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🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Jun 13, 2004 05:46 PM UTC:
My comments are about the page, not the game itself. First, I'm skeptical
of the hype in the introduction. If someone is a mediocre Chess player who
finds Chess boring, and let me note that that does not describe myself, why
would he have more fun with a variant that is more than twice as large and
introduces several new pieces? For one thing, I expect such a player would
be even more mediocre at this game, because it would be even more
difficult. Also, since it is larger, games would draw on longer, and a
mediocre player who already finds Chess boring might very likely find a
longer game even more boring.

Second, the numbers in the piece descriptions serve no useful purpose. At
first, I thought the numbers preceding each description had something to
do with how the piece moves, but I later figured out that these numbers
indicate how many pieces there are of each type. This information is
already given in the setup, and including it in this cryptic manner in the
piece descriptions just makes the piece descriptions more confusing. It
would be best to delete these numbers from the piece descriptions.

Third, piece descriptions are often too brief. When a piece can't leap,
say so in the description for the piece. Don't just imply it by
mentioning the ability to leap only for pieces that can. Also, it's
confusing to mention that some pieces move the same as others without in
the same place explaining why there is any reason to distinguish between
them. Apparently, some are royal and some are not, but even the unroyal
ones are listed under royalty in the piece descriptions. All in all, the
piece descriptions will be easier to follow if they include some
information that will also be included with the rules. When describing a
game to humans, as opposed to machines, it helps to build in some
redundancy. When a piece description raises questions, answer them right
away instead of leaving it to the reader to infer the answers only after
gaining a total understanding of the game.

Fourth, I think more suitable piece images could be chosen for some
pieces. Some of the piece images used were intended for specific sorts of
compound pieces. The speed line mane on the Knight image used for the
Imperial Prince and Imperial Princess pieces was intended to represent
Nightrider powers. The Princess has been represented by an Amazon piece,
the Prince by what is known in fairy chess as a Princess. It might be best
to draw new images for the new pieces, perhaps basing them on the pieces
Spratt actually designed for this game.

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