Tuesday, March 30, 1999
Today and tomorrow are the only days left for voting in the 39-square contest!!!
On the Zillions of Games front -- I have a working version of Hans' Pick a Team chess. Weak points of my implementation: (1) I skimped on the graphics, pieces have the same shape, but different letters identify the various pieces. (2) There are some unimplemented minor rules like the initial multiple square moves for the pawns. (3) Help text for many of the pieces isn't there yet.
But it all basically works. Look for the official release in another week or so. This game really tested the flexibility and power of Zillions of Games, and I'm happy to say, it's been up to the challenge.
King's Court is the name of the most recent entry in the contest. This 8 by 12 variant was submitted by Sidney LaVasseur, and features two new pieces: the Chancellor and the Jester, along with variations on castling and king's leap. Look for a web page coming soon.
Saturday, March 27, 1999
Please cast your vote (if you haven't already) in the 39-square contest. There's only a few days left and just a few votes have been cast. This is a very important part of the contest, so please, surf on over to the 39 square contest page and do your Chess Variant civic duty! Or use our handy voting form.
Zachary Catlin has submitted his Conveyor Chess as the most recent entry to the contest. This is a 12x12 board with special squares which force pieces to move in a particular direction, something like a conveyor belt, only the pieces don't automatically move. A web page for this game will be appearing soon on the Chess Variant pages.
Monday, March 22, 1999
Monday, March 15, 1999
The web page for Jester Chess has been completed and should show up soon on the Chess Variant pages.
Any one who has access to a high resolution version of a picture of Grande Acedrex, please contact me or John William Brown. We'd like to use it for the cover of the Large Variant Contest book for the finalists. John is also exploring using the low resolution version.
Friday, March 12, 1999
Wednesday, March 10, 1999
The web page for
Jester Chess is almost finished, and should be up on the
Chess Variant pages soon. John William Brown and myself continue to
work on the bound version of the Large Variant Contest submissions
to be awarded to the four finalists. We're considering using the
image of
Grande Acedrex chess
for the cover (that's the same image as on the stamp sent in from
Jean-Louis Cazaux).
Two more variants have been entered into the contest. Jean-Louis Cazaux has submitted Tamerlane II and Shako! By a happy coincidence, I just finished implementing Timur's Chess and Tamerlane II as Zillions of Games files (they're available from the Chess Variant pages). I'll get started on implementing Shako as soon as I'm done with the other four variants I have yet to implement! :-| In any case, with the two new entries that makes the total number of entries 14! And still over a month and a half to go!!
Tuesday, March 9, 1999
Monday, March 8, 1999
Tuesday, March 2, 1999
Thanks John!
Monday, March 1, 1999
Big news on the prize front. More later when the details are nailed down...
Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Scirocco, a chess variant populated by a very diverse set of pieces, from Adrian King. This is definitely not a game your typical 8-year-old is going to pick up and play in a couple of hours, but as the author points out, this is a large variant contest, and the complexity lies in the number of different pieces and not in arcane rules or rule exceptions.
Maelstrom takes the concept of piece density to it's logical upper limit. Yes, a 1.0 piece density! Author is Michael Asher (along with Richard Winn).
Look for web pages for both these games within a week! Also, Adrian has supplied a Zillions of Games version of Scirocco.
Alberto Monteiro wrote in a few days ago inquiring as to the upper limit rules for this contest. I'm not sure whether he's joking or not, but he's considering a variant with an infinite number of pieces. Now this would be something beyond a large variant, but I'll wait and see what he comes up with first before making a decision.
John William Brown's Centennial Chess web page should be up on Hans' web pages within the next day or two. An MS-Word document will also be available for making cut-out pieces for both Centennial and Millennial Chess. Also expect Zillions of Games versions of these variants (coming soon).
With 9 entries in the contest so far, I have to say, I'm very pleased with the quality, imagination, and obvious effort and hard work that have gone into the submissions. Thanks to all who have entered so far!
Tuesday, February 16, 1999
This contest is really heating up now. Daniel Macdonald has just submitted Omega Chess. This is a commercial variant played on a 10x10 board (with 4 special corner squares), and two new pieces: the Wizard, and the Champion. Ben Good has also reviewed this game.
Sunday, February 14, 1999
We have a working version of Centennial Chess, and a web page for it, but the graphics are still being perfected. Look for both sometime this week, with Millennial Chess close on its heels.
Received an email from Vu Vo requesting a clarification of the contest rules. The limits on the number of squares plus number of pieces are inclusive, so don't worry if your game has 'only' 104 squares/pieces. Also, the rules are mostly guidelines, so if you have a great game with 103 squares/pieces, submit it anyway, chances are it will be accepted.
Web pages for Nahbi Chess and Edge of the World Chess have been submitted to Hans' pages and should appear soon. A Zillions of Games version of Nahbi Chess has also been submitted. Note that I did the graphics for the new pieces (and it shows). But at least it's playable.
Tuesday, February 9, 1999
Should have a web page for it in time for Hans' Friday update.
There is a very similar game called Momentum Chess (looks like it was written by Ralph Betza). The web page for it is here.
Received a nice email from Adrian King a couple days ago with suggestions on how I might implement the rotating spearman in Zillions of Games. The approach was to actually have multiple spearman type pieces, each pointing in a different direction, and then have a single move which essentially promotes the spearman to a (different) spearman pointing in a different direction. Well, this was the approach I had taken. Here's some of my response:
Then the problem was, getting Zillions to accept a no-move move (ie. a situation where the piece doesn't actually move to another position, just rotates). It worked well enough if the spearman had a "real" move that changed its position, but (for example) in the spearman's opening position, you could not do a rotate in place because Zillions was convinced that the spearman had no move. So if you clicked on it, you would be told that the piece can't move.
... So, I had to create a dummy move to an off-screen position that is also a losing condition (so Zillions would never actually try to make the move). Really inelegant, but it does work. But all this wasn't anything compared to implementing Ben Good's Spider piece in Ben39 -- the piece never moves, but all the pieces adjacent to it rotate around it either clockwise or counterclockwise. Painful...
Saturday, January 30, 1999
Uri has also submitted a large variant called Pyramid Chess. This is a 3D, four-player variant, that may or may not be an official entrant in the contest.
Saturday, January 23, 1999
In any case, look for the Zillions of Games implementation of Centennial to be posted soon.
John and I are also working on a web page for Centennial Chess.
Millennial Chess has been removed as a seperate entry. We are considering it to be a variant of Centennial Chess, so the Centennial Chess entry will cover both games.
Wednesday, January 20, 1999
John William Brown (author of Meta-Chess) has decided to submit two games for entry into the contest!
John writes:
The first game (featured in Meta-Chess) is Centennial Chess. It's a 10x10, 52-piece game requiring about an hour to play (real time). The second game is Millennial Chess. It's a 12x12, 60-piece game requiring about two hours to play.
John will be sending me material for web pages describing these games shortly. Meanwhile, since I have the Meta-Chess book, I can start working on a Zillions implementation of Centennial Chess.
BTW: Meta-Chess is an excellent book. For a review see A Review of Meta-Chess, by Serge Kohl. This page also contains ordering information.
Also, I have finished the implementation of Eight-stone Chess. However, I am somewhat dissatisfied with the outcome. It seems that I've managed to confuse the Zillions computer opponent, and therefore Black almost seems to be trying to lose! Anyone out there want to take a look at it and give me some suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong? You can download the .ZRF file along with the .BMP files at Hans' Zillions of Games index.
You can also find the Zillions implementation of Xhess at the above page.
Monday, January 11, 1999
More struggles with implementing Eight-stone chess in Zillions. I have succeeded in implementing a modified "Ko" rule, which I call "Over Ko", which will not allow a Stone to be moved if it was the most recently moved Stone. I've given up on implementing the Ko rule as stated in Jim's rules.
The Stone swap move now works properly in that the player can only swap with his/her own pieces. Zillions is still convinced that a swap is a capture in some sense, so I've had to change the losing condition to be no King left on the board (ie. the King must be capture *and* removed from the board).
But anyway, it's close enough... On to Chesseract! (just kidding)
Saturday, January 9, 1999
Attempted to convert Eight-stone Chess to Zillions. Qualified success, but I'm not quite there yet. The Ko rule is turning out to be difficult to implement, as well as limiting the stone/piece swap to friendly pieces. Also having trouble convincing Zillions that the swap is NOT a mutual capture. My test game ended with White checkmating black by means of stones! Hmmmmph...
Anyway, Eight-stone Chess looks really good, and is a fine start to the contest. The game seems to take a bit longer than normal chess, but that's not surprising for a large variant, where each player makes two moves per turn. The rules are simple, easy to remember, but there's lots of room for strategic and tactical complexity.
Created the Logo for the contest. It's called "how to kill several hours playing with Kai's Power Tools and Photoshop". I have way too much free time I think. Ah well... it was fun. Also created a large variant called Xhess, but will not be able to enter it in the contest (seeing as how I'm running the contest). But I can still publish it, and will, sometime next week maybe.
Thursday, January 7, 1999
Received Eight-stone Chess from Jim Aikin. Jim writes:
Here's a large variant that's actually playable, and might even be fun! It's an outgrowth of my Amoeba variant.
I'm not sure, but I think Jim was having fun with the rules here, as this variant exactly fits the lower limit for my recommended large chess variant size limit (one extra row, eight extra pieces).
Tuesday, January 5, 1999
Received Chesseract from Jim Aikin. According to Jim:
So, foolish mortal ... you wish a LARGE chess variant!
When you first said you were thinking about this contest, but didn't want 3D variants, you'll recall that I immediately jumped over the fence and started dreaming about a 4D variant. Here it is.
This is a serious contest entry only in the sense that I hope it will inspire others to try out their loony ideas. It has been "tested" in only one sense: I'm fairly sure none of the pieces in the starting lineups can directly capture one another (not a trivial problem, as you'll see).
After looking at Chesseract, verifying starting positions is the least of my "trivial problems"... ;-) I have trouble enough with 3D. 4D is beyond me. Might as well be String Theory. But, anyway, Jim is pushing the envelope here, so anyone else out there with strange, twisted ideas about large chess variants, feel free to continue with the inspiration...