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A preset for Chess that doesn't enforce any rules is already available for Chess. It is the default configuration for Game Courier before any changes are made, and the Editor link on the main Game Courier page will take you to it. The others aren't difficult to make if you need them. Just begin with a preset that enforces the rules and delete all the code for enforcing the rules.
I think, it needs special presets for chess, shogi and xiang-qi, wich DO NOT enforce rules! They'll help to playtest games, played with same board pieces, but with different rules. And it's better if all 3 will have benches for captured pieces, as in shogi.
Greetings to all Chess Variant players! I have often found myself looking to play a live game on the Play By Mail Game Courier, but not able to connect with anyone that can play at the same time. So I have created a chat room (with no requirements to download any software) to help pull fellow gamers together online at the same time. The chat room address is
http://www.chatzy.com/574469514839. I titled the room 'Chess Variants Lounge'. Pretty simple to access and no registration required. Hope to find some of you there looking for a live game to play.
Larry Wheeler gave me some good advice today on how to fix the problem, which I took so the problem should be fixed. Apologies for that, David.
Hello again Jeremy. It looks like you need to type in 'Sides: White Black' in order to make White move first. Sorry to be such a bother. [Edit] Unfortunately I will not have time to play TenCubed Chess while
Game Courier Tournament #3 continues.
Ah, I think maybe you're right. Okay, I think I've fixed it. Let me know. Thanks.
NOTE TO JEREMY: I still believe your TenCubed Chess preset needs to be adjusted. Most presets require Sides: White Black and Side: White. The Shogi preset reverses these settings, because Black moves first in Shogi. My email address will change in a week, so I have been avoiding correspondence lately.
And as long as you are working in that preset, I think that the dark squares would look better with Colors: FFFFFF 888888 - but I can always use a custom setting for my own viewing.
Hi Fergus, yes, I will fix that. Sorry for the annoyance...
ATTN David Howe: David, when I clicked on the 'quick edit' link for this page, I was informed that this page is now part of a collection, and several new presets, all created by members through the new system you set up, were part of the collection. Why is this page now part of a collection with other pages? What does it mean for these pages to be collected together? Is it necessary to show pages in the same collection when someone clicks on 'edit' or 'quick edit'? They don't appear to have the same id, so no disambiguation seems to be required. I then had to click 'edit', not 'quick edit' again, to edit the page, and I had to wait for all the long drop-down menus to load. Would you please add 'quick edit' links to collection pages and to pages on the main site, not just in the play subdomain?
Pallab, maybe that's because the Chess with Different Armies presets, unlike many others, use enforceable rules. When I use another preset as a model for creating a new one, I try to find one that doesn't hasn't had its rules enforced.
It seems that I can not edit a preset. Suppose I edit the preset of Remarkable Rookies vs Colorbound Clobbers and change a BD to a Rook. Then after pressing 'update' and then 'test' when I choose the option to move pieces by yourself I again get the orginal BD but not the rook. Same thing is happening if I invite somebody to play the edited game and accept the invitation myself.
Yes this is true. What I meant is that at least the game design part is left open and one can code a lot of game with game courier. That much is also not easily avalaible elsewhere. As a matter of fact game courier is an excellent creation, both as an idea and as an implementation. I understand the problem with point and click play. But one generaly use it as a side option. One may use it or one may enter the move by hand. It is like that in other servers. Why I suggested point and click play is that to many computer-novice gammer it gives more comfort and hence is a important factor to increase the popularity of a system. A java base system also gives a better and faster preset to analyze and watch a played game.
First, Game Courier is not an open source project by the users for the users. It is my own creation, built up from scratch by myself, with a little bit of assistance from some other editors. It enables open development of presets by anyone who cares to make them, but that's all that is open about it. Like you can use a word processor to write a novel without being able to program the word processor, you can use Game Courier to develop games without being able to program Game Courier. Second, I have no plans to add point and click capability to Game Courier. Entering moves by notation is more versatile than moving pieces with a mouse, and it will work with any browser. It also helps a player think about his move more carefully and helps safeguard against making a mistake. Besides all that, I have no experience programming Java, and I'm not so excited about the idea of point and click capability to think it is worth my time and effort to try to implement it.
With the per game rating system another important addition may be the click and play system. The computer java applet already has this facility and it will not be difficult for game courier to adopt it.
One thing I like about game courier is it is a system for the users by the users and it has a expandable 'open source' like structure.
Both schemingmind.com and brainking.com have a number of 'hidden information' games with rules that are automatically enforced. You can try both sites out for free. They also both have a lot of mini-tournaments (that members can begin) for their variants, though neither has anything near the number of variants Game Courier has. One thing I like a lot about schemingmind.com and would like to see replicated at chessvariants.org is a pyramid system for each variant. You can join a pyramid and then challenge other people at your level. If you win, you go to a higher level and if you lose, you go down a level (or if you're at the bottom, you stay at the bottom).
Kriegspiel involves questioning of a referee, but Game Courier is not able to handle the role of the referee in the manner required by Kriegspiel. Also, since it doesn't support multi-player games, it has no facility for letting a human serve as referee. At best, Game Courier could support a game that is similar to Kriegspiel but designed for a computer to handle. It might be possible to do Dark Chess, but I haven't looked into that game enough to tell what it would require. It might be handled by deleting invisible pieces during the post-game automation code. This should clear pieces from the player's view without removing them from the game. It would also require high level security that prevents anyone from viewing the game unless it is his turn and he gives the right password, and it would have to disable viewing of the movelist.
I noticed that there are no Game Courier games for Kriegspiel or other variants with incomplete information. Is this due to a limitation in the game code?
I agree. A separate tournament for each variant that draws a minimum number of entrants is a great idea, as long as anyone could participate in as many as they want. :-)
Of course, a Shogi tournament would be good, as there seems to be much interest in that game. However, I just used it as an example. What I imply is that tournaments be held for ALL games, or at least all that can draw four or more entries. Thereafter, the site could establish a running record for the winners of each event.
I agree with Roberto Lavieri: a Shogi Tournament should be fine and I'm very interested in it.
A Shogi Tournament should be fine. (Perhaps it can be considered a Shogi and variants Tournament, with, say, three or four variants).
Rather than (or perhaps, in addition to) the tournament format now being offered here, it would be interesting to hold tournaments for each game type. For example, there could be an omegachess tournament, and a shogi tournament, etc., maybe on a yearly basis. In this way, every player could enter their favorite events. Prize funds and entry fees to cover them and any incremental costs in running the events could be considered also.
I have just updated a large number of preset pages to replace every occurrence of + with %20. Each can be used to represent the space in URLs. It makes no difference to the presets provided as URLs, but it does make a difference to presets provided as forms. I have recently updated Game Courier to recognize the + character as itself instead of as a space when entered in forms. This means I am now encoding form data with rawurlencode, which uses %20 for spaces, instead of urlencode, which uses the + sign for spaces. This allows the standard notation for promoted Shogi pieces to be used, and it allows the + operator to be used for addition in GAME Code. But this update was not compatible with old presets whose form fields had been encoded with urlencode. So I did a multi-document search and replace on all preset pages and uploaded those that got altered by the search and replace. I checked a few pages as I was starting, found no problems, and went ahead with all the pages. I have not individually inspected each page for places where the + sign was used as itself. If any of you happen to find a preset page that has %20 where there should be a + sign, please let me know.
I think Game Courier could handle a three-step Pawn move without an additional function. Assuming Pawns begin on the second rank, like so: set legal and checkaride origin dest 0 1 less rankname dest 6; The same principle can be used for a piece with limited movement, such as an R4, which moves as a Rook no more than four spaces. set legal and checkride origin dest 0 1 or less abs minus rank origin rank dest 5 less abs minus file origin file rank 5; A cursed Queen, which I think is limited to three spaces, like so: set legal and or checkride origin dest 0 1 checkride origin dest 1 1 and less abs minus rank origin rank dest 4 less abs minus file origin file rank 4;
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