Comments by Bob Greenwade
Unnecessarily Complicated Chess. Members-Only Why do things the easy way, when doing them the hard way is so much more fun? (19x23, Cells: 423) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
Also (belated) Happy Birthday :)
Thanks! :)
Monster Mash. 
Armies consist of classic monsters and scary creatures. (13x13, Cells: 169) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I thought it was from Aurelian's Grand Apothecary Chesses?
It could well be. My memory, as I've stated many times, is pretty wretched.
Unnecessarily Complicated Chess. Members-Only Why do things the easy way, when doing them the hard way is so much more fun? (19x23, Cells: 423) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
Monster Mash. Armies consist of classic monsters and scary creatures. (13x13, Cells: 169) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Zombie Pawn: Moves (with capture) one space directly or diagonally forward, or moves without capture one space directly behind. Any piece that captures it and stops on its square immediately becomes a Zombie Pawn (but doesn't change color).
I clarified this, essentially the same way but expanding a bit more.
I'd love to make the Reaper and Mummy also immune, and there's probably some way of doing that, but I'm not sure what. If there is, maybe H.G. can chime in to help.
I guess the Vulture's move description isn't too problematic, except that the ID move does not match up with it. It should be mHnFXnNY.
Well, that's definitely a "kink." I think I miscounted or something. I changed the ID move as indicated.
I think the piece is an invention of Lev's; if it's the description that should've been changed, hopefully he'll speak up.
Well, then, maybe an army with my sillier pieces can be the Greenwade Goofballs. :)
I've also had the Linebacker Pawn, and the Left and Right End Pawns (those two haven't been in PotD yet, but they are described in Dealer's Chess). I know CwDA doesn't generally change around its Pawns, but they're something to look at.
I've also been toying with a couple of other ideas for American football-inspired pieces.
I think, too, that I'd rather call these the Gridiron Gamers. If you're going to put my name on it, I'd rather it was some of my sillier ideas like the Gerfod, the Springer, and the Portable Hole (not necessarily those specifically, but ones like them).
With my supply of pieces dwindling, I'll need these. Thanks! :)
298. Chained Bishop, 299. Chained Rook, and 300. Chained Queen. These are related to (and, unconsciously, indirectly inspired by) the Helical Switchback Rhino and Griffin that were suggested to me by fellow CVP contributor Bn Em for Unnecessarily Complicated Chess. Given that today's my birthday and this set leads into #300, I thought it seemed like a fitting moment.
These pieces start by taking one step in the direction 45° from what the name would suggest: orthogonally for the Bishop, and diagonally for the Rook. They then turn 45° toward the intended general direction, step one space, then make another 45° turn the same direction (left or right) as the previous one, and continue making alternating turns of two left and two right (in either order) until reaching their destination.
For example, here's the Chained Bishop (Wafs(afqafz)Wafsafq(afzafq)W):
And the Chained Rook (Fafs(afqafz)Fafsafq(afzafq)F):
The Chained Queen, naturally, combines the two (Kafs(afqafz)Kafsafq(afzafq)K).
The marking for "Chained" was tossed together as a casual experiment, and I was surprised at how well it worked, at least to my eye.
I can imagine how "Chaining" could be applied to other pieces as well -- not just compounds like Chancellor and Archbishop, but also bent sliders like Rhino/Manticore and Eagle/Griffin, or even leaping sliders like Ostrich and Osprey or Tiger and Striped Dragon. (I'm not so sure how well a Chained Nightrider would work, though.)
Ah, that link works quite nicely.
So the basic Fairy in this case is basically WS, with that special property of making enemy pieces that target it switch sides for one turn. The swapping property of the more advanced versions are a bit more interesting, though if I'm doing a Fairy in Fairy Chess I'd want it to be more like what I proposed. (Not that the Discord version is a bad idea, of course; I may come up with something for the Fairy++ on the chart.)
297. Paratrooper. There actually have been a few definitions for Paratrooper before, the most notable on this site being in Pawntrooper Chess, Invasion, and (on a rhombus board) Diamond Chess 306. All of those are quite legitimate takes, but I'm not sure that even the first two could be shown on an Interactive Diagram.
The version of Paratrooper that I propose can, by default, move two spaces in any orthogonal or diagonal direction (K2). It can also, if it's in the player's starting area, move without capture any distance along those lines, leaping over any number of pieces in the way (K2(paf)mQ).
(I just finished making this entry this morning, and my brain's been too tired to make a move diagram. I'll see if I can't rectify that tomorrow, and replace this paragraph with it.)
On an Interactive Diagram, the limitation for the longer move would be done with the morph function.
I wouldn't worry too much about the supports breaking on this; they're 3.25mm in diameter, and there are eight of them.
Banzai Chess. Members-Only Friendly pieces can be pushed and pushed pieces can bounce. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
Monster Mash. Armies consist of classic monsters and scary creatures. (13x13, Cells: 169) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This piece currently moves like a Copper General in the ID. Did you mean fhKbmW?
Yes; thanks for the catch there.
Also does the contagious capture only apply when the capturer stops on the Zombie Pawn's square?
I believe it does not. I only set it up; H.G. will know how that functions. Logically, it should apply to anything but rifle captures (and Ghosts and Reapers would be immune), but I'm not sure how to set that up.
Other than that and the fact that the Vulture's kinks need sorted out, this looks good.
What further kinks are with the Vulture?
Banzai Chess. Members-Only Friendly pieces can be pushed and pushed pieces can bounce. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
I'm unable to open that link in either Firefox or Discord.
296. Corporal. The Corporal is the most basic "improved Pawn," moving for the most part like an orthodox Pawn except that its forward diagonal move does not require capture. (fFfmWifmnD)
I don't see this piece much, but I think the intent is that it will appear as an auxiliary to conventional Pawns.
The model is utilitarian, simple, and certaintly no less stable than an orthodox Pawn. (I based its look off the Musketeer icon for the piece.)
Crossroads. Members-Only Crossing the diagonals generate figures. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
Checkmating Applet. Practice your checkmating skill with fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Well, for names, since the Bishops are also slow checkmaters, I'd give them names to fit: Conway and Buzzi (it doesn't matter which is which). The Rooks are fine as Trumpets, but I'd go with Left and Right. Ranged Oyster would seem better as Giant Oyster (I do like the Oyster part).
As for icons, the Sloth and Turtle would be the Aardvark and Turtle (respectively) with the Three in front. The Conway and Buzzi could be Abbot and Abbess, either alone or with the Confused emoticon, Grey color, or Hourglass behind. The Trumpets are probably fine as they are (at least until I can figure out and upload a Trumpet icon for the set). A Giant Oyster could be what you use, or perhaps Malkia or Kuhani with the Large modifier.
(I'd do some experimenting to see which of these icons would look best, but I have a few other things going on today, and my brain isn't quite firing on all cylinders.)
Yesterday was such a weird day that I forgot to post the PotD, even though by the end of the day I thought I'd done it. So...
295. Quarterback. Expanding on my set of pieces with an American Football theme, the Quarterback is probably the most complex of the lot.
The piece's basic move is to any space within a two-square range, but without leaping.
It also has two options for an initial move. The first is to "jump" the front line: it can leap two spaces in any direction forward; or it can leap over any piece in one of the three spaces directly in front of it to the second space beyond that, without capture.*
The other option for an initial move is the chess equivalent of a pass: the Quarterback swaps places with any friendly piece on the board. (K2nNifhSiffNipfampfamfhKipfampfhamfKimpfapsampz(vs)amfWimpfapsampszafsmWiudU)**
At first I thought I'd need to adjust this piece and make the stars smaller, but once it rendered fully I decided that that would be unnecessary.
(As for today's piece, I'll try to get that up this afternoon.)
*In the XBetza code, I'm frankly a little unsure about the part about jumping over a piece to the second beyond, even though I tested all four parts of that and they all worked as expected.
**Probably this would be much shorter with bracket notation; my brain isn't functioning right to figure it out right now, though.
Banzai Chess. Members-Only Friendly pieces can be pushed and pushed pieces can bounce. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
Checkmating Applet. Practice your checkmating skill with fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]An interesting group! I'd probably use different names and icons for the Bishop and Rook pieces, but to each his own.
Banzai Chess. Members-Only Friendly pieces can be pushed and pushed pieces can bounce. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
Since this comment is for a page that has not been published yet, you must be signed in to read it.
294. Cerberus. There are multiple ideas of what Cerberus would be like as a chess piece; I figure that the Cerberus move should be triple that of a Dog. However, I've found two versions of Dog, one from large shogi variants and the other by Musketeer Chess (both of which I should post sometime soon; I thought I already had). I decided to base Cerberus off the latter.
The Musketeer Dog (which I like to call Big Dog) has a move of one space sideways or three spaces diagonally; that would give Cerberus a move of three sideways and nine diagonally. The latter seems enough that it might as well be a slide. (BsW3)
I think it would be interesting to see how existing games with their own version of Cerberus would fare with this in its place.
Modeling Cerberus as a chess piece is hard; mine isn't the only attempt at it. I think it does the job, though.
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Done!