A Game Courier Preset for Tiled Squares Chess

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Tiled Squares Chess

Initial code only. No rules enforced. No legal moves displayed.

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

Tiled Squares Chess by Tony Quintanilla

k-King	Q-Queen	r-Rook	B-Bishop	n-Knight	P-Pawn	$-White-owned Tile	%-Black-owned Tile

Notation

To drop a White-owned tile on vacant position e4: "$-e4". To remove an empty tile from e6 and leave a vacant position: "-e6". Remember to add tiles of your own color when your pieces leave a square (see the Rules, below).

Rules

(Note: these rules vary slightly from the original game description.)

All the normal rules of Chess apply with the following exceptions:

• During a turn players may either move piece normally, drop a Tile on the board or remove an empty Tile from the board. 

• Tile drops must follow the board's normal rank and file lines. They may be dropped on any empty space on the board.

The image below illustrates how to drop a Tile.

 

• All pieces may make their normal FIDE moves except that they may only land on a Tile. The only exception is the King, which may move to any space that does not have a friendly piece on it, and which is not threatened by an opposing piece or will not be threatened by an opposing piece immediately upon being created by the King. The King creates a Tile on an untiled space as it lands on it. 

That is, pieces cannot land on a non-existent part of the board that has not yet been created. As they make these moves, they may move over non-existent parts of the board, just not land there. Remember that all pieces are on Tiles, so capture is never affected  by this rule.

The image below illustrates the Queen's movement capabilities. This image shows the Tiles dropped by White outlined in white and those dropped by Black outlined in black. However, for the purposes of movement, it does not matter which player dropped the Tile. 

 

The only piece that ignores this rule is the King. Note that the King may not create and move onto a Tile on a space where it will be threatened by an opposing piece, even though that space is not currently threatened because it has no Tile. The King's movement capabilities are illustrated below.

• A Tile may be removed from the board under the following conditions: it was dropped by the player removing it and has not since been occupied by an opposing piece; the Tile was last occupied by a friendly piece; or it was created as a result of a move by the friendly King.  

In other words, in some respects a player can be said of own certain Tiles. This ownership, however, has no affect on movement, only on the ability to subsequently remove that Tile from the board. Ownership in the above illustrations is designated by a white or black border.

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.

The inclusion of a piece does not indicate that it is used in the game you are playing. But if your game uses pieces not included here, you should choose a different piece set.

Credits

This preset uses the default settings file for Tiled Squares Chess, which was made by Jeremy Good.

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

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017