A Game Courier Preset for Mad Chess

Mad Chess

Uncoded. No rules enforced. No legal moves displayed.

Welcome to Game Courier, where you can play Mad Chess and many other Chess variants through online correspondence.

		QUEEN (Q) (positioned on square f1 in the initial array): moves and captures like a knight or one space diagonally. Rules regarding check, checkmate, and stalemate that apply to the King in normal chess apply to the White Queen in Mad Chess. Black wins the game by checkmating or stalemating the White Queen.
		JESTER (J) (starts on e1): moves and captures like a knight or a rook.
		GENERAL (G) (two of these, starting on d1 and g1): moves and captures like a knight or by leaping (in other words, it can jump over other pieces) two spaces in any orthogonal or diagonal direction.
		VALKYRIE (V) (two, starting on c1 and h1): moves like a bishop, but captures like a normal chess queen.
		UNICORN (U) (two, starting on b1 and i1): moves and captures like a knight, or by sliding like a rook forward or backward.
		DRAGON (D) (two, starting on a1 and j1): moves and captures like a normal chess queen or by leaping three squares orthogonally.
		CRAZY FOOTSOLDIER (F) (ten of these, occupying the entire second rank): moves like a rook, but can only capture one space diagonally. They do not promote.
		KING (K) (starts on position e10�note that the royal pieces do no occupy the same file!): moves like a knight or one space orthogonally. Rules regarding check, checkmate, and stalemate that apply to the King in normal chess apply to the Black King in Mad Chess. White wins the game by checkmating or stalemating the Black King.
		FOOL (A) (starts on f10): moves and captures like a knight or a bishop.
		WARLORD (W) (two of them, starting on d10 and g10): moves and captures like a knight or by leaping three squares orthogonally.
		BERSERKER (B) (two, starting on c10 and h10): moves like a rook, but captures like a normal chess queen.
		RHYNOKERI (R) (two, starting on b10 and i10): moves and captures like a knight, or by sliding like a rook left or right.
		SPECTRE (S) (two, starting on a10 and j10): moves and captures like a normal chess queen, but also leaps three squares diagonally.
		MAD INFANTRYMAN (I) (ten of them, occupying the entire ninth rank): moves like a bishop, but can only capture one space orthogonally. They do not promote.

How to Move Pieces

Full Algebraic Notation

Algebraic notation identifies each space by a coordinate that begins with its file label and ends with its rank label. On the Chess board, files go up and down from one player to the other, and ranks go from left to right. In most games, files are represented by letters, and ranks are represented by numbers, but there is no fixed rule requiring this for all games, and some games, such as Shogi, reverse this convention. If you look at the diagram, you will usually see the file labels going from left to right and the file labels going up and down. And if you hover your mouse over a space, you will normally see the name of the coordinate appear in a tooltip.

It is not uncommon to see algebraic notation being used for Chess, but it is often in an abbreviated format that requires you to know both the rules of the game and the current position to know exactly which piece moves where. For example, the notation "Ne6" indicates that a Knight is moving to e6, but it doesn't indicate which Knight, and it doesn't specify where the Knight is coming from. To figure this out, you need to know how a Knight moves and which Knight on the board can make a legal move to e6.

Although rules may be programmed for individual games, Game Courier itself does not know the rules of any game, and it is unable to parse abbreviated algebraic notation. Therefore, it relies on full algebraic notation, which completely specifies the move without requiring any knowledge of the game's rules or the current position. The most usual type of full algebraic notation indicates the piece that is moving by its label, the space it is moving from, and the space it moving to. In Chess, a typical first move might be written as "P e2-e4". When you hover your mouse over a piece, you will normally see the piece label followed by the coordinate for the space, and when you hover it over an empty space, you will normally see the coordinate label. Including the piece label in your notation allows Game Courier to check that the piece you're moving is the right one, and it makes game notation easier to follow, but it is not mandatory.

You may promote a piece by including a promotion move after your regular move. A promotion move has a piece go directly to a coordinate. Here is an example: "p e7-e8; q-e8".

You may remove a piece from a space by adding an @ to the space or by omitting the destination coordinate. For example, both "@-e4" and "e4-" would remove the piece on "e4". This is useful for en passant when you are playing a game that does not handle this automatically. For example, "P d5-e6; e5-" removes the Pawn on e5 after a Pawn moves from d5 to e6.

You will not need to remove spaces for most games, but if you should need to, you can do this by omitting the first coordinate in a move. For example, "-e4" would remove e4 from the board. To add or return a space to the board, you may add an @ or any other piece to it.

Available Pieces

Pieces are represented by labels, usually using uppercase letters for White and lowercase letter for Black. When you enter a move or specify the starting position for a game, you should remember that piece labels are case-sensitive. Many piece sets are available for use with Game Courier, and this table shows you which pieces belong to the piece set you are currently using.

These pieces come from a set containing more pieces, but this preset has had the set of pieces reduced to those used in the game.

Credits

This preset uses the alfaerie settings file for Mad Chess, which was made by Jeremy Good.

Game Courier was created, programmed and written by Fergus Duniho.

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017