the mid-game, which can make the game more exciting. Although the large size of the game could delay attacks, the Cannons and Vaos enable attacking even before pieces have made it across Pawn lines. This allows the mid-game to start even sooner in this game than it might in other variants of this size. This makes the game quicker and more exciting from an earlier stage of the game. The triple Pawn moves and the three-rank promotion zone also help speed up the game, which is important for a game this size. Because the game is like Chess in demanding skill, and its larger size and greater number of uncertain exhanges increases the opportunities for players to make mistakes, a player who wins should feel satisfied at winning, and even a player who loses in the end may feel satisfaction in how he played the game.
Fairness (Balance + Control)
While moving first can give White an advantage, I think this advantage diminishes as a game grows larger, and it is also lessened between opponents who have not yet mastered the intricacies of the game. Also, this game offers no particular weakness for either player to exploit early in the game. All pawns start out protected, and most pieces can move someplace else even from the opening position. Because no piece is stronger than a Queen, there are no end-game surprises from a powerful piece like an Amazon getting loose. The game remains a team effort between different pieces rather than one where a star piece takes over. As with Chess, both sides start out equal, and the outcome is determined by the skill and choices of the players.
This game is interesting but unbalanced. Of the three new armies, the Nutty Knights are the most powerful. None of them are colorbound, and five non-royal pieces are major pieces. That is more major pieces than each side in Chess has, which is only three. The Remarkable Rookies are more balanced with the usual Chess army. A Chancellor is weaker than a Queen, a short Rook is weaker than a Rook, and a Half-Duck combines the colorboundness of the Bishop with the short-range of the Knight, making it weaker than both. The only advantage of the Remarkable Rookies over the FIDE army is that the Woody Rook, which replaces the Knight, is a major piece, giving this side five major pieces instead of three. The Colorbound Clobberers are the weakest of all. Each side has four colorbound pieces, and the only major piece is weaker than the most powerful major piece in each of the other armies. The Cardinal is weaker than the Queen and Chancellor and probably the Colonel too, because these all have Rook moves, and the Cardinal doesn't.
The idea behind the game may be a good one, but I now think the game is flawed. It does address the problem with Chessgi of the pieces being a bit too powerful for a drop game, but it has problems of its own. The main problem is that the King is now surrounded by pieces that can't defend it well against attacks from dropped pieces. In a game I just played, I checked the King with a dropped Pawn, and even though the King, the General, and the Elephants were all in their original position, only the King could have potentially captured the Pawn. The General and Elephants were worse than useless, for besides being unable to do anything, they impeded the King's escape. My Pawn was protected, the King had to flee, and it was checkmate on the next move in a very short game. I now understand why Shogi replaces the General and Elephants with Gold and Silver Generals. These pieces are much more useful for defending the King from dropped pieces. Chessgi could be improved by using weaker pieces, but I no longer think that using Shatranj pieces is the way to go. Shogi pieces are better, but if that is the direction Chessgi must go to get better then I may as well stick with Shogi and not bother trying to fix Chessgi. Perhaps Halfgi, which has already been done, is a better way to go.
A. Black, This comment concerns your whole output here, not just this game, though it seems to be a prime example of what I'm talking about. In general, you should playtest every game you post here before you post it. When you post using a system that allows you to bypass editorial review, it is up to you to review yourself. Instead of posting every one of your ideas, put your best face forward by posting only stuff you can stand behind and say 'I know this is good.' Given that this game requires a computer to play and you have not provided a ZRF, a Game Courier preset, or a program that plays it, I assume you have never played this game. Let me recommend that you get Zillions of Games and use it to try out and develop your games before posting them here. It is an invaluable tool for Chess variant designers. Unlike Michael, I think I understand the rules. But they could use clarification for readers who are not computer programmers. When one piece captures another, it gets all the powers of movement that the two pieces did not share in common, and it loses any they did share in common, except for the ability to move one space forward, which all pieces retain. So, for example, if a Rook captured a Bishop, it would be able to move as a Queen; if a Rook captured a Queen, it could move as a Bishop or a Pawn; and if a Rook captured another Rook, it could move only as a Pawn. This might be an interesting game, and it might be a good one, but without a ZRF available for it, I'm not going to try it out.
A hyped up commercial variant that doesn't even offer a single fairy piece. If it's true that 'THIS IS THE ONLY CHESS GAME PATENTED IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA THAT WAS DEVELOPED TO IMPROVE YOUR EXISTING CHESS SKILLS!', it's probably because Gothic Chess was patented only in the United States, and most variants have not been patented at all. After all, just about any Chess variant can help you improve your Chess skills.
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I can't believe this game hasn't been reviewed yet. This is the best game I've played that includes an Amazon. I normally leave the Amazon out of my games, because it has the power to force checkmate by itself, and that has the potential to wreak a game. However, that hasn't been a problem with this game. This game includes several other weaker compound pieces that help make it unsafe to move the Amazons out too early. To get to the point where you could use an Amazon to force checkmate against a King, you have to do lots of maneuvering of other pieces. Furthermore, the potential of the Amazon getting a bead on the King means that position is sometimes more important than material advantage. You can't count on winning just because you are ahead materially. If you find that you can't stop your opponent's Amazon, you may lose even if you're materially ahead. This makes the game more dynamic and exciting.