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Existentialist Chess. 10x10 board with many different pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Anonymous wrote on Wed, Mar 24, 2010 04:29 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
This game can be played only with computer or by people with monster's memory or if players always watching at this page during play and have paper and pen: first, because rules are difficult to remember all details, and second to remember last moves of changing pieces. However, i seriously liked all new pieces, they are very interesting, and i think it will be interesting to play normal chess with each of them (is there other games, where they are used, expect ABC large chess (there are teleporter)?

George Duke wrote on Tue, Nov 25, 2008 06:42 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Beyond Nemeroth in convolution, Existentialist, good artwork in abeyance for four years. Gary Gifford calls Existentialist ''a very complicated chess game.'' In fact, to avoid concreteness, most earlier comments say ''complicated'' from Fourriere to Betza (gnohmon). Michael Howe: ''large and complex.'' Of course John Lawson played it. The whole great spectrum weighs in on Existentialist without much substance, more like comments nowadays addressing the manner of address. An unconfabulated Archer, zednick, the dazzler, Yanzee. The log of one stops at move 32 -- which is a nice transition to one of Aronson's.

LCC wrote on Fri, Sep 27, 2002 04:47 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
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.

M. Howe wrote on Sun, Aug 4, 2002 02:39 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
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.

💡📝David Short wrote on Mon, Jun 10, 2002 12:59 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
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.

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