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Comments by Jeff Rients
Man. Moves to any adjacent square, like a King, but not royal.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I like both Prince and Henchman. Both are much for colorful than Man or Commoner. I think Henchman would be particularly appropriate in games that use many such pieces.
Action Man's Chess. A small (5x6) board and simple pieces ensures lots of easy-to-understand action. (5x6, Cells: 30) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Nifty little variant. Incidentally, the inspiration for this game is a line from www.oldmanmurray.com, a rather vulgar website devoted to reviewing video games in a rude and crude fashion. The call for 'action man's chess' comes on page two of the review for the video game Rune.
Monkey King Chess. Monkey King fights Goblin King on 44 squares board in game with oriental influences. (5x8, Cells: 44) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I love the disk illustrations! They're so cute!
Lance. Moves one or more squares straight forward.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Making the most of bad pieces can be a lot of fun. Anyone can get a lot done with their knight+bishop+rook superpiece. Accomplishing the same task with a lame piece like the lance is much more satisfying.
Taikyoku Shogi. Extremely large shogi variant. (36x36, Cells: 1296) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I see no reason to consider this chess variant intimidating to play when considered alongside modern board wargames, some of which have maps using maybe ten thousand hexagonal cells, involve the deployment of literally hundreds of pieces, and require hundreds of hours to play. I believe a veteran wargamer (or 'grognard') would quickly devise a good abstract system to aid in identification of the abilites of each piece and play 'Ultimate' Shogi with no difficulties.
Oblong Chess 44. Based on the original oriental variant "Oblong Chess", a 16X4 Shataranj variant, but reducing the number of lines.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Oops! Looks like I made two errors in this preset! The rules link
should
point to <a
href='http://www.chessvariants.com/44.dir/oblong44.html'>/44.dir/oblong44.html</a>
and the white king and firz need to be flip-flopped.
Sorry, everyone!
Hole Chess. Variant on a board of 44 squares with two holes that pieces can be dragged into. (7x10, Cells: 44) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This variant looks fun to play, especially with the suggested box for tractored pieces to fall into. I don't think I like the fact that two pawns are trapped behind holes, the poor little guys! Have you considered using Berolina Pawns?
Tamerlane chess. A well-known historic large variant of Shatranj. (11x10, Cells: 112) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]<i>The individualization of the pawns is a complete novelty.</i><br><br>
Doesn't <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturanga.html'>Chaturanga</a> use the 'pawn of ...' mechanic even though the pieces are neither so named or numbered? It seems the novelty exists only in making the pawns easier to identify. Is that what you are refiering to, the piece design and nomenclature?
Ah yes, I see now. Thank you for providing a clarification.
Contest to design a chess variant on 44 squares. Our annual N-squares chess variant design competition.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]No reason why we couldn't do both. To keep roughly the same number of entries you could pare back each category (45-square and 45-piece) to just one entry per inventor.
I don't know the original intent of the suggestion, but I was thinking 45 pieces total. That odd 45th piece is where meat of the challenge would lie, I think.
Yes, please accept a late entry. (Last night while engaged in a lengthy car drive I came up with an idea for a 45 piece variant that is a combination of Hnefatafl and Chaturanga.)
Chogo44. Game with pawns and kings with co-enclosure capture. (7x8, Cells: 44) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I have submitted a barebones Courier preset for Chogo44.
From Ungulates Outwards. A Systematic Set of Names for the Simplest Oblique Pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I don't think the origin of the term is American, but British. 'Pope's Nose' is also mention in the James Joyce novel <i>A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man</i>.
Contest to design a chess variant on 44 squares. Our annual N-squares chess variant design competition.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]<A href='http://www.chessvariants.com/44.dir/chogo.html'>Chogo-44</a> now has a preset and can be moved to the main category.
Chogo-44. Game with pawns and kings with co-enclosure capture.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]You're very welcome. But truth be told, I did only the most barebones of coding for the various contest entry presets I've submitted. The editorial staff probably ended up doing more work than I!
Peter, I would love to be able to fufill your request, but it is outside my present abilities. Making the basic presets for the contest stretched my skills considerably. I'm a banker by trade and not much of a programmer.
Mitregi. Shogi variant with more powerful diagonal pieces. (10x9, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Good use of links in the body of the text. I'd agree that this article could be vastly improved with some graphics. Fergus, which side of the Atlantic are you on right now? Here in the Midwest of the United States the word 'hump' has plenty of non-obscene uses. It is similar to the word 'bump'. Real (non-chess) camels have humps on their backs, as does Quasimodo. Today, Wednesday, can be referred to as 'hump day', meaning the middle of the work week. (Because 'It's all downhill from here.')
Unless someone else has already started, this weekend I am going to try to develop a graphic depicting the arrays for both variants.
I whipped up a couple of graphics showing the arrays for these two variants. I have submitted them. In the meantime if you would like to see them <a href='http://jrients.tripod.com/gameblog/index.blog?entry_id=324045'>click here</a> to go to my blog, where I have posted them.
I used David Howe's excellent alfaerie graphics. For the Cross I used a Berolina Pawn. For the Mitre I used the Minister. I thought the double head on the Berolina and the doubly pointed hat of the Minister helped suggest the movement of the pieces. For that controversial piece the Hump I used a Camelrider graphic.
Actually, I think Mitregi works quite well if you don't try to pronounce it as a compound of Mitre and Gi. With a short i (as in the first syllable of mittens) and an unaccented second syllable you get a word that rolls off the tongue fairly well. 'mit-ruh-GEE' For the larger variant I would propose Humpregi. Not good, but maybe better than Humpmitregi.
The more I think about it, the more I am liking these variants, particularly the Mitre. It seems like a nifty little piece. The Hump is a little less obvious direction to go in, and I worry about its usefullness on an average-sized or small board. The mixed pawn line seems inelegant to me. As a matter of personal preference I would like the pawn line to be all one type of piece.
Geodesic Chess. Variation of hexagonal chess on a geodesic sphere with a few new pieces added. (Cells: 279) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Although I'm not very interested in playing on a geodesic board, I like the way the pentagons break up the playing field into sections. Also, the Templar and Obelisk are interesting pieces. Are they original to this variant?
Contest to design a chess variant on 44 squares. Our annual N-squares chess variant design competition.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]If at all possible, could some kindly editor please move Monkey King Chess and Canyon Chess to the Competing Entry list in time for the opening of voting tomorrow? Voting is opening tomorrow, right?
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