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We objected to name of this CV Horus in 2004. (Joe Joyce's September 2007 Falcon King adds nothing to the art when Horus here already has royal Falcons. We have not bothered to rate Falcon King yet.) The use of Horus did not in fact prevent developing Horus in later Falcon Chess poetry. Any rating of Poor, backed by chessic reasoning, or such sociologic factor as naming, or such inventive factor as precedent and prior use, is anyone's prerogative. Horus here re-rates as Good for playability, now the naming not being an issue, as it did not do any expected harm in diluting the Falcon product (because we use 'Horus' enough in later fiction). There is no contradiction in rating once or more Poor and again once Good, from different standpoints, because of the serious reasoning supporting each. Other names of CVs have been objected to because of ecological ill consideration (recently Whale Shogi) by ourselves, ugliness (Charles Gilman's Hump Mitregi) by others, and many, many examples of similar or identical naming.
US Patent 5690334 for Falcon Chess is about seven years past the challenge stage, so patent's claims are solid having been unchallenged. Games patents go back over 100 years, including Scrabble, Monopoly; Peter Aronson mentions under Complete Permutation, Ed Trice's Gothic Chess Patent 6481716. Lost on Aronson is that 'Horus', while perfectly obvious, is already used extensively in Falcon Chess poetry for the same patented novelty. Having searched for just the right wording for Falcon-Horus images, I think of it as expropriation for this miniature chess: no commercial consequence would be issue, just common courtesy for those who may not be singlemindedly obsessed with churning out new sets of game rules. Patenting is wholly different sphere than mere names of games: about five US Patents for Chess issue per year, down from a peak of ten a decade ago. As stated in Complete Permutation Chess comment, because well-schooled in variants myself, I deliberately excluded 8x8 from my claims, so CVist may experiment and welcome to use Falcon there without infringement. [One could] relate these ideas to Fergus Duniho's Enneagram under Game Design.
Bad enough that CVP editor no less lifts 'Horus' from major theme of 600 lines of Falcon Chess poetry since 2000. Peter Aronson also puts out misleading description of Falcon move beginning, 'Falcon moves like a Bison.' Hardly correct. Falcon is a Rider with one or two 45-degree turns. 'Bison' appears nowhere in 2000 Pritchard's 'Encyclopedia of CV' games or 2000 more games in CVP (4000 total games so far). Fitting into no false, preconceived template, Falcon does not jump like Knight (1,2), or Camel (1,3) or Zebra (2,3). Whereas, theoretical Bison is a (1,3)(2,3)Leaper defined in very rare couple of problems. My Patent Disclosure in January 1995 cites three(3)Pritchard ECV games with (Z+N) compound and three others with (C+N). 'Actual Bison' (as Zebra plus Camel), even if it appeared in any game, would not particularly elucidate Falcon move, since they are from wholly different families of pieces, Leapers and Riders. Aronson goes on that Falcon (US Patent 5690334) has greater piece value than 'lame Bison.' What is that? He never defines it. What to make of describing a fundamental Chess piece (Falcon, with R, N, B the other three such) in terms of what it is not? It's like playing a game of twenty(20) Questions: is it this, or is it that, until what is left out of everything possible is what it is.
'Horus', in conjunction with Chess, is not original to this game, far from being Peter Aronson's idea. The game description's first line, 'Horus named for the Egyptian God who bears the title Falcon of the Horizon and who was sometimes depicted as having a Falcon head,' figures recurrently in my Chess poetry since year 2000. In 'Castle Early' I write about 'Falcon-headed Horus.' In 'Chess Morality IV Promotion': 'From chimeral horizon unto zenith'--referring to Horus. In 'CM IX Sacrifice': 'Falcon head.' In 'CM X': 'Above the Pyramid, the Eye of Horus, the Falcon god.' In 'CM XI': 'Falcon and ankh'(of Horus). And so on, the Falcon-Horus image still being developed to support Falcon Chess. (US Patent 5690334)Fiction like poetry is unusual for CVP, but takes a lot more work I have found than mere write-ups of game rules. I object to this game's being called Horus, albeit for a small chess, as a matter of courtesy. It usurps the name Horus just as disrespectfully as taking the name of an existing game for one's own--not up to Chess Variant Page's usual standards. The 'Good' simply reflects that 44-sq. Falcon ZRF is reasonable trainer in what is the first of the four fundamental Western game pieces. And three of them even may interact with Bishop and Knight. (N.B., not fully amplified in Complete Permutation Chess, Falcon is first of the four R-N-B-F in that they are implicit in F, not vice versa.)
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