Comments by gwalla
Omnigon Photos and Review. Photos and Review of commercial variant.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Piececlopedia: Querquisite. A piece whose move changes depending on the file on which it starts its move.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Does anyone know the etymology of the name "querquisite"?
Hi, I'm the person who sent that email. I would be interested in that WinboardF font, though I'm not actually specifically looking for fonts. What I'm trying to do is prepare to propose that the Unicode Consortium encode symbols for heterodox chess in Unicode, and that means finding evidence of use, particularly in a text context. Diagrams aren't usually considered "text" because they're two-dimensional in nature. I can make the argument that figurine notation is defined as using the symbols used to represent pieces in a diagram to represent the same pieces in notation, so evidence of common use in diagrams shows a need for use in text, though I'm not sure whether that will fly. It has not been difficult to find evidence of fairy chess piece symbols, by which I mean the standard chess symbols rotated 90°, 180°, and 270°, neutral (half black, half white) symbols, and (to a lesser extent) the equihopper symbol. There are books and magazines using them; the 180° turned queen even shows up in running text in the Oxford Companion to Chess. So I think I've got a good case there. But AIUI variant authors and players tend to prefer distinct symbols for each piece, rather than rotated "placeholders". I've had much less success on that front. Unicode specifically rejects "It'd be useful" as the sole argument for including a symbol: it has to be *in regular use*. So I'm looking for precedent For that reason, I'm mostly limiting myself to relatively well-known and widely played variants and variants of significant historical interest, rather than recent inventions. So far I think the strongest case can be made for the rook-knight and bishop-knight compounds, since they are used in several games with significant followings, and the symbols are of fairly straightforward construction (e.g. while there are several ways of forming a symbol that combines a knight and rook, they are easily recognized as equivalent), and they're even used on Wikipedia. The rook-knight symbol even appears in a U.S. patent document (for Gothic Chess), though instead of a bishop-knight fusion that document uses a special Archbishop symbol. The special piece symbols used in Omega Chess are also used on Wikipedia, but since that's a commercial variant I'm not sure whether there are any intellectual property restrictions there. Shatranj has fairly standardized piece shapes, which are sometimes used as symbols, but modern symbols seem to be used more often (Murray uses both sets for shatranj pieces in apparently arbitrary fashion), so it's hard to say whether they would be considered a semantically distinct set or just a choice of font. Then there are historical variants like Tamerlane, Courier, and Grant Acedrex. I'm not sure if there are any standardized symbols there. Xiangqi, janggi, and shogi aren't really in my scope, since they use Chinese characters instead of symbols, and the relevant characters are already in Unicode. Ultima symbols would be a tough sell, I think. The fact that the symbols in that font don't resemble the symbols for the same pieces in, say, the Alfaerie set, suggests that there really isn't a stable symbology for Ultima/Baroque yet.
Chancellor. Moves like rook or as knight.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This page says the piece first appears in a Shatranj Al-Kabir possibly from the 14th century. That name has been used a lot. Does anyone know where that claim is from? Is there a particular manuscript it's found in?
Tamerlane chess: ms 7322 version. Information on historic variant of Tamerlane chess. (11x10, Cells: 112) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Are there any surviving sets for Tamerlane Chess, or is the game known only from descriptions in manuscripts? Does anyone know what the pieces looked like?
Do you know if anyone has translated those descriptions?
An update: Getting close to a complete draft proposal, I think. It's dominated by fairy chess problem symbols, since it's easier to demonstrate that they are in use than variantist, distinct per-piece symbols. Which shouldn't be surprising, since a game exists whether it's written down or not, but chess problems really don't; they *are* their written form. On the variantist side, so far I am including the bishop-knight, rook-knight, and queen-knight compounds (using the generic descriptors since the name situation is so garbled). I'm currently debating with myself whether I should include shatranj symbols in the proposal. I have found one document that uses them in text: Sonja Musser Golladay's paper on the Alfonso manuscript. Since the shatranj piece shapes are nearly unrecognizable as their modern counterparts (with the exception of the knight and pawn), I could possibly make a case, though basing it on a single text is a bit weak. The manuscripts that describe Tamerlane Chess apparently contain no illustrations of the added pieces. Any symbols for those pieces are modern innovations, and I can't find any examples in text, just diagrams. The other Shatranj Kamil variants are similar. Grant Acedrex is in a slightly better position, since the Alfonso manuscript itself does at least provide symbols for the pieces. But again, no use in text: Musser Golladay's paper uses symbols for the basic shatranj pieces in notation but full names for the pieces specific to GA. Even her move diagrams use pawns and promoted pawns as stand-ins. Courier Chess is like GA, and it is also unclear to what extent its pieces should be unified with the shatranj and/or modern chess pieces.
AIUI unless you're using XeTeX, Unicode isn't even really an option for METAFONT. Just out of curiosity, does your MF font work with the Diagram package? I admit I don't know TeX very well. The title of this thread is a bit misleading. My initial question wasn't really about fonts, it was about publications. Anybody with the time and inclination can make a font full of whatever symbols they like, but existence of a font is not evidence of use in and of itself. BTW, does anybody know how to contact Armando H. Marroquin? I have some questions about his Chess Alfonso font. Musser Golladay's paper uses it, but the promoted pawn symbol in that paper doesn't seem to be in the freely available version of the font.
While researching something else, I ran across this discussion of "Gungi", a board game that appears in the anime Hunter x Hunter and figures in the plot: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=117295 It's apparently a chess variant with drops and pieces that may be stacked, likely inspired by shogi. The thread is about trying to figure out the rules from examples of play in the series (since the creator has never set them out explicitly). Somebody posted a link to a Tumblr post that presents a translation of a rule set a Japanese individual has come up with: http://hiromalo.tumblr.com/post/74510568781/rules-of-gungi . The rules are a bit fiddly (pieces have different movement abilities based on where they are placed in a stack, and many have special abilities) but it may be playable. Of course, it's not clear if those match the "official" rules in the series, or even if such rules actually exist, since the writer may have just been winging it with a vague idea of what sort of moves are possible. I'm not familiar with the series myself.
I said "likely inspired by shogi" regarding the game that appears in the series. The tumblr post says specifically that it's inspired by shogi, but those aren't actually the words of the series creator; that post is a hypothetical reconstruction of the game by fans, based on examples from the series. Who knows if it's really what the series creator intended? I'm just hedging though. It does sound like the game as played in the series has drops, which would be a pretty strong indication. I suspect the tumblr post is just using graphics from the Japanese post it's translating. As for why the hiragana, no idea. 1. The way it's phrased, it's ambiguous. But I think it's not additive. Look at the move of the arrow: the tier 3 move is the combination of the tier 1 and tier 2 moves, so if mobile range expansion *added* the move from the next tier up, then that would mean the tier 1 arrow would move like a tier *3* arrow. I don't think that's intended. On the other hand, this would mean that the "range expansion effect" actually reduces range for some pieces, like the lance. 2. It's not stated expliclty, but I would assume that tier 3 pieces under mobile range expansion would just act like tier 3 pieces, since there is no tier 4: they can't go up any higher. The only other possible interpretation is that they become immobile (since tier 4 moves don't exist) which seems unlikely if friendly fortresses are meant to be advantageous. 3. Good question.
Torus Chess on a Standard Board. Torus Chess on a standard board with a unique setup. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]One way of making a toroidal chess playable (or a horizontal cylindrical chess, for that matter) would be to restrict passage across the border between the 1st and 8th ranks so each player's pieces could only cross in one direction (the 8-to-1 direction for white, 1-to-8 for black). That way the armies can begin in the standard array without starting in check.
I'm currently working with the WFCC on a proposal to encode symbols used for chess variants and fairy chess problems in Unicode so that they can be used in plain text. Currently it consists of:
- The 3 cardinal rotations of the orthodox piece symbols, in white and black
- The 4 intermediate rotations of the knight symbol, in white and black
- Neutral (half white, half black) symbols, upright and in the above rotations
- The equihopper symbol and rotated equihopper symbol, in white, black, and neutral
- A florette symbol (used in some places for the Rose) in white, black, and neutral
- The knighted compounds (amazon, archbishop, marshall) in white and black
- A joker/jester symbol in white and black
- Shatranj fers and alfil/elephant symbols in white and black
The last three are probably most applicable to chess variants rather than fairy chess problems. I was hoping to be able to propose a wider set of variant pieces (I'd love to be able to justify a cannon and gryphon, for instance) but ultimately I haven't been able to find any examples of their use in running text.
The goal here is to allow these symbols to be used for things like figurine notation without having to rely on inline images or font-switching. Support for these symbols would come "for free" in any software that supports the appropriate version of Unicode (though displaying them would still require the user to have a font that contains them).
If anybody is interested, I can supply a PDF of the proposal, though it's still a draft (the exact ordering of characters is still in flux). I'd appreciate any input or feedback from the chess variants community.
(This is a followup to this old thread, posting as a new thread because the old one's title was a bit misleading)
Here's the link to the PDF on Google Drive. I hope that works. That's the original draft I submitted to WFCC. Since then the neutral compounds have been dropped (the WFCC reps didn't think there was a need, and I see their point) and the number of columns has been reduced to 6.
By "in running text", I mean in-line with written text, like in figurine notation, as opposed to appearing in an accompanying graphic like a diagram. This is important because Unicode is intended, first and foremost, for encoding text. The Unicode Consortium is unlikely to accept a symbol for encoding that doesn't have a good case for appearing in a text-like context (according to their criteria for encoding symbols, "symbols...whose identity must be able to be automatically interpreted and processed in ways that are similar to processes on text" or having "uses and usage patterns analogous to the notational systems used for writing"). Unicode has generally held that chess diagrams are inherently two-dimensional and therefore not "analogous to writing", even if fonts and typesetting have traditionally been used for them. To some extent I'm relying on the principle that, if a given symbol is used in chess diagrams, that symbol is used to refer to the same piece in figurine notation (this is essentially the definition of figurine notation). I'm not sure how far I can take that argument, though.
The problem with the cannon, I believe, is that xiangqi players in general don't even use a symbol for it, since xiangqi pieces are not sculpted figures but round tokens with the names of the pieces written on them. They just use the Chinese characters for cannon and catapult (ç‚® and ç ²), and those already exist in Unicode.
Have you had a chance to take a look at the proposal?
Here is an updated draft, incorporating a revised piece arrangement and some (hopefully) clarified language: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_uaELFCyUCcVU4wZGl6dnNlNkE
The WFCC has given its official thumbs up for the Unicode proposal project. Could anybody representing Chessvariants.com get in touch? It would be great if we could get all of the stakeholders involved so we can make sure everybody is well served by the final draft.
Well, that's partly why I asked. The current draft is limited by my research skills. Information on the symbols used by fairy chess composers was relatively easy to come by, but I had a much harder time finding info on symbols used by variant creators, so I only included the knighted compounds since I knew they were used in several relatively popular variants, and the shatranj pieces because I had an unambiguous example of their use in notation in a published document. That doesn't mean a case can't be made for other pieces, it just means that I don't have enough data to make a case. So I'd like to involve people with more expertise on that front.
There are also open questions about several pieces. For example, should a camel piece be considered unified with the existing DROMEDARY or BACTRIAN CAMEL characters? Since some games call a vao an "archer" or "bowman", should an archer and a diagonal cannon be considered variations on the same character? These aren't questions I can answer on my own, they would depend on consensus.
But I never expected you to replace images on the website or in Game Courier with Unicode characters, particularly in board diagrams. That's not really what this is about. This is so that people can use figurine notation for chess variants in plain text contexts like email, and more conveniently in styled text contexts like Word documents.
I think making the case for a lot of these would come down to showing that they are used in games with significant player bases. For example, I know that cannon symbols are used in Shako, but how many people play that? How people regularly play Tamerlane Chess or Grant Acedrex?
Thanks for reminding me of the unicorn in Raumschach. AIUI that's the most popular form of 3D chess, so that could be a point in the unicorn's favor. On the other hand, I don't know of any fonts that include it.
I wouldn't say the rotated pieces are no longer needed. They're certainly needed for chess problems, where they are a well-established notational practice. They were originally used due to the hassle and expense of cutting new type, but now they're traditional for problemists (and convenient when dealing with an essentially unlimited variety of possible pieces). I understand the variant community generally prefers more directly illustrative symbols though.
AIUI "aanca" is a hapax legomenon in the Libro de los Juegos of King Alfonso X. Murray translated it as "gryphon" but the text just describes it as a large bird, not a chimeric creature. According to Musser-Golladay and Cazaux, it's a borrowing of the Arabic word "anka", the elephant bird, a real but now-extinct very large bird (legends make it similar to the roc, capable of carrying off an elephant hence the name "elephant bird", though the real thing was flightless).
Related news: a new proposal for xiangqi and janggi pieces (PDF) was just submitted to Unicode yesterday (not by me). It supersedes earlier proposals submitted by the governments of China and Korea, which had gotten some pushback and seem to have been abandoned by their proposers. This new proposal looks like it's focused more on emoji display.
According to Jean-Louis Cazaux's page, there are multiple manuscripts describing it that differ in the particulars, particularly in the initial array, but also sometimes with a different board (size, presence of citadel squares) or adding pieces. It's not clear if the discrepancies are due to errors (and if so, which manuscripts are erroneous, possibly all in different respects) or if the game itself was in flux or played in multiple variations.
Do you know how to find any estimates on the number of people who play other recognized variants?
Unicode has responded to the proposal. Their response is section 13 of this document. To sum up: they were receptive to the idea of encoding additional chess piece symbols, but skeptical of the particular set that was proposed, and requested a revised proposal. They thought that several of the pieces did not have enough evidence of use in text in the examples provided.
Unfortunately, that includes all of the variantist pieces: the fers and elephant, the joker, and the knighted compounds. They specifically say that the shatranj pieces should be taken out of the proposal to be considered separately. And they made it clear that they will not accept examples of use in diagrams as implicit evidence of a need in plain text, so only samples of figurine notation will be acceptable.
So I've been trying to pull together more evidence, with the help of the WFCC. So far, I've found examples of the knight-bishop and knight-rook in figurine notation, but when it comes to the amazon and joker I'm coming up short.
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