Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Oh if u mean no original alfaerie for 'sky' then yes there isn't but i am very used to the ones i used, u don't really see them too much in games either. On the download zrf page for 'sky' is info on game and at the bottom of the page there are graphics of pieces and the name and movement given.

Charles, naming pieces, i know u have a 'big production' going on there and changing one name means changing a lot of others, so, yeah, it's a problem, and i think u should name them what u want. But if u could not name an 8-1 leaper 'ibis' it would probably be good seeing that name is connected with a 5-1 leaper from at least 1999 it seems. It would be confusing. If u havn't already named it that, u could consider, or at least on your page mention that some people call 5-1 leaper 'ibis'.

But then again, as we see, people name pieces what they want disregarding names that they were called earlier. Who invented the compound pieces 'knight/bishop' and 'knight/rook'? What were original names?

Tai Shogi has an 'alfil/wazir' called 'Phoenix' (Hoo) and another piece called 'Kirin' that moves 'dabbaba/fers' Surely these pieces were the first ones invented?

Regarding the main business, as far as I know only one variant uses a piece called Ibis, and it's the longer-range one. The tendency in Man and Beast has been to phase out reference to problematist usage unless the name is a direct lift - sorry, tribute - like Sexton or Frog. Not even All the King's Men, which seems to be considered the authoritative page on problematist usage, mentions Ibis.

Don't get me wrong, I welcome constructive criticism, but are you prepared to offer a string of new names yourself, fitting all the criteria required, just for this one out of many clashes between two strands of naming? Frankly I don't think that, given my other priorities, I can make the effort without a far better motivation.

sorry for writing 'u' meaning 'you', but u just might have to get used to it when i post on the forums.

let's just remember i said u can call your pieces whatever u want, i couldn't care at all really.

You say about 'all the king's men' site .. 'seems to be considered the authoritative page on problematist usage'

This is a problematist page? Right at the top of the page is says ...
'A Guide to Variant Chess: All the King's Men'

It starts off with this ..
'This part of the Guide to Variant Chess is devoted to chess pieces.'

anyway, even if it is problematist page, i didn't know the chess variant community had a 'war' going on with them, but that page to me does not seem to be a 'problemastist' page, please correct me if i'm wrong.

'Don't get me wrong, I welcome constructive criticism, but are you
prepared to offer a string of new names yourself'

Nope, but I'm quite prepared to ignore yours.  And how about some nice
destructive criticism?  Stop constructing.

Forgive me if this has already been addressed but almost none of the logs for these games are accessible and i would really like to review them. Ah well, i suppose there's nothing to be done about it.

It looks to me like most of the logs _are_ accessible... the ones that are not are the oldest, and it seems like the problem is that the initial board layout was changed after those games were played.  When the log is called up, the game rules are checked anyway, and since the current game rules think the first pieces moved weren't actually where they started, it objects.

I would prefer to leave any changing of the scripts to Fergus.  If someone knew what the starting positions in those early games were, they could create a new settings file for that, and I could modify the logs to indicate that they use that setup, which I think would fix the problem.

Out of ten games (two of the ten Carlos and I just started) the following are inaccessible: 1,2,3,6,7,8...

:)

I think an effort should be made to retrieve these and other games lost to changes in piece names. In cases when the older names can be remembered, we should re-alter them so we can publish the games in the proper places (below their courier presets) alter them back again, and then delete the ones whose logs can no longer be accessed. We should be careful not to change names when they can endanger games logs. 

This is important for building knowledge and understanding of chess variants through play and playtesting.

Oh, sorry, I don't know why I thought most of the newer logs were working earlier.

Where exactly are the names of the pieces defined?  In the Sets?  I think it would be possible for me to change the logs manually to use new piece names, so the Frog logs (hehe) can probably be fixed.  

But the Sky logs that used different starting arrays (is that the only problem???) will require more effort.  I think the way to do this is to create a new Settings file for the Sky game, and change the appropriate logs to use the new Settings file.

Ben, thank you very much. 

"Frog logs" - hehe.

We may possibly need the designers of the presets to help by telling us what changes were made along the way? I don't currently have the expertise to figure this out but there may be other ways of unlocking those records...

The one nice thing though is that the logs *do* exist and I'm sure that they can be unlockable at some point (so I hope they don't get arbitrarily deleted) - I'm just not sure how right now.

Hi, i just noticed your talk about what was original setup. I added a screenshot of the original setup at the bottom of the Sky page :)
Not sure if it was a problem, but the game was updated to stop a 2nd move check from white, and another change to slow down the promotion process.

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MZsky

Did you get my email I sent you a few months ago? Email me, please, if you have time.

I have a suggestion for a possible Sky variant which I'm currently calling "Sky Kamil." This is just a working playtest variant, not necessarily final.

The point is to tame it; make it a teeny bit more "chess-like" by adding a little bit of traditional pawn-interference.

1. These camel pawns move like forward camels or like regular "European" / Orthodox / FIDE pawns.

2. They can NOT make a NON-CAPTURING camel move on their first move.

3. After that, the SK Camel-Pawn's camel-move aspect switches, from CAPTURING to NON-CAPTURING.

4. Camel-Pawns can only promote to Trippers or Commuters.

Open, of course, to any comments you might have.

***This occured to me in writing out the above: An easier and simpler alternative to the above (and this could be implemented easily in the Game Courier automation - all the camel-pawns can be programmed to change into regular pawns upon moving): The camel pawns only exist as such camel / orthodox pawns for their first move which can be capturing or non-capturing. Immediately upon moving, they revert to "normal" (orthodox / fide / European) pawns.

This latter variant of "Sky Kamil" sounds more appealing at the moment...thotz?

Thanks Christine. I have created a new Settings file for the game and modified several of the logs to use that Settings instead. They appear to be working now.

A couple of notes:
1) Probably a Settings file should not be able to be modified if any logs use it. I'm not sure how difficult this would be to implement on our side, but in the interim, if a user is aware of logs on their games it would be best to create a new Settings file instead of modifying the current one.
2) For some reason I was unable to use the GC Menu to create the new Settings file (I went into the file system as an editor instead). It should be possible to create a new Settings file even if you don't own the original, right?
3) Perhaps there should be a list somewhere of the different existing Settings files for a given GC Preset?

Oh Jeremy sorry, i must have missed your mail.  It is fine that you want to make a game based on Sky, please feel free to do whatever you want and call it Sky Kamil, i am honored :)

The email address you have listed on your profile for this site doesn't seem to work. Maybe you should create a new one?

If and when you have time, I'd like to correspond with you about piece icons, e.g., your Fairy Pieces 1 (which I just noticed only today), forthcoming Fairy Pieces 2 and other cv-related things...

I'm doing a lot of piece design too (more than ever), including venturing into some art territories that I've never explored before. Very exciting for me. Would like to share what I'm working on, confer and maybe collaborate...? We also need to get all these pieces you've already created and shared with the site uploaded to Alfaerie - Many and maybe you could coordinate with me to get that done...

You were the one who explained to me how I could design pieces to begin with...I'm impressed with all the work you've done in this area.

If and when you get a chance, please do email me...suspecting you're a busy professional so please don't feel rushed or obliged.

You have to admire a game like this that looks mind-bending to the average chess player, perhaps.

@Fergus: For some reason this game is not showing up in the main Alphabetical index unless I look under "S" - in fact there is no "Sk" symbol for the index currently showing at all(!).

edit: also, I'm not sure the preset diagram (after clicking on link) is correct. In fact, all the finished games of it in GC look broken, perhaps (error code page showing for each game when log clicked on).

For some reason this game is not showing up in the main Alphabetical index unless I look under "S" - in fact there is no "Sk" symbol for the index currently showing at all(!).

I have added a link for Sk.

The preset for this game is broken because every game is that has a rank labelled 0.

@Fergus, please look at this.  I know there are a lot of demands for your time but this is a big issue.

The preset for this game is broken because every game is that has a rank labelled 0.

It seems any GC preset or diagram designer diagram that has a rank "0" no longer works.

The preset for this game is broken because every game is that has a rank labelled 0.

That should be fixed now. In the code for assigning coordinate labels, there was the code

if (empty($ry))
    $ry = "null";

The variable $ry was for the rank label for the rank with the raw number of $y, and it was turning 0 into null. Removing it fixed the problem.