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Alfaerie Variant Chess Graphics. Set of chess variant graphics based on Eric Bentzen's Chess Alpha font.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anonymous wrote on Tue, Nov 19, 2002 01:37 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Charles Gilman wrote on Fri, Mar 26, 2004 08:52 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
The way that you mark the Zebra with stripes while retaining army colour differentiation is particularly good. You might consider adding striped versions of others for some of my coinages and other unusual pieces: of a Camel for Zemel (5:1 leaper); of an Elephant for the Korean Elephant (stepping Zebra); and of a Kangaroo for Zengaroo (Zebra+Elephant, extrapolating from the Knight+Elephant sense of Kangaroo in Outback Chess).

Sean Duggan wrote on Fri, Nov 26, 2004 12:25 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
A very handy set of pieces for the various alternates. I'm going to have to integrate this into <A HREF='http://www.chessvariants.org/index/zillions.php?itemid=zDuggansFantasyC'>Duggan's Fantasy Chess</A> (shameless plug!) so as to disambiguate my use of standard chess pieces for entirely different movements.

Bernhard U. Hermes wrote on Sat, Mar 26, 2005 10:00 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
A very nice set of graphics indeed. Something for everybody, I think,
provided you like the style.
I do :-).
Even though everything thats really necessary for me is already there, or
in the additional sets, 2 symbols I would like as well are:
- a wizard's pointed hat
- a helmet (not of a knight, but a medieval foot soldier's, if that
makes
sense - the one I am thinking of does not look too unlike the one the
British used in WW I)
I only mention that as a source for inspiration, if any is wanted, again,
the set is already excellent as it is!

Bernhard

Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Tue, Mar 29, 2005 06:55 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Having done the excercice myself few years ago, I know what kind of work it
represents. I can only say this: I LOVE YOUR DESIGNS, much more than mine,
actually ! Wonderful, congratulations !
Jean-Louis

Anonymous wrote on Fri, May 19, 2006 07:37 AM UTC:
Terrific fonts.. could you implement Crazyhouse as well?

Anonymous wrote on Fri, May 19, 2006 07:43 AM UTC:
It would be cool if all the Recognized variants here would use these Alfaerie as a standard for ZRF implementation. I find it tough readjusting to different piece sets and board colours when playing a zillions game. Crazyhouse would be my first candidate.

Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, May 19, 2006 01:52 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Generally tremendous graphics: clean, clear and simple. Is it possible to
offer pieces for inclusion, or make requests? I'm using some 'new'
graphics for shatranj variants, and will soon need to make more. These
pieces are or will be adaptations of your existing graphics. In some
cases, I'd like to replace an existing piece with a more themed graphic.
For example, in a shatranj-like game, I'd replace the squirrel with a new
piece consisting of the 'High Priestess' piece fronting a warmachine.
This will be a visual combination of knight, alfil, and dabbabah, whose
moves comprise the squirrel movement; and this doesn't put a squirrel on
the battlefield with elephants and horses and war machines.
Thank you for the great graphics and for making them so freely available.
When people start complaining that your graphics should be used more, you
are definitely doing something right.

James Spratt wrote on Sat, May 20, 2006 11:23 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Agreed! Clear, sharp and well-employed at CVP, hence familiar and easy to use. The only thing I'd alter about any of them is the 'added-on' look of some of the adaptations of the knight/horse's head; it would help to break the outline of the horse in a place or two to make it look like it was designed a-purpose to be a Cavalier or whatever else. But maybe that's just fuss-budget Meester Arteeste's problem, nyuk-nyuk.

Jared McComb wrote on Sat, May 20, 2006 03:20 PM UTC:
The zebra has stripes but the tiger has none... ???

Jeremy Good wrote on Sat, May 20, 2006 03:38 PM UTC:

Jared, I agree that the tiger should have stripes :-)

Meanwhile, we've been using this particular tiger in one of Eric Greenwood's Courier Modified variants, Courier Mod 3 and casually referring to him as a 'mountain lion.' He moves as a non-leaping lion that moves one or two spaces outward in any direction.

I don't know which variants / presets / zillions games have been implementing the same piece and using it for a different purpose. It would be nice to know though, and also know more about who uses a 'tiger' piece and for which purpose. I dissuaded Eric from introducing a new 'tiger' this morning, partly because there is no alfaerie piece which really looks much like a tiger yet. If someone stripes that one though, it would do, I'll say.


Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Fri, Jun 23, 2006 01:07 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
oops i have never rated my fav graphs before?!

Anonymous wrote on Fri, Jan 4, 2008 06:02 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Brilliant sets of graphics. Not only do the sets contain pieces for most chess variants, but they also contain other pieces for new ones, too.

Alastair Carr wrote on Sun, Mar 2, 2008 09:50 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
How do we propose graphics for inclusion in the set? I have been modifying some of the alfaerie graphics for some of the diagrams I have made on my computer, and I think they could be useful.

📝David Howe wrote on Sun, Mar 2, 2008 12:56 PM UTC:
>> How do we propose graphics for inclusion in the set? I have been modifying some of the alfaerie graphics for some of the diagrams I have made on my computer, and I think they could be useful.

Please email them to me, and I will consider them for the next expansion set! Just click on my name and mail to the displayed email address. Thanks!

H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Sep 26, 2008 12:42 PM UTC:
Is it possible to make the alfaerie set available as a true-type font? Then it would be automatically scalable to any size, rather than needing a separate set of bitmaps for every size.

They could also be used in the WinBoard GUI, in that case.

📝David Howe wrote on Fri, Sep 26, 2008 05:29 PM UTC:
I would do it, but I suspect the skill level required to create vector-graphic versions of the bitmaps would be greater than my own skill level in that area (not to mention the time and energy required). I would be very pleased if someone who does have the necessary skill level and inclination, time and energy, would create a true-type font for Alfaerie.

M Winther wrote on Sat, Sep 27, 2008 05:09 AM UTC:
Tascbase (now discontinued) had a TrueType chess figurine font for diagrams, which is freeware I'm sure
http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/TBASEDIA.TTF

There are also diverse chess true type fonts here:
http://www.chessvariants.com/d.font/fonts.html
/Mats

H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Sep 27, 2008 06:19 AM UTC:
'Tascbase (now discontinued) had a TrueType chess figurine font for diagrams, which is freeware I'm sure'

Yes, but it seems to contain only symbols for orthodox Chess pieces. There are many freely available fonts that do that, (e.g. see http://www.enpassant.dk/chess/fonteng.htm ), but virtually none those support fairy pieces. And the few that do usually support them as rotated ordinary symbols (upside-down Queen for Grasshopper etc.), which I positively hate.

There is George Tsavdaris' WinboardF font, but it is far more limited than Alfaerie. And there is the Superchess font that supports the orthodox plus 9 non-orthodox Chess pieces, but it has a licene agreement that allows it only to be used for Superchess. So besides the fact that it is even more limited than the WinboardF font, it cannot b distributed with WinBoard.

H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Sep 28, 2008 06:32 PM UTC:
M. Winther: 
| Why don't you download a font editor and complement the Tasc figurine 
| font with fairy pieces.
| /Mats

Would this be before or after I wrote the 7-men tablebase builder, a Shogi engine, back-ported WinBoard to Linux, fixed up Joker80 for the upcoming World Championhip of the unspeakable variant, and implemented on-the-fly tablebase generation in my normal-Chess engine Joker?

Problem is that I am aready severely overloaded with Chess-programming projects, so I try to avoid doing things that others might do as well or better as I could do them, or might even have done already. So that I can concentrate on those that people are waiting for most, and will not be done unless I do them.

Garth Wallace wrote on Sun, Dec 6, 2009 07:59 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I'm curious: what is the nightknight?

Hafsteinn Kjartansson wrote on Wed, Jul 7, 2010 05:49 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
love this set!

Hafsteinn Kjartansson wrote on Wed, Jul 7, 2010 05:56 PM UTC:
>>I'm curious: what is the nightknight?<< Don't you mean nightrider? In that case, a nightrider is a piece that moves as a knight and can repeat the previous move as long as every passed-by squere is empty. (ex.: a nightrider on b1 could move to c3 and then continue to d5 (if c3 was empty) and then to e7 (if d5 was empty). If it captures a piece, it must stop.

Claudio Martins Jaguaribe wrote on Thu, Jul 8, 2010 03:38 PM UTC:
Nope!

He's right!

In miscelaneous there's a nightknight, but, once I asked about this and they told me that not all designs are real pieces.

Or, the nightknight is the knightrider, did you took a look at the piececlopedia?

Hugs.

Ivan Roth wrote on Fri, May 27, 2011 03:22 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This is fantastic! One quibble though: It would be great if you could put all the expansions that directly add to this collection onto this one page, since they are really tucked away and difficult to find as it is.

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