Johnny Luken wrote on Thu, Mar 26, 2015 06:17 PM EDT:
In bringing up Chess 256, I'd like to raise a reservation I have about
this site.
What is its actual purpose? Is it just for hobbyists to submit
curiosities-slightly expanded or altered games with novelty value but
little inherent worth-an endless of series of homages to be churned out
with the unspoken acceptance that the original is ultimately the best?
Or is it for people who genuinely want to evolve the concept of chess?
People who want to design games that equal or exceed FIDE chess in
quality?
Speaking personally, I will probably never submit more than 10 variants to
this site. I believe in a game being a conceptually pure endpoint and
designed towards optimum playability.
To that end, why is there a list of "recognised variants" that have
permanent pride of place on the front page, while other equally good if not
better games (in terms of gameplay and conceptual originality) gather dust?
Whats the criteria for this selection?
I am confident that Chess 256 is objectively as good as any these games.
Logically it is one of the fundamental variants-if you want the chess
experience perfectly mapped to a 256 square board (with added gameplay dimensions that added complexity can bring), this is it (this was after all a game carefully constructed towards a clear endpoint-a game whose gametree
is a perfect superset of that of FIDE chess).
Yet will it ever be featured or even looked at?
Shouldn't there some kind of quality control, some filtration process or
reward system so that conceptually stronger games can get better exposure?