A Game Courier Preset for Sandbox
Rules of Sandbox
This is a preset for testing the code for rule enforcement that is automatically generated by the Play-Test Applet. To provide a good test case it has a lot of silly pieces, and probably doesn't make a very good game. The goal is to have the pieces move as follows:
King, Rook and Pawn move as in orthodox Chess, except that the King moves 3 spaces for castling. Castling must be entered as the King move.
The Knight, in addition to its orthodox move, can swap location with friendly pieces a Queen's move away. The notation for this is, f.e. "N f6-i3; P-f6". But entering only the N f6-i3 (which can be done with the mouse) will auto-complete the move, as relocating the Pawn to f6 is the only and mandatory side effect the move could have.
The Vao has its usual move (as a Bishop, but must hop over one piece of either color to capture).
The Giraffe moves as a Gryphon (a bent slider, starting with a diagonal step and continuing at 45 degree as Rook).
The Lion moves as a Queen, but at most 3 steps. In addition it can leap directly to the second square, and when it does it can optionally capture what it jumps over. This can be entered n two ways, as a separate suicide of the extra victim e.g. "L e4-g6; @-f5", or by making a detour to capture it: "L e4-f5; L f5-g6". The latter form can be entered with the mouse; after entering the first 'leg' you will be prompted for entering the second, or 'pass' when you want to end at f5.
The Queen, in addition to her orthodox move, induces a non-capturing slide radially away from her in any friendly piece she protects. In the diagonal directions this slide has to be equally long as the distance between piece and Queen.
The squares b3, i3, b8 and i8 are 'brouhaha squares': they become inaccessible once evacuated.
Pawns can promote on reaching the farthest three ranks, but promotion is only mandatory on the last rank. They can always promote to Knight or Vao. Promotion to Rook is only possible on the last two ranks, to Queen, Lion or Giraffe only on the last rank, and in these cases only to recoup a R, Q, L or G that was lost through capture before.
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 sanbox settings file for Sandbox, which was made by H. G. Muller.
Game Courier was created, programmed and written by Fergus Duniho.
Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017
WWW Page Created: 15 August 2001