Ratings & Comments
Military Chess. 19th century commercial chess variant. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I played this game as a boy around 1960. The object of the game was to put the opponent's General in danger 6 times in a row. You did not have to checkmate as in chess. I cannot find any information other than what you have posted, but I would sure love to get my hands on a copy of the game.
Thank-you for your post.
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating] Cheshire Cat Chess. Squares are disappearing. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I made two presets for Cheshire Cat Chess and its 10x10 subvariant:
https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DCheshire+Cat+Chess%26settings%3Dcheshire
The beta review period for Unicode 12.0 has just begun. This contains the heterodox chess piece symbols. The code point assignments are now fixed; the beta period is to allow developers (and font designers) to get a head start on anything that depends on the newly assigned characters before the Standard is formally released in March.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wFQPSEPgWc&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2LYMJcOnnWGPuNDp03EOvKjtxy7DeLBg2UcNKtyxC-sBVULLOs52wl1Sk
Ben Reiniger wrote on Wed, Nov 7, 2018 08:38 PM UTC:2:35, he came so close to defining the unicorn ('triagonal' slider), then just kinda went "nah".
8:18, looks like probably the best shot of the starting position. That one pawn on the backmost rank is odd. It also looks a little different to me, so maybe it's a replacement queen?
I like the "projected" 3D boards, shrinking as the levels go up, for ease of reaching the pieces inside, though I wonder whether it makes seeing moves harder.
I did commented on the video about triagonal. And don't forget about tetragonal. A (1,2,3,4) leaper would be to long for this though :)!
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Nov 8, 2018 06:05 PM UTC:Interesting video. The game in the video falls between our two games, Ben, in its approach to 4D. Personally, I think the 3D board is too gimmicky; I rarely like boards that don't display rotational or reflection symmetry. And I think that the 2D 'double grid' 4x4x4x4 board would make it easier easier to see moves in my version, but for yours, Ben, the 3D-style boards might just be better... what do you or anyone with experience think?
Metamachy. Large game with a variety of regular fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Jocly. An html-based web platform for playing 2-player abstract stategy games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The Jocly website isn't accessible for several days (I don't know exactly how much time), nor embeded games on other websites; and the Jocly Android apps seem to have disappear from Google store. It would be a pity if Jocly wasn't working anymore; it had a graphically beautiful interface. It was a great work from its developers.
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Nov 9, 2018 09:56 PM UTC:Agreed, Jocly is a brilliant piece of software. Too bad I only discovered it two weeks ago, and that the server went off the air a few days later.
The news is about as bad as it can be: the server will be off line at least until mid 2019. Before it went off the air it was continuously crashing, and too messed up for easy repairs. Mi-g currently has no time to fix it. The 'easy-embedding' method through jquery unfortunately was dependent on the server for fetching the required library scripts, so any website that was using this method shares the fate of the jocly.com server.
I have installed the entire Jocly library on my own server, and ported the demo applets for the variants I had made to use that, rather than the now defunct jocly.com. (Mind you, this is not a replacement for the game server, which was not open source, so there is no connectivity with other users; only the Jocly interface works.) So if you want to play against the Jocly AI, you can do it at http://hgm.nubati.net/jocly .
I implemented some new chess variants there, and the mentioned page allows direct access to those. All standard Jocly variants (i.e. those you get with the sources from Github) still work too, though, and you can switch to them from one of the directly accessible demos. The new variants are:
- Spartan Chess
- Scirocco
- Elven Chess
- Werewolf Chess
- mini-Shogi
- regular Shogi
- Tori Shogi
More will likely follow soon (CwDA?, Chu Shogi?).
Diplomat Chess. Round-board variant with a Diplomat to suborn opponents. (Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]So, a couple months ago, I wondered about a circular board that uses the center.
I figured someone must have invented it, and looked through CV.
Apparently my google skills are weak, because I didn't find this or any other. :-(
So I began working on it.
It took some thinking, but I more or less hammered out the rules on paper.
Today I stumble across this! It has identical movement rules to what I have come up with! Brilliant!
Also, this looks to be a nice little variant.
If only I had found Diplomat Chess before I spent that time reinventing the round rules......
Knights of the Round Table. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The idea of Knights promoting into a set list accessable by both sides is an interesting one. It should encourage aggression.
However, the high probablity of uneven play drops the game's rating. Maybe if the pieces were closer in value....
Not knowing which side will get thid king is also interesting.
There are some unusual ideas here.
Viking Chess Set. Game board and pieces in search of rules. (Cells: 37) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]It's been over a decade, I doubt anyone else even cares....
But I find this story strangely compelling.
Michael (OP)-- just in case you see this--
do you remember ANYTHING else? Like:
A fuzzy memory of what even one piece's movement was like?
Are you reasonably sure the piece set is complete?
Do you remember anything about it being played, not like the rules precisely, but like you remember the big piece's capture was the goal? (Seems likely, just based on the fact that your parent's called it viking chess, but any info would be great.)
Do you remember pieces moving across the center? Just remebering they could would tell us a lot. There are only so many simple ways to use the center.
A vague memory of the pieces being played on the intercections of the lines/or in the squares?
It sure looks to me like it was played on the line intersections, not the spaces.
Just knowing THAT (intersections or spaces) would be a huge step forward.
With just a little more information we could probably reconstruct rules that were very close to the original. There are only so many logically simple rules for chess on a round board.
You probably will never see this.....I hope you figured something out. I have many happy memories of playing boardgames with my dad (especially Stratego) and a game from your parents being lost seems really sad.
Gess. A Chess variant played on a Go board where pieces are collections of go stones. (18x18, Cells: 324) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Zillions of Games
. Game package for Windows that allows you to play nearly any abstract board game or puzzle in the world.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Has anyone been able to unlock Zillions of Games to the full version? I didn't hear back from them when I e-mailed the support team. Guess they haven't been keeping their URL up to date, regarding the unlock order/purchase online. Unfortunate, as there are some newer variants I wanted to try on the full version.
Single check chess. Checking the opponent wins the game. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Presto Chess: "The first player that gives check with a piece that cannot be taken wins the game."
This leaves it unclear if the checking piece must actually be taken or if it's enough to be able to capture it, and one may instead move the king away or a piece in between. And in the second case: must the capturing move be legal or need it be only pseudolegal?
Another variant of this family:
Like orthodox chess, but a side in check must not move their king. If the check cannot be defended by capturing the checking piece (by a different piece than the king) or moving in between, that side is checkmated and loses. When not in check, one may move the king as usual. Might be called "paralysed king chess".
A milder variant: like above, but the king is allowed to capture a piece attacking him, if it is not a double check.
Crazy 38's: The Knight. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H.G. Miller, I'm sorry, I missed your response.
Here is my problem: the move is specifically defined as 'one square orthogonally, then one square diagonally outward.'
My assumption (possibly/apparently incorrect) is that spaces without notation are not squares, do not exist, and therefore cannot be used as part of any piece's movement.
The white knight is in a8. The only spaces that appear to be orthogonally adjacent are a6 and c8. Diagonally outward from those spaces yields only b5 and d7.
I don't see a path to c6......without counting the quarter-circle empty space within a8 as orthogonally adjacent to a8. Diagonally outward from that empty space yields c6 as the destination. But I wouldn't think the empty space would be used as part of the path, at least without directly mentioning it; such as 'the knight can leap over non-existent squares.'
(If the Knight's movement was defined as one space diagonally, then one space orthogonally outward, it makes sense. The white knight starts in a8, diagonally moves to b6 or d7, and then moves orthogonally outward to one of b5, c6, or d7. The white knight would actually have two routes to c6. But the movement path of the knight is specifically defined as 1 orthogonally, then 1 diagonally outward.)
Basically, Ben Good went through the trouble of specifically defining the leaping knight's move (something I consider necessary to avoid questions on this crazy cool board) and then his example does not seem to match the defined move!
If there is a path I am missing, please show me. But the only one I see is using the non-existant quarter circle within a8.
Zillions of Games. Game package for Windows that allows you to play nearly any abstract board game or puzzle in the world.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I tried a few weeks ago and could not. :-(
I was really looking forward to playing a few against the computer, too.
That said, I've been having a great time with game courier!
Crazy 38's: The Knight. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Nov 14, 2018 07:51 AM UTC:I have no clue what you are talking about. The image on the page on which you comment doesn't show any coordinates, so I have no idea what you mean by a8, c6, etc. You must be looking at a completely different picture.
Four Towers. Irregular board with special tower squares upon which pieces can combine with each other or detach from each other. (Cells: 85) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I've got to comment on this....a crazy lot of ideas in this game.
I think they need to be refined, but I am attracted to the unusual.
This is definitly unusual!
Crazy 38's: The Knight. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Ben Reiniger wrote on Wed, Nov 14, 2018 03:21 PM UTC:The board notation is available elsewhere in the game's pages: notation page
I agree that the presentation is unclear in this case. My impression is that the author just used a standard definition for knight, not recognizing the problem caused by the gaps (or assuming the diagram made it clear).
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Nov 15, 2018 06:56 AM UTC:Ah, OK, he uses 45-degree rotated coordinates.
In that case, that the example that shows a Knight can move from a8 to c6 indecates that the blue areas should merely be considered inaccessible squares, i.e. like they are occupied by an uncapturable obstacle that cannot be moved by either player. But as a Knight jumps, it will ignore such obstacles, and moves as if they were normal, unoccupied board squares.
Although it is obvious what orthogonal and diagonal means in this board topology ('through sides' or 'through corners'), it is not so obvious what 'outward' means. After all, a Knight cannot make just any move that consists of an orthogonal plus a diagonal step. One could use the generalization that the diagonal step must go through a corner of the cell that was not an end-point of the side through which it entered the cell; this would allow it to go straight ahead in a triangular cell. Another generalization would be that the diagonal step can only be made throug the corner(s) farthest away from the side through which it entered; for cells with 2less than 3 or more than 4 corners this would make a difference.
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As I had said before your are perfectly correct.
It is hard for me to find the comments in quenstion, but I'll try :)!