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Prince. 8x8x8 3-D variant with new pieces. (8x(8x8), Cells: 512) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tracy wrote on Sun, Jul 25, 2010 09:00 PM UTC:Average ★★★
I was thinking about this the other day.

If a Rook in 2D chess is defined as a piece which controls the whole line
it's sitting on, then perhaps a rook in 3D chess should be defined so that
it controls the whole plain. But I was having trouble thinking how to
define it.

Your definition of 'Making too rook moves in the same plain fixes this
problem by allowing it to be blocked, etc.

This way you can CheckMate the king too. You can't force check-mate with
only a 3D Queen.

Remembering all the different varieties of night moves I think will be the
hardest thing with this.

In 4D Chess then, a extending out this way, would make 3 Rook moves with-in
the same 'cube.' (Obviously 6 of the 8 cubes will be distrorted in the 3D
projection we play in.) 

TRacy 

Tracy

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Jun 9, 2007 06:00 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
For me the planar pieces are what makes this game what it is. The Towers
Game is just another variant using the same pieces as a good many 3d
variants (including a couple of my own). A front rank dominated by planar
pieces in number rather than just strength might be interesting.
	An interesting way to increase the range of planar pieces is to consider
the Scientist a compound piece, as it covers two quite different kinds of
plane, and the University and Spy as triple compounds. As the names seem
to be the only ones for planar pieces I will stick with them and try to
follow the theme, so let's call the Scientist a compound of the Theorist
(where the diagonals are at right angles) and the Technician (where they
are at 60°). For the additional compounds of one but not both Scientist
components I suggest Base+Theorist=Study, Base+Technician=Laboratory,
Theorist+Reporter=Reviewer, Technician+Reporter=Printer,
Base+Theorist+Reporter=Library, and Base+Technician+Reporter=Press.

Abdul-Rahman Sibahi wrote on Mon, Jun 4, 2007 04:49 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Excellent graphics. I finally got to appreciate the starting position (and I just realized that there's no Prince in the starting setup.)

However, I still don't think this game is playable for humans. Not because of it's complexity, but because of the many piece types.

I made an attempt to simplify this game, a whole lot, to make it more playable and closer to Standard two dimensional Chess. I called it the Tower's Game because it's played on a tower-like board.

Anonymous wrote on Mon, Dec 25, 2006 09:30 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Interesting, though I think there should be no more than 50-60 pieces per side. I have been trying to design something similar to this while avoiding the almost inevitable problem of too many pieces. It may be a good idea to add linear jumping pieces to supplement the others you have devised.

Ben Saucer wrote on Mon, Nov 15, 2004 02:40 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Great concept! The planar pieces seem a bit too powerful for a 3D version. However, I think they would be more useful in a 4D game. I think the dimensions of movement of a piece should not excede half the number of dimensions of the field. <p>I have been playing around with the idea of a '4D8L' type game, but it now occurs to me that a 4D field would be too 'open' for a family of 'knight-hoppers' and 'line-movers' alone, even if there were 512 pieces and 512 pawns per side. So the concept of 'planar' pieces my help balance the 4D game.

Matt Arnold wrote on Tue, Jul 13, 2004 09:42 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Visualize for a moment that we have software that displays the game of
Prince on binocular-vision LCD glasses. The glasses superimpose images
onto a transparent view of the wearer's real environment-- not virtual
reality, but augmented reality. Imagine also that we have two telemetry
gloves. The index finger and thumb are tracked in 3D and 'mouse click'
when they touch-- the two fingertips are displayed as two cursors floating
in the image. I would want to play this game.

Since a computer simulation has no gravity, we do not need surfaces on
which to rest pieces. Each piece sits on an intersection of three
translucent lines, one for each dimension, in an eight-by-eight cube.
Grasping and pulling any edge of the cube allows free rotation. The cube
should fill half the visual field, since the user's reach can be
transposed on a huge scale, or the user can also change to the size of the
pieces and stand inside the cube when desired. Ideally though, the glasses
would be tracked with telemetry so that the cube would always float in the
same space in the user's real environment while the user moved around it.
In this mode the whole cube should fit within easy reach, perhaps three
feet to a side.

Without gravity there is no reason for pieces to be stable pedestals with
radial symmetry along only one axis as they are in 2-D chess. The shapes
that represent one-dimensional ranged movers could be 3-D stars. The piece
is formed of arms extending from the intersection it occupies, and
dwindling to tips before reaching adjacent intersections. Each arm points
out toward an intersection to which the piece could move if it weren't
obstructed. So, a rook looks like a thickening of bright, bold opacity
along the three translucent board-lines of its intersection. Arms of
bishops and merchants do not lie along the board lines; they reach across
the gap toward adjacent line segments and intersections respectively.
Leaper pieces have thinner, threadlike arms, that fork into Y's tipped
with spheres. Two-dimensional movers are formed of a set of intersecting
surfaces. Pawns are half-spheres. Kings are large spheres.

For a game this complex, no one should complain if there is as much
graphical computer assistance as possible. All pieces glow when under
threat. A large crown symbol appears outside the cube when check is given.
When a piece is grasped and dragged, the intersections to which it can
legally move light up. Moving an index finger onto a piece, without
touching the fingers together on it, causes its name and animated graphic
description to display in the space above the cube. The piece on the board
grows without thickening its arms: the arms stretch as far as they can
without being blocked, to show all the intersections to which it can
legally move. At the option of the user, all pieces on the board
simultaneously extend their arms/spheres/surfaces as ghostly fogs of
color. Since the sides are red and blue, they blend into purple where they
cross. This represents threat from the red and blue sides, and varies with
intensity based on how many pieces have a line of sight to the
intersection.

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