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Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]John, please feel free to email me with any questions about the submission process. I'd be happy to help you, and even happier to know of any pain points we might be able to simplify.
Yet it doesn't seem to require much more skill than typing. So I want to encourage you to try it. I am quite curious for your solution to a 10x10 version of Chu Shogi.
Abstract Chess Pieces. Icons of chess and chess variant pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]As in Rocket J. Squirrel. But I do believe that Rocket is another name for the piece.
Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Oops, I didn't intend for the extra posts. I too am a fan of the 10 x 10 board, but lack the computer skills to post pages for my 10 x 10 Courier and Chu Shogi.
I am excited to see a game that uses the Leo, but I find it confusing that it is called Cannon. As an aesthetic issue, I don't agree with using the standard Cannon in Yangsi and then calling the Leo a Cannon in Hecto. There is a Leo graphic in the Abstract set.
On a more stylistic note, the introduction mentions using a second set of pieces for OTB play. I might have used the inverted graphics of the FIDE pieces in the Alfaerie preset to suggest which pieces to substitute .
Abstract Chess Pieces. Icons of chess and chess variant pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hi, Fergus. I'm going to make presets for the newly listed Bear Chess (in which the Bear moves as a Squirrel.) Do you think you could make a Squirrel piece? I'm thinking modify the Lion maybe?
In the Bear Chess presets, I'll use Squirrels not only because that is what that piece is generally called, but also because "B" for Bear is already used for the Bishop but "S" is not used.
Shako_Balbo. Game with Diamond Shape Board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]While it's easy enough to guess your intention by looking at the Shako and Balbo pages, this page should mention the powers of the elephant and cannon, pawn starts and promotions. (I guess castling is pretty obviously out.)
Yangsi. 
A very playable chess variant with 12 different pieces on a 10x10 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Increasing the board size does give the pieces more freedom of movement, Mr. Duniho, but it also does another thing - it makes it harder to keep track of everything. You yourself have stated this in your article "On Designing Good Chess Variants" in the section "Don't make your game too small or too large."
"Small games can finish too quickly, and large games can last too long. Note that the three classics are on moderate sized boards, ranging in size from 8x8 for Chess to 9x10 for Xiang Qi. 10x10 has proven a good size for many games, though 12x12 and up might be too large. I have recently (November 2009) created a 12x12 variant called Gross Chess. To some extent, this is an experiment with a board of this size. The only pieces it adds have been tried and tested in other variants, which allows the game to be a test mainly of the increased board size. Games against Zillions of Games suggest that the game is enjoyable but the larger size makes it harder to keep track of everything. I haven't yet won a game against Zillions without taking back moves. I have played a couple games on Game Courier, drawing one game and losing the other."
As for your comments on piece density, I don't think that cramming the pieces together within a 10x10 space will create too many problems. Kevin Pacey's Sac Chess also has a piece density of 60% at the start of the game, and is one of the top 50 games on Game Courier.
Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The name has been finalized (finally!). Many thanks to H. G. Muller for suggesting the name.
Yangsi. A very playable chess variant with 12 different pieces on a 10x10 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The rules for deciding who moves first after deciding who controls which pieces is no longer effective in Yangsi or Chess on a Hectochess.
When I designed Yangsi, I did so with the principles in Fergus Duniho's On Designing Good Chess Variants in mind. I have actually playtested this game several times. The people I played the game with all thought it was fun and very playable. I remember one particularly enjoyable game I played where I had a bare King and my opponent had a king and two pawns. That game ended in a draw via stalemate.
Makarenko's Chess. Pieces are stacks which can be split and combined to create other pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Heck, unstack all the pieces, and turn the game into Maharaja and the Sepoys.
Yangsi. A very playable chess variant with 12 different pieces on a 10x10 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Sac Chess has the same piece density and is a popular game. Play testing is always a good idea.
Indeed, this first-move business is just the usual method for randomization of the right to move first, except that it now has a the side effects of renaming the colors and swapping King and Queen to play the game in mirror image. It adds nothing but confusion.
Deciding who moves first: In Chess and most chess-like games, the first move is always given to one side. In Chess, the side with the first move is always White. However, the side with the first move also has first-move advantage. In Chess, White has a slight statistical advantage over Black simply because White always has the first move. Because either side can move first in Yangsi, that slight statistical advantage is eliminated.
You make it sound like this is an advantage of this game, but it isn't. The first move advantage still exists. While it no longer belongs exclusively to one color, the new rule concerning who moves first doesn't change how frequently the actual players each have this advantage. I would recommend scrapping this rule, because it does not actually make the game any fairer. It is simpler and better to just follow Chess on this one and let White move first. How the players decide who will move first would then simply come down to how they decide who will move as White.
While I'm glad that Gross Chess has played a role in igniting your interest in Chess variants, I have my doubts that reducing the size of the board while keeping the same pieces will make for a better game. The opening setup in Gross Chess is designed to give most of the pieces a little bit of freedom of movement from the very beginning. That gets lost with all the pieces crammed together. Also, this game has 60% piece density at the beginning of the game, which is higher than the 50% in Chess or the 64/144 = 44.4% in Gross Chess. This might make the game more cramped. However, I haven't done any extensive study on how piece density affects game quality, and I'm only guessing that higher piece density could have a deliterious effect. Some actual gameplay is required before I can make a more considered judgement on this matter.
Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Suggestion: the name 'hectochess' appears to be still available. 'Hecto' = 100.
Yangsi. A very playable chess variant with 12 different pieces on a 10x10 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I don't see the "either side can move first" as being particularly noteworthy. You've eliminated the white/black advantage, but the first/second player advantage isn't changed.
Personally, this seems to just be a decimal subvariant of Fergus's Gross Chess; the rule adjustments seem to just be conforming to the smaller board. The further piece reduction to your other game (in particular using the Leo in place of the Pao and Vao) seems a more separate variant (while still clearly inspired by Gross, with the compounds and Omega pieces and hopper[s]).
Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I agree with Greg. Since this is derived from your Yangsi, maybe the name could reference that. "DeWitt's Decimal" would work, but it seems like you like your other decimal game better.
You needn't bother moving the content to another page just for the naming. Since the page is pretty young, we can modify the relevant references without too much trouble.
Chess on a 10x10 Board is not a good name either. Strictly speaking, this is not "Chess" on a 10x10 board. Look at this variant for comparison - Chess on a 12 by 12 Board. It really is Chess on a 12 by 12 board.
You have to understand that there are thousands of chess variants in existence. There are a minimum of a hundred variants like this - chess expanded to a 10x10 board with a few new pieces. Inventing a new one now and trying to give it a generic name as though this is "the" representative game of the genre is not really appropriate.
Game Courier. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thank you, Kevin. This has been fixed.
This game is the invention of wtdr2 and I've been helping him with playtesting. The rule-enforcing preset is his creation also. I just forked it becase I create a new piece set group so different players could choose to use different piece sets. (The orginial used the Cazaux graphics which are pretty old, and picking a differerent set would result in the Cannon turning into a Camel.)
Wtdr2 is going to post an official game page for this. I think this game turned out really well and I highly recommend it. On this board the bishops and rooks should be very close in value based on Betza mobility analysis.
"Rules of Shako_Balbo
This is a combination of Shako and Balbo Chess.
The Ships are pirate ships with cannons, they move and capture like diagonal cannons (Vao)."
The above comes from the rules description section of (Greg's) Shako_Balbo preset. Based on play against myself with the preset, the rules as currently enforced by the preset appear to have 'Ships' (i.e. Cannons) moving and capturing orthogonally (i.e. as Cannons). My guess is that the rules description is thus wrong in that regard. Hopefully this can be fixed without much trouble.
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@wdtr2 Thanks for mentionning me. It would help to also include why, but maybe that's not crucial :)! Have fun!