Ratings & Comments
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New comment system indeed.
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The comment system says 'skip to comments' but there are no comments. This game should not be described without mentioning U-Grid Chess, and also Betza's Pinwheel Chess (and Orbital Rotating Grid and so forth).
We might also mention Realm Chess. I'm still trying to find Betza's Pinwheel Chess on our site, but so far have been unsuccessful. Perhaps we need to add it?
Note that any CV whose rules are lost would serve as Thespis Chess. --JCL
'would perhaps come close to being almost nearly playable' Almost . . . Well, if instead of each rank and file being different, if the board were divided into maybe three zones in each dimension (left, center, right; back, center, forward; etc.), then this might be actually manageable by a normal human. And on the other topic, once youopen the door to Gilbert and Sullivan chess, logic dictates all sorts of generalizations (Aristophanes chess, Tolstoi chess, Rowling chess, ad...ad...I dunno) --JCL
As long as we are flogging this theme, how about Gondoliers Chess (two Kings, and no one knows which is the real one), Buttercup Chess (exchange King with random Pawn at start of game), Sorcerer Chess (each piece is attracted to randomly chosen other piece), Lord High Executioner Chess (must mate self before opponent, too drawish), Lysistrata Chess (Queen refuses to perform, whoops, wrong playwright), and...and ('Basingstoke, John') Aah yes, Basingstoke it is. --JCL
By the way, Race Chess is kind of like Rollerball Chess, which was an entry into some contest or other, and is actually kind of neat. You realize that the regular annual contests would be much more boring if Hans were born on February 29? (Yes, I know. I pirated that idea.) --JCL
The very concept of Ruddigore Chess leads immediately to, 'What is the state of a bare King?' The mind boggles, at least my mind does. --JCL
How about Syncretic CHess? Another way to think about Feebback Chess is to enfeeble the pieces when they are toward the back of the board (i.e. closer to their first rank). This could be done by laming or spaciousing (whatever, this is a concept, not a finished product). BUT, the pieces would regain their normal powers as they approached the far rank. AND, you could lift an idea from M-Chess, and give them different augmentors depending on what ranks they stand on, perhaps leftward augmentors on righthand columns, etc. THEN, you could make it Archoniclastic, augmenting pieces depending on what color square they stand on. AND THEN, you could apply this to Peter Aronson's Chess with Cyclical Armies! AND AFTER THAT, you could work on the hex version for three players!! ('Basingstoke, John') Ahh, yes. Basingstoke it is. --JCL
Speaking of different topologies, I could swear I once came across a variant where the position of a piece within a square had an effect on its state or capabilities, but I have, perhaps mercifully, forgotten everything about it that might enable me to track it down. --JCL
Daniel, do you realize that the site icon in the upper left-hand corner takes you to the index page? I have visited regularly for years, so I have the 'What's new?' page bookmarked. --JCL
Make your pages have a 'printer option!' That way I could take your data home with me and actually use it!! Also, put a 'home' buttin at the bottom of each page, it would make site navigation easier... Thanks, Daniel
Very nice game. It is highly playable. Very enjoyable. The double teams interact in a cooperative way. The board is interesting to play on, especially with the center squares which change your piece types. Although the game harkens back to Chaturanga, even the 4-player version of Chaturanga, and other 4-player games, there is a lot on ingenuity here. The idea of changing piece type in the center adds some of the ancient flavor too. The double team environment in-itself adds a new element in many ways. The rules are simple to grasp. Traditional chess moves are used, along with the ancient moves in the center. The center, of course, alludes to the traditional struggle in chess to capture the center. The game is very nice. By that I mean that it is graceful and evocative. Nice game. Try it!
The idea is, it's grid chess, but each grid rotates 1/4 turn after each move; and alternate grids rotate backwards -- e.g. a1 goes to a2, and c2 goes to c1.
I wrote the program that displays the board and lets 2 people play, more than once, in different languages. Long lost, of course, even if you could find compilers/interpreters for those languages.
Orbital Rotating Grid Chess is like Pinwheel Chess except that e4,e5,d4,d5 is one cell, (so far just as in Offset Grid Chess, but...) and the other squares in c4-f6 are another cell, and the remaining squares in b2-g7 another, and the remaining squares in a1-h8 (in other words, the 28 edge squares) are another cell. And they rotate in opposite directions. Chaos!
Knight's Tour Rotating Grid Chess, not the right name, but you take a Knight's tour, and each turn the pieces on a1 move to b3 and the pieces on c2 get transferred to a1, and so forth
And finally, Brownian Motion Chess, where the squares are randomly inserted into a linked list, unknown to the players, and each turn everything moves forward on the list one step.
All that was from just one of my densely-typed two page articles in N/A in early 1970s.
I have all the back issues, and some other stuff, packed in a box to send them away, but I never get around to doing it. So nag me.
Critique: Pinwheel could be played postal, which was the only mode back then, but you'd be crazy to try. Both pinwheel and Orbital should be playable (and even fun!) in a noncompetitive online situation.
Knight's Tour is just an over-the-top thingy all us CV designers like to do, and Brownian Motion is over-the-over-the-topmost.
--
gnohmon
I have no idea whether or not it's really playable, but judging purely by the text, the number of ingredients in the recipes, and the quality and amount of spices, I would have to guess that this is a very fine piece of work. Applause.
Peter, I've recently been playing Grand Camelot in another venue. Grand Camelot is a four-player version of Parker Brothers Camelot game. (To the peanut gallery: Yes, I know it's not a chess variant; let me finish.) Grand Camelot has two unusual features for a four-player game: 1 - Partners sit side by side. Translating to this game, Red and Green would be partners against Yellow and Black. 2 - The turn sequence is a 'figure-8'. Translated to Chaturanga 4-84, that would be Red - Yellow - Green - Black (repeat) This small change works surprisingly well, and I've wondered if it would be as successful in a 4-player CV like this. I generally find 4-player abstract strategy board games annoying, but Grand Camelot is lots of fun and very exciting. Also, the comment about the ZRF being double-dummy brought an idea to mind. Has there been a CV (e.g. Bridge Chess or Whist Chess) where the players bid to achieve a certain outcome? The partner of the 'declarer' sits out, and the defenders play without communication. This might be a possible thing to design. One could even play a Feeback version with ones physician, attorney, and accountant.
By the way, if anyone were interested, the link to the World Camelot Federation website, where the rules of Grand Camelot are posted is: http://communities.msn.com/WORLDCAMELOTFEDERATION
That was an excellent chatter response. Responsible usage of the rules tells us that a piece which takes only one step ends its move after that one step and therefore is not eligible to chatter. However, your idea sounds like a lot of fun! One can always arbitrarily restrict Kings and Pawns from participating in the fun; and I think this would be necessary, not only because it appears to be too difficult to chase down a King supported by multiple riders (note that 'a K supported by a Bishop' can only run towards the Bishop), but also because the offensive uses of Chattering Pawns would dominate the game, as they do in N-Relay II. Decimal Chatter Chess, on a 10x10 board, would become quite interesting if you had the Pawns on the third rank, all Riders on the first, and a second rank full of weak steppers -- the usual suspects, W, F, Crab, Barc, A, and D -- because the early play would be dominated by the weak pieces being thrown forwards by the power of the riders. You'd need to arrange your pieces very carefully, making room for the weak pieces to get past the Pawns, setting up intersecting lines for the riders, and putting the weakies where they could join in the fray but not get in the way. All the while trying to maintain a defense against the pesky foe.
People should know that the excellent diagram that makes it so easy to visualize the chatter moves was added by the editor, not the author. The editor gets an 'excellent' rating for this page.
I would like to announce that I am going to be running an Omegachess tournament by email on Richard's Play By Email server at http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv In order to play in the tournament you must have a PBM userid. Check out http://www.gamerz.net/tutorial.html and http://www.gamerz.net/commands.html if you are new and want to sign up for a free userid and password on the server. You do not have to have ever played Omegachess before on the server to compete in this tournament. If you would like to play in the event please email me your PBM userid to [email protected] I have not yet decided exactly how I am going to structure the Omega tournament. It will probably be a round robin tournament, with between 4 to 8 games in the first round, and a certain number of players advancing to a second and final round. I would also like to announce that I am also going to run a chess tournament on PBM too. This is traditional orthodox chess! This tournament is open to the first 25 players who email me to enter. I will be creating five 5-man sections. Each player will play a total of 4 games, 2 as white and 2 as black, one game against each of the other players in the tournament. The 5 section winners will then advance to a final 5-man section for the championship of the tournament. In the event of a tie for first place in a section the first tiebreaker is head-to-head result. In the event of a draw or a 3-way tie where A beat B, B beat C and C beat A, all tied players advance to the finals and a larger final section will be created. Again, to compete in this tournament you must have a PBM userid. You may enter both tournaments if you like. When emailing me please make sure to specify which tournament you are entering. Thanks again and good luck!!
Just as a note from the author: Ed's variant of doing queen attacks does work well, also. But don't get too trigger-happy- it's good defense. Make sure you don't get blindsided by a bishop in the classic variant! The major downside to the queen shot variant is that then you can't reasonably use a bishop to move in for the kill; you pretty much have to lose two pieces to the shotgun, unless you use knights well... -- Adam Norberg (sgamer [att] swbell [dott] net )
This appears to be an excellent game, with a lot of thought and effort. Is it a chess variant? Not really, even though it uses chess pieces. It's a mathematical (topology) abstract game, and you might find many fans for it in rec.games.abstract -- give it a try! Many abstract mathematical games become popular and widely played, but the market for them is not 'chess variant' people. I haven't tried Chain of Fools, but if it's as good as it looks you'd be doing yourself a big favor by taking the game over to rec.games.abstract, where you can find folks who will really appreciate it.
Author's note: I'd like to see this in Zillions. --Adam Norberg
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