Ratings & Comments

Here's an example:

What names and icons would you use?

You need code in your Post-Move sections to control what is allowed on the first turn. Setting legal moves in the Post-Game section is not enough, because these will only be used for which legal moves are highlighted for the player. They will not control which legal moves are allowed.

Yesterday was such a weird day that I forgot to post the PotD, even though by the end of the day I thought I'd done it. So...

295. Quarterback. Expanding on my set of pieces with an American Football theme, the Quarterback is probably the most complex of the lot.

The piece's basic move is to any space within a two-square range, but without leaping.

It also has two options for an initial move. The first is to "jump" the front line: it can leap two spaces in any direction forward; or it can leap over any piece in one of the three spaces directly in front of it to the second space beyond that, without capture.*

The other option for an initial move is the chess equivalent of a pass: the Quarterback swaps places with any friendly piece on the board. (K2nNifhSiffNipfampfamfhKipfampfhamfKimpfapsampz(vs)amfWimpfapsampszafsmWiudU)**

At first I thought I'd need to adjust this piece and make the stars smaller, but once it rendered fully I decided that that would be unnecessary.

(As for today's piece, I'll try to get that up this afternoon.)

*In the XBetza code, I'm frankly a little unsure about the part about jumping over a piece to the second beyond, even though I tested all four parts of that and they all worked as expected.

**Probably this would be much shorter with bracket notation; my brain isn't functioning right to figure it out right now, though.

Are you really sure about the name ‘Kinginv’?

Actually, yes. I wanted to keep the term king, because it's a piece that can move like a king, but without the status. 'Man' or something else didn't seem appropriate to me.

.., but I won't insist as the description as given seems to be clear enough.

If you don't mind, I would like to leave it at that.

..; you could profitably replace them with a two‐column table with ‘white‐square move’ and ‘black‐square move’ columns.

I'll have to think about that again, because I haven't really understood it yet. A little more time would be nice.

Well, for names, since the Bishops are also slow checkmaters, I'd give them names to fit: Conway and Buzzi (it doesn't matter which is which). The Rooks are fine as Trumpets, but I'd go with Left and Right. Ranged Oyster would seem better as Giant Oyster (I do like the Oyster part).

As for icons, the Sloth and Turtle would be the Aardvark and Turtle (respectively) with the Three in front. The Conway and Buzzi could be Abbot and Abbess, either alone or with the Confused emoticon, Grey color, or Hourglass behind. The Trumpets are probably fine as they are (at least until I can figure out and upload a Trumpet icon for the set). A Giant Oyster could be what you use, or perhaps Malkia or Kuhani with the Large modifier.

(I'd do some experimenting to see which of these icons would look best, but I have a few other things going on today, and my brain isn't quite firing on all cylinders.)

I wanted to keep the term king, because it's a piece that can move like a king, but without the status.

But Kinginv is not a word, and the name suggests something that may still have the status of a King. I would mention the common names, but Bn Em already did that.

But Kinginv is not a word, .. 

Okay, here I took my orientation from the PTA, where I found the term 'Kinginv'. If it wasn't in use, then I wonder how it gets into the PTA. I can't imagine that H.G. would include a name that is not in common use. That confuses me a bit.

Cold mountain by DgamerA

But with shuffle.

Loop Chess, watch in What’s New.

Yea, Interactive Diagrams on this site already do that by the way)

@ H.G.:

Yes, I originally would have thought when an Advancer made a move that threatened a King, an enforcing preset would automatically announce check.

However, maybe the Advancer, being an Ultima-like piece, does not actually make a check in an Ultima-like game (which Butterfly Chess is not)? So I now ask, is that the usual assumption that Applet generated preset code makes for every CV put through the generating process? If so, maybe an option can be added to the Applet to ask if Ultima-like pieces should announce check.

A problem for Butterfly Chess, anyway, is that if check is not announced for Advancers, what happens if the opponent's next move leaves his king vulnerable to capture by the Advancer. Does the preset announce the opponent made an illegal move (my much preferred choice, implicit in Butterfly Chess rules), or can the king be captured (if so, is a win announced, or does a player type in 'won' after his K-capturing Advancer move is manually entered, or does he tell his opponent to make a legal move instead)?

Hi Bn Em

Yes, I see your points, but all the same please publish the four as they are, and then you (or possibly other editor(s)) can check the remaining 3 - if subsequent editor(s) are different for the remaining 3 then I'll have to consider their judgement(s) from scratch, even if it affects all 7 all over again.

Regards, Kevin Pacey

Is this perhaps a matter of opinion?

I don't think effective communication is a matter of opinion. One thing you're not taking into consideration, perhaps because you don't know of it, is the previous usage of an inverted King image for the Anti-King in Anti-King Chess, which can be won by completely unchecking your opponent's Anti-King. When I see an inverted King, that's the piece I think of.