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Attendance Chess. 10 piece types that can move to 10 squares each, mostly. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Uri Bruck wrote on Thu, Jul 7, 2005 11:33 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
I'm not going to go all math and discuss what learning curves are or what
they should be. I played this game face-to-face, and I found it very easy
to learn, play, and enjoy. Usually it takes me awhile to learn games with
many different piece types, especialy when many of the pieces are
combo-pieces, or extermely powerful pieces. 
I can probably conjecture until the sun comes as to why I found this game
relatively easy to learn. Could be the simple patterns of the legal moves
of the pieces, or the fact that even some of the 'new' pieces are minor
variants of existing pieces. Could be the ASCII art for all I know. 
The thing is, I found it easy to learn.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jul 6, 2005 04:01 AM UTC:
Erez is right about what a learning curve is, and Roberto is right that it is not uniform for all people. But I hesitate to call it a subjective measure, because it is dependent on external, measurable facts about a game, not just on a person's subjective experience of a game. These facts include similarities to and differences from known games, overall simplicity or complexity, and volume of details to remember. The qualities that contribute to a low learning curve are similarity to known games, simplicity, and few details to remember. The opposite qualities contribute to a high learning curve. Of these qualities, only similarity to and difference from known games will differ from person to person. When a new game is similar enough to other games, this can make a significant difference in the learning curve for that game from one person to the next. For example, Roberto would have an easier time learning an Ultima-style game than I would. But when a new game isn't similar enough to any previous games, everyone is more or less on an equal footing with respect to learning that game. Regarding Attendence Chess, its pieces are mostly different from the pieces I know of from Chess or any other variant. The high learning curve comes from having to memorize the powers of movement of several new pieces, and I expect this will be true for nearly everyone, since, as far as I can tell, most of the pieces are completely new.

💡📝Erez Schatz wrote on Sun, Jul 3, 2005 08:32 AM UTC:
A learning curve is the amount of time and effort one has to invest in
order to 'get the grip' of a game. Mind you, we are not talking about
mastering it or becoming well adept, just how long until you can play the
game without having to screen the rules for every rule and missing attack
lines etc. A game with a high learning curve is a difficult game to learn
(like Chu-Shogi), while a shallow curve means it's a 'pick up and play'
kind of game (Smess comes to mind). 
Another thing to consider is 'who is your target audience'. Whether you
direct your variant to a target audience that is new to chess, or to
players who know chess, but are not familiar with variants, or to those
who are familiar with both. The expected learning curve changes
accordingly.

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Sun, Jul 3, 2005 12:07 AM UTC:
I do not understand well what means 'learning curve', because the concept does not appear to be uniform for all people. If you have a good knowledge about some games related to any other X, the 'X learning curve', (what it could mean), may be different than in the case you do not know nothing about those games.

💡📝Erez Schatz wrote on Sat, Jul 2, 2005 07:02 PM UTC:
You do have a point. I never did claim to be a mathematician, though.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Jul 2, 2005 01:22 AM UTC:
<P>Erez Schatz wrote:</P> <BLOCKQUOTE> The King has only 2 knight moves. This means that it has a potential of 10 squares it can reach (assuming it hadn't used any square move and is located in the middle of an empty board). Once it executed both his knight moves, he has only the usual 8 squares. </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>No, that's bad math. You can't add two actual moves to eight potential moves and say you have ten potential moves. That is like adding two oranges to eight apples and calling them ten apples. If a King can move as a Knight anytime until it has moved as a Knight twice, then up until that time, it has up to 16 potential moves, depending on its location. You could correctly say that it could reach a potential of 10 squares only if it were limited to two specific Knight moves and could not choose from the full set of eight Knight moves.</P>

💡📝Erez Schatz wrote on Fri, Jul 1, 2005 04:44 PM UTC:
Thanks for your comments, it always helps to know what people who play my
games think.

The King has only 2 knight moves. This means that it has a potential of 10
squares it can reach (assuming it hadn't used any square move and is
located in the middle of an empty board). Once it executed both his knight
moves, he has only the usual 8 squares.

The Vampire can only move by leaping over exactly one piece (enemy or
friendly). It is the diagonal equivalent of the Cannon's capturing move,
only that the Vampire cannot capture by displacement, meaning it cannot
land on an occupied square.  It can capture a piece located in an
orthogonally adjacent square. Note that the Vampire doesn't need to move
in order to capture (it immediately threatens the four adjacent squares),
and it can also capture after making a move, but not vice versa (i.e. it
can move, capture, or move and capture, but not capture and move). The
Vampire is colour-bound to black, and while very threatening, it becomes
'crippled' quite easily by either blocking its way with 2 pieces, or
removing the piece from its way.
For other examples of the Vampire, or it's brother piece, feel free to
try any of my other variants.

When I design a game, I usually try not to create a very steep learning
curve, although you can say that none of my variants is 'newbie
friendly' and assume a certain degree of familiarity with Chess and Chess
Variants. I believe that for that type of player, this variant does not
have a high learning curve. It may not be a 'pick up and play' kind of
variant, but, to be honest, so are 90% of the variants in this site,
including Shataranj, not to mention the far eastern variants which have
quite a steep curve (especially Shogi). 

I personally really like small range pieces, and I find that utilizing
them on a large board makes for an interesting opening stages where the
players can strategically form their battle ranks begin the actual
skirmish. It's something I've always tried to implement with my
variants, you can see it in Med Chess, Infantry Chess, and Orthogonal
Chess44.

I believe more in 'pieces balance' rather than 'complementing'.
Meaning there should be an overall balance between the pieces, giving
every piece strengths and weaknesses, which in the overall doesn't allow
a certain piece to overwhelm the game. For instance, Chess' pieces are
complementing, but hardly balanced, while Shataranj's are balanced, but
not very complementing. I'm sorry to say that I did miss a spot here
regarding this issue, with the Vampire, which should've been an Assassin,
this will be fixed in the post tournament version of the game.

I think that once you try playing the game for several rounds, you might
change your initial opinion, or you'll have more criticism, either way,
It'll be my gain :). Thanks again for your info!

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Jul 1, 2005 01:39 AM UTC:
Don't the King's Knight moves give it a total of 16 squares it can move
to, not 10?

I'm not sure I understand how the Vampire moves. What is a distance
capture? Does the piece sit in place while capturing a neighboring piece?

From the perspective of the contest, I like how systematically the number
ten has been woven into the game, but taken by itself, my main impression
of the game is that it has a high learning curve. Most of the pieces are
new, and some with familiar names move very differently. Given the size of
the board, I would expect that limiting the range of all the pieces will
hurt the game. Also, few pieces are natural complements of each other, as
for example, the Rook and Bishop are in Chess. I haven't played it yet,
but my first impressions aren't very promising.

💡📝Erez Schatz wrote on Fri, May 6, 2005 06:17 PM UTC:
It can promote to any other piece, bar the King and the Vampire, as long as the player already lost one piece of that type. Assuming the pawn reaches the last row, and there are still two rooks in the game, but one bishop, no Centurion, no Wizzar and one BattleMech, then the Pawn can promote to _any_ of those pieces.

Uri Bruck wrote on Fri, May 6, 2005 03:06 PM UTC:
That previous comments was by me.

Anonymous wrote on Fri, May 6, 2005 03:05 PM UTC:
What happens if a rook's pawn, f'rinstance, reaches the last row and both of that players rooks are still in the game?

💡📝Erez Schatz wrote on Fri, May 6, 2005 08:41 AM UTC:
You may also notice that the game was posted at 05/05, which makes ten, at
the year 2005 or 2X5...

I also want to clarify the rules of promotion. 
'When a pawn reaches the 10th row, it immediately promotes to any piece
except the King or the Vampire.'
'only when the player already lost a piece of the type. A player can't
have more than 2 pieces of any type, and no more than one Centurion.'
Those two rules aren't exclusive, but apply to each other. A Pawn
reaching the last row must promote to any piece, as long as that piece has
been captured.

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