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This is a nice variant, with many good ideas. In fact, almost too many good ideas. The author got carried away. I wouldn't bet this variant is playable.
Existentialist Chess certainly contains interesting ideas -- any one of which might be enough to be the basis for a good variant. The inventor certainly has a fertile mind. And I'm not at all averse to large and complex variants. But without having played E.C. yet, my impression is that the inventor might have tried to put too much into one game and the game therefore might suffer from lack of clarity -- meaning that it will be difficult for the player to see more than a couple of moves ahead given all of the interactions on the board. I think it might be worthwhile for the inventor to consider using the ideas in E.C. to make several variants, each simpler than E.C. but still complex enough to be interesting and with greater clarity. I might be mistaken, though, and if someone out there could come up with a ZRF for E.C., I'd certainly like to give it a try and be proven wrong.
I think part of the trouble with this variant, and the reason that people hesitate to try it is the lack of a coherent theme, by theme I include abstract themes such as all pieces have abstract quality X. this game have various categories of pieces: King : royal Squire, Viceroy, Pawn, Crowned Knight, left/right schzzhi: normal, i.e. no special powers but can be effected by others Bobber: extending powers (to itself) dazzler, hyenna : immobilizer archer, zednick : confabulators yanzee : invulnerable extentialist : morph teleporter: transports self. I feel there's a excess of categories and overlap between the powers between the pieces. this game would be better I think if no two pieces have the same higher power. for example having had the dazzler both hyenna and yanzee is somewhat superflous. similarly archer is a more coherent piece than zednick which has 4 unrelated powers, so it would be a better games without zednick. A compromise would to give the power of the zednick to the bobber which creates the stretegic tension of whether to keep the bobber around or to confabulate it with some other piece to increase that piece's power. I think the more constrained variant below might be easier to start with: all the normal pieces and the king. King : royal Squire, Viceroy, Pawn, Crowned Knight, left/right schzzhi: normal Dazzler: as the immobilizer and giver of invulnerability archer: as the confabulator bobber/zednick: moves as bobber or can confabulate as a zednick teleporter: transports itself extentialist: cycles through all the non-royal pieces, on 11th move it sleeps, than another cycle, then explode. I think I have preserved all the ideas in your game and simplified it a bit. hope you find it interesting.
Well, since I already posted one comment and rated my game as 'excellent' I won't tip the scales any further with additional comments so I will rate this comment as 'none' I am glad that some typographical errors to the text have been corrected. Also some additional material was added in a place or two. I am surprised that this game has not drawn more attention among the avid enthusiasts of this site since it has been published. I think that this variant is extremely intriguing and exciting. One of the things which makes it so interesting is that it is up for discussion as to what the best strategy to use in this game is, especially as regards the archer and zednick. Do you confabulate them as early as possible and commit yourself to one course of action, or do you wait a while, develop your pieces a bit, let the game get into some rhythmic flow, see which way the wind blows a bit before deciding where to confabulate these pieces? What is the best use for the archer? What is the best use for the zednick? What value does one give the new pieces compared to the traditional ones? How strong can the existentialist be? How can one defend against the archer? It would probably take quite a bit of play-testing, not just one or two games but literally ten or twenty to really begin to get a feel for the game and get an answer to these questions. I do not think this game is overly complicated, it's just that there are so many different possibilities that it may be hard to keep track of all of them.
This an intriguing chess variant... interesting. I can't rate it until I get experience in the variant, if I can find the time to try it out.
i can't judge a game this complicated w/o playing it first. i am looking forward to trying it tho. is anybody working on a zillions file for this game?
This seems like a very complicated game. I rated it as 'none' because I have no practical experience in this game. I have not even imagined the possibilities. It would be unrealistic for me to give it a rating. But I do have comments (of course) ....... You have a good imagination. It seems a bit much, but some pieces seem to have potential. I particularly like the idea of the Hyena. I'm not too sure about the Archer though? And I'm not too sure about this Confabulation theme? However, it does accomplish what you appearred to have set out to accomplish ........ A game that is rich in multiple possibilities. Really seems like a 'hard-thinking' game. Michael
I think that EXISTENTIALIST CHESS is one of the most intriguing cv's I've ever come up with. Yes, it is complicated, but read through the rules a few times and eventually you'll get the hang of it. One of the things that's fun about this game is all the different combinations you can come up with from confabulating the archer and zednick. Is the archer too powerful a piece? Perhaps. One may be forced to give up one of their own powerful pieces just to get rid of their opponent's archer. A few notes to add that I forgot to mention from the text: A cannon's long jump move is done in a straight line either horizontally or vertically but not diagonally. Though I didn't intend it originally as such when I wrote it, so as to go along with the literal description of the rule as stated, a dazzler may not jump an enemy shield, either with the long cannon-like jump (intended rule) or from 2 squares away (unintended rule). There were a few typos in the text as originally posted, I've sent in an email to the editors of this site pointing them out asking them to correct them. Captain Kirk, you're funny. I know what you mean, but I did not set out to deliberately make a game that was overly complicated. I just wanted to create a game with a lot of different pieces and a lot of possibilities. I think that, by comparison, my game is easier to follow than a game like THE GAME OF NEMOROTH which seems to me to be very hard to play and has pieces conflicting each other all the time. Lastly I would like to add that I welcome anyone to email me at [email protected] if you would like to play EXISTENTIALIST CHESS with me by email. We can submit an ASCII diagram to each other with each move, though I would prefer to play against people who have ZILLIONS OF GAMES and when a zrf file for this game is eventually posted to this page, use it to record the positions of the game and only email each other the moves, and not the diagram too.
Holy cow! This is really really complicated! I can't tell if it's good yet, but it sure as heck is complicated. I'll have to read it three more times.
Child's play compared to Fizzbin Chess. Fizzbin Chess, now there's a *real* man's chess variant. :-)
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