Comments by GaryK.Gifford

The quantom mathmatical factors would change on every half move and I think
that making the calculations manually might be a bit tedious at times.  To
determine, for example, whether a quantom belonged to white or black, may
detract from the fun of the play. Aside from that, the game should be
enjoyable.  But I imagine in most cases the Bario numeric aspect could be
easily seen to be + or - and so no actual calculation would need to be
made.

A good strategy in this game would be to move (define and identify) the
quantoms that you had marginal control over... thus making them pieces
that your opponent could not control.  Another logical move would be to
capture quantoms whose numeric value favored the opponent.

To make Mr. Smith's proposed game more impressive (perhaps he already has
this in mind) I suggest not using a 'standard' chess set of Black and
White at the start of the game... but rather nuetral pieces (that will/can
become black or white).  This would allow the following, for example: 
Assume an endgame with White having King, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights.  Black
having: King: 1 Knight, 2 Rooks.  Also assume there are 3 unknown quantoms
on the board (ones that in the simple deductive variation would be 2 Black
Bishops and 1 Black Knight) .  With White previously having his Queen and
2 Rooks captured, what could he make of a Bario? [Note: In the
deductive/assigned variant these 3 Barios would already belong to
Black]... Using the nuetral quantom and neutral piece-color concept White
could make a third Knight or third Bishop.  And later a fourth knight or
fourth Bishop.  Thus, we would still be playing with a 32 piece set, but
only the King and Pawn colors would be true White or true Black at the
start of a game.  Of course, the quantoms behind each pawn are so
obviously under each players control there is no danger of the opponent
controlling these during cycle 1.  

It is the first new cycle that the undefined color aspect would really kick
in.  I would not mind playing this tye of game.  But I would not want to do
the math each time.  Of course, for most cases the Bario control would be
obvious and no calculations would be needed except in cases where the
quantom value was near '0.'  When it is at '0' is the Bario up for
grabs or off limits?  I may have missed that answer in an earlier
comment.

I think this has the potential to become a great game.

Here are 2 methods of making pieces.  They both avoid flipping existing
pieces upside down, cutting them, etc.   The first is for long-lasting
sets (like a lifetime and longer). And the second for making a quick
inexpensive Temporary set. 

Long Lasting Method:  For permanent pieces I find Sculpy (elastic polymer)
to be great.  You can fashion a piece (as if in clay) then bake it and it
will become hard like ceramic.  You can also make molds of existing pieces
(for example: make a mold of a knight and bake the mold).  Now you can make
Sculpy Knights and modify them before baking, for instance: you can make
the Unicorn piece this way, or the Prince (cross-less King).  The Sculpy
method lets you make pieces without destroying exisiting ones.

Temporary Method: A quick and inexpensive way to make a new piece for a
variant is to make a paper pyramid of 4 sides (counting the base, which is
an equilateral triangle). Start by drawing the base on paper, then draw a
triangle out from each of the three sides of the base-- so you can cut out
the image and fold it to make a pyramid. [I also add some tabs to make the
result sturdy). Draw or paste the proper move courier image on the 3
upright faces of the pyramids. Though these 'piece pyramids' can sit
directly on a board, I cut a hole in the base and then place it over a
proper color pawn from a spare set. This gives the piece a good height. I
made these for Caissia Britannia (formerly British Chess) Lion and Dragon
pieces and it works out quite well.  Of course, I suggest this method only
for sets used temporarily, for example, if you want to have a 3D Caissia
Britannia board set up for tournament game analysis.

In relation to '10' entries, I was wondering if my 'The Bermuda Chess
Angle' was going to be added to the contest.  It was submitted over a
month ago.

This is to answer Greg Strong's good questions.  

Q1 ... a King cannot do a 'move/relocate' function with the other
King.'  Why is this?  If King #1 is adjacent to a Valkyrie, can it not
make a move/relocate move like a Valkyrie?  And if the other King is
in-line, why can it not move/relocate that King?
A1: The answer is that these would result in meaningless or 'null'
moves.  For example.

Imagine this set up on a certain file: Where '-' = space and
1 = King 1 and 2 = King 2 and V = Valkyrie.  

- - - - 2 - - - 1 V    Here, if a King (next to a Valkyrie) could relocate
the other, we could get:

- - - - 1 - - - 2 V    It is as if no move was made.  Or, we could get

- - - - 1 - 2 - - V    But this is positionally the same as 

- - - - 2 - 1 - - V   Inwhich we just moved King #1.

Note that Mike Nelson deserves the credit for initially realizing the
redundancy and null factors.  He discovered this while working on the
Odin's Rune Chess Zillions .zrf.  I agreed 100% with his conclusions and
his zrf rule implementations.


Q2:  I assume that the Forest Ox cannot use it's optional riffle capture
to capture a friendly piece.  Correct?
A2: Yes.  The Forest Ox only takes down the enemy, even when using its
horns for the optional adjacent square capture factor.

Note the the Odin's Runes Chess ZRF plays correctly by the rules so one
can get a good feel for the game using that (if he or she has a registered
copy of Zillions).

Thanks for commenting.

A beautiful chess set indeed.  But I saw it listed at a lower 29.99 pounds.

I voted for the '10 Contest' entries a good ways back.  But I am not sure
if my votes registered. Is there a way to check? Thanks.