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Chess on a Tesseract. Chess played over the 24 two-dimensional sides of a tesseract. (24x(5x5), Cells: 504) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Bob Greenwade wrote on Wed, Dec 13, 2023 03:43 PM UTC:

To check out how the sides really relate to each other, I decided to use a side-view projection of a tesseract rather than an end-view. Here's the bare figure:

It's basically two cubes, offset at an angle, with their corners connected by bars that are the same length as the ones that make up the cubes.

I used a different viewing angle to look at the Face codes, but here's Fergus' version as I understand it:

The changing of the double-digits to numeral-zero figures makes for a very elegant symmetry. The numbers on the cubes proper are just the same, reversed. All of the other sides have the characteristic that the first digit on one side plus the second digit on the opposite side add up to 7.

(In the diagram, I made White's Home Face white, its Territory Faces light grey, Black's Home Face black, its Territory Faces charcoal grey, and the rest medium grey.)

Contrasting that to the present system:

This one is less legible, more descriptive (once you understand what the letters stand for), and labels the Faces in relation to the players and the play area rather than just to itself and the game. The first is a minus, the second is a plus, and the third could go either way.

So, unless an editor tells me to save myself the work, I'll go ahead and switch to the number version. I may or may not keep the letter codes for the playspace structure that I eventually build, but for the basic illustration the numbers do appear to be better.

I have other things I want to get done today, but I can get a start on all that tomorrow.