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Game Reviews by zzo38computer

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Ready Chess. Pieces cannot capture right after capturing, they have to be restored first. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Fri, Jun 10, 2005 06:48 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Drawless Chess. Simple rules are added to make draws impossible. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Jun 14, 2005 03:56 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Draw by agreement? That is not important, becuase if one player didn't like draw by agreement, he simply wouldn't agree!

Hishigata Shogi. Variation of Maka-Dai-Dai Shogi (ultra large Shogi). (19x19, Cells: 361) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Aug 2, 2005 11:18 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Hecatomb. Each player has 31 queens and one king. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Wed, Nov 16, 2005 05:35 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
This is good. You can also play all pieces are one of a different type, for
example Super-Hecatomb-Chess is played with Amazons instead of Queens. I
have played Super-Hecatomb against the Java applet 'Exotic Pieces'. Or
play Extreme-Hecatomb-Chess, where the Queens are replaced with pieces can
move as queen or knight-riders, which are a kind of pieces which are too
much powerful.

Shogi. Missing description (9x9, Cells: 81) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Sat, Nov 19, 2005 04:57 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
The name chosen for only phonetic reason should be written in kana!

Transmitter Chess. Drone pieces have no movement until activated by one of three friendly Transmitters. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Nov 29, 2005 04:57 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Good game, but I think even blank Drones should be able to move, maybe like
pawns but cannot promote.

Bario. Pieces are undefined until they move. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Sun, Dec 4, 2005 06:26 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This is a good game, and I like Bario Shogi better. I invented Bario Shogi, and it works good! Try play it sometimes

Sudoku War. A fight that takes place in a Sudoku. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Sun, Sep 17, 2006 03:28 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
This is interesting game, using Sudoku numbers

Shanghai Palace Chess. A blend of Chinese, Japanese, and Western Chess. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Aug 16, 2010 09:36 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
This is good. The western student's arguments are terrible. However, I still see how a cannon can capture the shogi pawn and then silver general capturing a cannon, I do not know whether or not changing this would improve the game, or make it worse.

Romulan Chess. Kriegspiel variant: played with a referee where pieces cloak and uncloak. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Sat, Feb 12, 2011 09:33 PM UTC:BelowAverage ★★
I don't like it much. There isn't really any hidden information, other than things you forgot.

Xiangqi vs Orthodox Chess. Missing description (9x9, Cells: 77) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Fri, Mar 18, 2011 03:28 AM UTC:Poor ★
To Travis Z: Cannon to F3, does not take any Knight. It is moving the cannon two spaces in front of the Chinese Advisor, using the FIDE King's Pawn as the screen.

Classic sum. Missing description (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Apr 5, 2011 08:28 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
I like this idea. The rules might seem confusing, but looks understandable to me, and I can understand the reasoning why these rules are as it is. I would change it slightly to be what makes more sense to me, but this is only my opinion:
  • Pawn promotes only to full queen, same as the Queen in this game, regardless of where promoting at. (So, when you flipped, you automatically know what it is)
  • Bishop, Knight, Rook, promotes to the piece which changes its passive capturing to the gold general move, but otherwise remains the same.
  • Pawn cannot be dropped in file with another of your own unpromoted pawn, to make 2 in total; but if there is already 2 or more, then you are allowed to drop there to make the total more than 2.
  • A stalemate counting as a draw cannot be prevented by dropping a piece, but stalemate as win can do so.

Quantimex. Principles of Quantum Mechanics applied to Ultima on an hexagonal board. (Cells: 91) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Dec 12, 2011 05:23 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

Is enthronement supposed to work with your Regents or opponent's Regents or both? According to the note about castling, it seem to be for your own. But a variant might be to use with both (note that capturing opponent's regent on your first turn will put you in check).

About using randomness, an idea I have is for each player to hold a few cards that cannot be seen by their opponent. If you make a long move, then your opponent selects and plays one of the cards in their hand to determine which destination, and then discards that card and pick up another card from the draw pile. (If no valid card is held, they can reveal all their cards, discard them, pick up a new hand of cards, and select one as in the standard game, or if you prefer, roll a dice.) And then maybe combine this with the backgammon doubling cube rule.


Every Man a Pawn. Each piece has the powers of a Pawn (except promotion) in addition to its normal powers. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Sun, Apr 8, 2012 07:06 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
"An interesting further variant that would weaken rooks and queens could ignore this" Yes I agree you can make up a further variant where if a rook or queen move two spaces forward non-capturing from the second rank, it can be captured using en-passan. One thing it means is that, rarely, a certain move won't checkmate even though it is the case in FIDE chess. Example:
r..r..q.
........
.....n..
R.......
......k*
........
b..N...R
K...B...
In case the rook on h2 moves to * then it can be captured by en-passan and is not checkmate.

Bennekom Double Move Chess. Move twice per turn with the same piece. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Dec 4, 2012 07:26 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

Tandem-Pawn Chess. Pawns are tandems of two pawns, which can move or capture as a unit, or decouple into two pawns. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Wed, Jan 2, 2013 02:51 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

I like this idea of this kind of game, and I like these rules.

But what is notation of the tandems (on a ASCII diagram, FEN, etc)? Perhaps it should be "T"? Could it work with TeX chess? What icon (such as, can you write a METAFONT program for it)?

You might also use flat checkers pieces for the pawn so that you can make it double or single easily.


Ladder Shogi. Shogi variant on 10 by 10 board where pieces climb the social ladder by multiple promotions. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Jan 8, 2013 05:07 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

A question: What happen if non-value pieces captures non-value pieces? Can it be dropped? Can it be captured at all?

Can the kanji of name of these pieces be decided and written in this article, too?

One way to represent the value pieces, would be, the single piece marks 1, add smaller markers on top to mark 2, 3, 4, 5, flipped over (making the red side visible) with no markers to mark 6, and then the red side with smaller marker for 7, 8, 9, 10.

Therefore if such kind of kanji is made up, you can make up flat pieces, black on unpromoted side and red on promoted side, represent all pieces of this game, using their names. Value piece can be piece with holes, to fit the small markers into.


The Game of Nemoroth. For the sake of your sanity, do not read this variant! (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Apr 22, 2013 05:38 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

I may already be sufficiently insane to read this. I prefer using flat pieces that won't scream and whatever, but I don't mind if it has to do the other way, since that is OK, too. It is complicated, but it seems well enough to work. Some things are not entirely clear; the document should really be improved to clarify the rules more.

Now make the variant which is mostly this game but can also use a hand of cards (drawn from a shuffled deck and hidden from opponent, and used for a few additional special actions by playing combinations properly, including to affect opponent's cards), betting, scoring, and other things. (And if you are in a manga written by Fukumoto, even betting your fingers and your blood and billions of yen, and cheating in extreme ways, and the use of double and triple bluffs and so on.)


Czech Chess. Drop pawns by checking the King. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Thu, Aug 1, 2013 07:43 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
I do like this idea. However, here is one possible subvariant: A pawn can promote to a queen if you have no queen (so you cannot have two queens). A pawn dropped on the last row still won't be a queen, though. (The game is probably good whether or not you use this subvariant)

Kinglet. Win by taking all the pawns of the opponent. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Mon, Dec 9, 2013 08:56 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

This game was also called "Imperial Fiddlesticks" in a text called "Curiouser&Curiouser" (also by V.R.Parton).

Castling is not mentioned, but I should assume castling is still allowed, although the restriction of not moving into/out of/through check is ignored.

However I may suggest a further variant: You don't lose if you have more than one king. (For example, if you have only one pawn and no king, then promoting will cause you to use instantly, but if you have one pawn and one king, then if you promote, you won't lose until either one of your two kings is being captured.)


Spinach Chess. Right to make powerfull move alternates between players in variant with two kings. (8x8, Cells: 68) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Dec 10, 2013 05:42 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Perhaps a way to make "invulnerability" would be that: king, queen, and chancellor cannot be attacked by spinach moves longer than a sequence of five normal moves, unlessthe moving piece is a king, and any piece that has not yet moved cannot be attacked by spinach moves longer than two, unless the moving piece is a king or pawn. (This results in rules more complicated than you intended, but is another possible subvariant anyways.)

It looks like a pawn can move two spaces forward from its initial position with a spinach move, in order to avoid being captured by en passant, although this doesn't seem it would be a very good move in most situations (although maybe there is one; make up a chess problem if you know of one such situation).


Chess 2. Different armies, a new winning condition, and duels. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Wed, Jan 1, 2014 08:09 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

My impression of the game from what I read, the game is not bad, but it isn't exceptionally good either (compared to the large number of other chess variants possible, and even games such as shogi and xiangqi!). This game is certainly an improvement over FIDE, though, and deserves that people will play it as much as other chess variants and other games.

The PDF can be purchased for either $0.00 or $4.99, at your choice. I do not think it is worth $4.99, but the option is there if you do think it is worth that much. For the low price of $0.00, I think it is certainly worth looking at if you are interested in chess variants (or Sirlin's other games in general), though; it would also certainly be worth more than $4.99 in a book full of chess variants, or that discussed strategy too, or whatever.

It does have some interesting ideas, such as the dueling rules, different army selection, centerline crossing. However, I am not quite sure that the 5th rank to win is difficult enough, or if it should be moved to the 6th, 7th, or possibly even the 8th rank.

The different armies are numbered from I to VI, so you can use a dice to select one at random if you wish to do so. (A further variant can be if you not only select at random but also keep it a secret, requiring the opponent to deduce what army you are playing.)

The ideas in this game could be applied in some ways to other kind of chess games too, such as shogi, xiangqi, and others. It could then make more situation, and more ideas, too.

Sirlin's other games are much better than this one, and they are certainly worth the money they cost (all the information you need to play is available for free (which actually makes it worth the money, as far as I am concerned!), but they sell high-quality physical equipment and they are definitely worth the money). I have two of them, and am interested in the others, too.

I don't particularly like the name "Chess 2" for this game, and think "Sirlin's Chess" would be a good name for it (the game is still pretty good though, but it is just one of many possible variants). But, maybe someone is able to somehow figure out how to combine this game with his other games (to make something new)...


Pawn Eaters. Win by capturing all your opponent's pawns. Game includes ancient Y-movers, Shaman Rooks, and Pawn-Eaters. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Jan 21, 2014 05:40 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
This is good, but also a subvariant is possible that I can specify:
  • Pawns can additionally promoted into Kings.
  • Kings cannot capture Pawn Eaters.
  • You must lose all Pawns and Kings, to lose the game.
  • If a Pawn Eater captures your last Pawn then you lose immediately even if you have some Kings on board too.

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