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gnohmon wrote on Fri, Apr 12, 2002 04:50 AM UTC:

Dear 'Editor in Yellow',

Programmers who have junketed to i18n fora know that col[u]rs have various
meaning in various cultures. For example, in Italian, yellow is the color
of mystery.[1]

http://www.panix.com/~gnohmon/nemofull.html is a text which should be added
as a supplemental and corrective link, but not just yet. My apologies for
having made so many errors and rewrites and addenda.

http://www.panix.com/~gnohmon/nemofull.html should be read and criticized
by our critical public until a critical mass of agreement is reached, and
then the editor should step in, whether yellow or dark sea green 3.

http://www.panix.com/~gnohmon/nemofull.html should soon be on the cv pages,
but first the multitude should fish in it for errors and omissions. 

http://www.panix.com/~gnohmon/nemofull.html should someday be
authoratative, but meanwhile, please allow me to grovel and cringe, O great
Editor who knows not his ablative from his elboh, may I humbly beg you to
please change for me one great omission in the original Nemoroth file?

As stated in http://www.panix.com/~gnohmon/nemofull.html, repetition of
position is forbidden! Your humble supplicant is humbled with shame, how
can I have omitted to say this? I be so ipse dissed that I'd almost seppuku
but no, so much better to tofuku. I have disemboweled a bean curd to
express my embare-ass-ment.

By all means, treat http://www.panix.com/~gnohmon/nemofull.html as
authoritative, and please accept from this humble supplicant a case of root
beer, or if you prefer, a single bottle of Hennepin.

Peter Aronson wrote on Fri, Apr 12, 2002 05:42 AM UTC:

Yellow is the color of mystery in Italy? I wonder if Robert Chambers knew that. (Robert Chambers was an early writer of supernatural horror who's work, particularly The King in Yellow, was cited as major influence by Lovecraft and his circle.) Repetition is now forbidden! I have printed out your screed to study in the morning, when the sap rises and the brain cells go off strike. Forget the root beer or the Hennepin, what I want is a case of Diet Moxie. It's the one form of soda that my kids will not filch. (I have actually recently dived into the seas of i18n, actually -- talk about your eldritch horrors! The subtle distinctions between UCS-2 and UTF-16 will drive me mad, mad I say! Mua, ha, ha, ha . . .)

gnohmon wrote on Fri, Apr 12, 2002 12:55 PM UTC:

'Yellow is the color of mystery in Italy' is an arcane little i18n joke. A
paperback pulp mystery story is colloquially called 'un giallo' (a yellow)
because of its yellow cover. Even the publisher Mondadori uses the term, as
its series is titled 'Il Giallo Mondadori'. Number 1331, 'Quella Bomba di
Nero Wolfe' (Please Pass the Guilt) was published in 1974 and it is weekly,
therefore the series began around 1948; but it also says 'new series', so
the usage of a yellow in this sense may be older.

This is *not* the sort of color usage that can get you into i18n trouble,
though it sounds like the typical 'White is the color of death in China'
warning, and that's the little joke.

For true madness and horror, you should look into the methods of
internationalization that were used in the days before the current
standards existed....

Peter Aronson wrote on Fri, Apr 12, 2002 04:10 PM UTC:

Some initial thoughts upon reading The Official Rules of Nemoroth. (Some of which should have been raised by the previous article.) <ul> <li>The Ghast. How is 'two squares' defined -- does a Ghast frighten a piece a Knight's move away from it?</li> <li>Compelled Moves. It is really unclear reading both documents just who moves the fleeing pieces, the owner or the player who causes them to flee.</li> I'm assuming the following sequence: <ol> <li>A's Ghast is move; A's turn is over.</li> <li>B moves all compelled pieces, in the order they choose; B's turn is over.</li> <li>If B caused any compelled moves, then A must make them as necessary, otherwise, A may move as they please.</li> </ol> If the above is the case, if B's resolution of compelled moves caused further compelled moves for B (by screaming 'Go Away' at an opposing Ghast), are they resolved in that turn? If there are multiple such moves (as B 'ping-pongs' A's Ghast between two Go Aways), could a piece make multiple compelled moves in a turn this way? For that matter, if you are compelled into a square which you must move off of, is that resolved the same turn or the following turn?</li> <li>Petrified Leaf Piles. I think I would have assumed a petrified Leaf Pile could still engulf if pushed, but the rules state otherwise. I guess that the assumption is that it isn't mobile enough to engulf anything anymore.</li> <li>The Interaction Matrix. If you actually created a matrix of all the possible interactions, it might be nice to include it in document as a table.</li> <li>A simplified version of this game could have it when any piece is pushed into an occupied square, all pieces in the square are crushed and eliminated, and when a piece is pushed onto an ichorous square, it and the ichor are also eliminated. This might be useful for starting players.</li> </ul> How do you plan to combine the documents? Take the first part of the original followed by the new? Or perhaps a detailed merging? Or perhaps just bring the first into compliance with the second, and then have the second as a link from the first? <hr> I am just as glad to have missed the early days of i18n (I was aware of all the weirdness, but was involved more things like the stability of floating point numbers through multiple operations in those days).

Peter Aronson wrote on Fri, Apr 12, 2002 04:47 PM UTC:

A couple of tangental issues: <hr> Is The Game of Nemoroth a Chess Variant? It would rather depend on who you asked. On one hand the game is clearly derived from Chess, but on the other, some believe that a Royal Piece is the sine qa non of a Chess Variant. Thus, one person classified V.R. Parton's game <a href='../parton/100Squares.txt'>Damate</a> as not a Chess variant, even though is played with Chess pieces (albeit using capture by overtaking), while classifying my game <a href='http://www.zillions-of-games.com/games/towers.html'>Towers</a> as a Chess Variant, which I did not. Myself, I like a loose definition of Chess Variant. <hr> Why is it that when I encounter an Ultima variant, it inevitably seems more complex than Ultima, not less? (This includes David Howe's and my as-yet-unpublished game of Rococo (I haven't forgotten about it David!)). I guess there something about the game that says: 'this could be even more complex, try it!'

gnohmon wrote on Sat, Apr 13, 2002 12:36 AM UTC:

'Is The Game of Nemoroth a Chess Variant?' I believe it is, though it
stretches the boundaries. For me, the telling point is that there's a kind
of checkmate (provided by compulsion).

Because the basic condition of victory is stalemate, and because the pieces
all have different moves, it would also stretch the boundaries to call it
an ultima variant.

The complexity of interactions of the pieces feels a bit Ultima-ish,
though.

gnohmon wrote on Sat, Apr 13, 2002 01:03 AM UTC:

1. 'B moves all compelled pieces' Oh, no. I'll have to read closely and try
to see why you could have possibly thought that. Instead, 'B moves one
compelled piece (or makes a saving move for it).' One move at a time.

If you have compelled pieces, your moves are restricted, just like being in
check except that compulsion is more powerful because if you have several
compelled pieces the opponent has several moves of free action (can go
around engulfing everything while you are helpless).

2. 'if you are compelled into a square which you must move off' no, the
compelled move must be a legal move. You can't move onto ichor just because
you're compelled.

3. petrified Leaf Pile could still engulf if pushed -- I like that, it's
more consistent, I have made this change.

4. Simplified version of the game. Ah yes, a game for demon toddlers. I
like that idea, too.

5. I planned to integrate the documents by making the official rules a link
from the first doc; and therefore removing most of the Interactions section
(just keep a few highlights).

Peter Aronson wrote on Sat, Apr 13, 2002 04:49 AM UTC:

How did I come to that conclusion? It wasn't a sin of commission, but perhaps a sin of omission, or perhaps just my mistake. You wrote: <blockquote> There are cases in which pieces are compelled to move. When you are under compulsion, you may make any move which removes the compulsion, but if you cannot satisfy the compulsion of at least one piece, you lose. (Think of it as checkmate.) </blockquote> Somehow it didn't occur to me that unlike the Go Away, the Ghast's compulsion (and other compulsions) just affected what moves were required and legal. An alternate wording might be something like: <blockquote> There are cases in which pieces are compelled to move. If you have any compelled pieces, you must move one of them as your move, although you may choose among your compelled pieces with legal moves. If you have compelled pieces, and none of your compelled pieces have legal moves, you are stalemated and thus lose. </blockquote> Strangely enough, compelled moves are a bit like capturing moves in checkers, being higher priority than other moves.

Peter Aronson wrote on Sun, Apr 14, 2002 04:11 PM UTC:

I use a very simple rule for detrmining what's an Ultima variant or not: if the author calls it an Ultima variant, it is; if not, it isn't. So The Game of Nemoroth and my game Interweave are not Ultima variants since they don't call themselves that (although Interweave describes itself has being sort of Ultima-like).

Examining this site and The Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, I find the following Ultima Variants:

Bogart's Chess, which replaces a Chameleon and a Long Leaper with an Absorber (which picks up the capture method of each piece it captures) and a Golem, which only moves two but has to be captured twice (this was the inspiration for Golem Chess).

Renaissance, which is played on a 9x9 board, and adds a Pusher, a Puller, a Resurrector, and a Bomb, and has a limited form of drops of captured pieces (using the Resurrector).

Stupid, where each piece can move like an Ultima piece and an Orthochess piece.

Ulti-Matem, except the Pawns have the moves of the Orthochess pieces they would be standing in front of, except for the King's Pawn which is a Double Knight Pawn which makes two Knight's moves in a row in any pattern.

Ultimate Ultima which you described in this comment system here.

Unorthodox Ultima, in which a Long Leaper and a Chameleon are replaced by a Neutalizer (which removes the ability to capture of adjacent pieces) and a Repeller which forces an opposing piece moved next to move as far away as possible.

So look at them. All of them at the very least add some additional types of pieces. All of them are more complex than Ultima. Although, no one has take the simple, logical, and completely insane step of combining Ultima and Chessgi/Shogi. Ultigi! Ultima with drops! Ah, maybe not.

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