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Game Courier Developer's Guide. Learn how to design and program Chess variants for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Tue, Nov 7, 2023 10:22 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Sun Nov 5 06:24 PM:

Thanks for fixing that.


Programming Piece Movement in Game Courier. A tutorial on two different ways to program piece movement in Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Tue, Nov 7, 2023 10:30 PM UTC:

logrude seems to not be repeating the last direction indefinitely. In fact, it has some really weird behavior going on right now.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Wed, Nov 8, 2023 08:43 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Tue Nov 7 10:43 PM:

This preset for Chu Seireigi shows the bug in action. It defines the Queen as a Metamachy Gryphon with an additional direction to show what happens with repeated non-final directions.

The relevant code is:

map n 0 1 s 0 -1 w -1 0 e 1 0; // Orthogonal directions
map nw -1 1 ne 1 1 sw -1 -1 se 1 -1; // Diagonal directions
def Queen logride #0 #1 (nw n) (nw w) (ne n) (ne e) (sw s) (sw w) (se s) (se e) (nw nw n);
def Queen-Range lograys #0 (nw n) (nw w) (ne n) (ne e) (sw s) (sw w) (se s) (se e) (nw nw n);

The last direction is not repeated indefinitely. It only repeats as many times as the direction before it is repeated.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Nov 9, 2023 03:15 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 12:17 AM:

If that is the case, then the logical definitions of the Griffon and Aanca should be as follows:

def G logride #0 #1 (nw (n)) (nw (w)) (ne (n)) (ne (e)) (sw (s)) (sw (w)) (se (s)) (se (e));
def GL lograys #0 (nw (n)) (nw (w)) (ne (n)) (ne (e)) (sw (s)) (sw (w)) (se (s)) (se (e));
def A logride #0 #1 (n (nw)) (w (nw)) (n (ne)) (e (ne)) (s (sw)) (w (sw)) (s (se)) (e (se));
def AL lograys #0 (n (nw)) (w (nw)) (n (ne)) (e (ne)) (s (sw)) (w (sw)) (s (se)) (e (se));

This is because of how logride's documentation says it should be used to describe turning riders, as shown below.

logride from to ...

...A turning rider needs directions in a nested pair of parentheses. The directions before the second pair of parentheses indicate the beginning of a turning rider's move, and what comes in the inner pair of parentheses indicates how the turning rider continues to repeat its move.


Featured Chess Variants. Chess Variants Featured in our Page Headers.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Nov 11, 2023 03:41 AM UTC:

I second Metamachy. It is a solid game with some interesting and rather unique twists on the normal Chess rules.

I also second Tenjiku Shogi. This game is a perfect example of the craziness that particularly imaginative authors can come up with, while still being fun to play.


Programming Piece Movement in Game Courier. A tutorial on two different ways to program piece movement in Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Tue, Nov 14, 2023 01:33 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Fri Nov 10 10:49 PM:

It seems you forgot to copy the new Griffon logic over to the Griffon-Range function.

The Griffon-Range function currently looks like this:

def Griffon-Range lograys #0 (nw n) (nw w) (ne n) (ne e) (sw s) (sw w) (se s) (se e);

The Griffon-Range function should look like this:

def Griffon-Range lograys #0 (nw (n)) (nw (w)) (ne (n)) (ne (e)) (sw (s)) (sw (w)) (se (s)) (se (e));

Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Tue, Nov 14, 2023 06:58 PM UTC:

- - - - - - - - - - CRITICAL BUG NOTICE - - - - - - - - - -

Game Courier is having serious server-side issues when loading presets with fairychess.txt-like code.

When I went to move in my Dai Seireigi game with Bob Greenwade, It gave the following error, despite the fact that I haven't changed anything in the code (which was working properly before).

The piece p is undefined.

Since this is not a preview, something may have gone wrong with the code. For diagnostic purposes, the last move played was

1. p 8k-8j

For general reference, here is the complete list of moves:

// Test of new rule-enforcing Dai Seireigi preset
1. p 8k-8j 
1... P 8e-8f 
2. i 9l-9j 
2... I 7d-7f 
3. p 13k-13j

Furthermore, some presets that use fairychess.txt or fairyshogi,txt are struggling to even show up on-screen, despite the fact that they were not changed in any way before the bug occured. For example:


Suzumu Shogi. 16x16 variant based on Tenjiku Shogi. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Wed, Nov 15, 2023 12:29 AM UTC in reply to Haruki from Sat Nov 11 06:15 PM:

That's because I used Google Translate to look up hexadecimal in Japanese and went with the pronunciation that it gave me.

I edited the Japanese name to make the pronunciation match up (it conveniently also gives a somewhat accurate description when compared to Tenjiku Shogi). However, truth be told, most non-Japanese people probably won't care what the Japanese name is, as long as it is consistent.


Dai Seireigi. Variant of Dai Shogi playable with drops. (15x15, Cells: 225) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Fri, Nov 17, 2023 09:01 PM UTC:

Dai Seireigi's GC Preset is ready.


Games for Game Courier. The many games you can play online with Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Nov 18, 2023 07:27 PM UTC:

I have finalized Chu Seireigi and Dai Seireigi, as well as their GC preset pages.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Nov 20, 2023 03:20 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 02:39 AM:

Okay, these pages have been published.

I think you missed Dai Seireigi's GC preset page. It's the same as Chu Seireigi's except it is adjusted for Dai Seireigi. Thanks for publishing the others though.

 


About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Nov 20, 2023 03:49 AM UTC:

Games with a rank label of 0 don't display correctly, as can be seen in Apothecary Chess Modern. It looks right if the rank label 0 is replaced with something else

Another game with this problem is Rococo

Now that Daniel brought this problem up, I should also note that presets with a Max Columns value of 0 don't display, only showing the following text.

When cols is zero, you don't have a board. Exiting before it tries to divide by zero.

An example is my old Hook Shogi preset and other old presets, for which I did because I was younger and less experienced.

Thankfully, this is very easy to fix. Throw in a clause in the script that forces the Max Columns value to be 1 if the field is evaluated to be 0.

Pseudocode, assumes val("Max Columns") has been pre-validated to let only integers through.

if (val("Max Columns") == 0) { cols = 1; } // Set Max Columns to 1 to prevent dividing by 0 or a negative number

else cols = Math.abs(val("Max Columns")); // Valid value (take absolute value to ensure proper division)


@ A. M. DeWitt[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Nov 23, 2023 01:44 AM UTC:

I am getting a weird warning/error from my Personal Page comments section when editing my own comment on it...

The ItemID @ChessShogi no longer matches any item in the Item table.


Chu Shogi. Play this large Japanese Shogi variant on Jocly.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Fri, Nov 24, 2023 03:09 AM UTC:

This Jocly file apparently does not recognize a win from a King capture, even though no rule exists against moving into check.


Seireigi. Variant of standard Shogi with promotable Gold Generals, as well as more varied and animalistic promotions. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Nov 30, 2023 07:01 PM UTC:

I have added Bob Greenwade's Seireigi piece images to the options for available graphics for the Interactive Diagrams.

Edit: I am also doing this for the other games in the Seireigi family.


Dai Seireigi. Variant of Dai Shogi playable with drops. (15x15, Cells: 225) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Dec 4, 2023 03:58 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 03:42 PM:

Oops.

Edit: This is now fixed.


💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Dec 4, 2023 09:35 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 04:17 PM:

I do have one complaint about this game family: some pieces bear the names, but not the moves, of existing traditional Shogi pieces.

This is hardly a new precedent. Taikyoku Shogi does this with a ton of pieces that appear in smaller games. I simply used this same precedent when choosing the pieces for the Seireigi family, particularly when programming their Ludii files.

I think, at the least, the ones with altered moves should have new adjectives. (I'm fully willing to build new icons for them as needed.)

I must be very careful about this. Changing the name or move of a piece, especially while a game on GC is underway, can have a variety of unwanted effects (similar to when fixing that bug in Dai Seireigi broke our game forcing me to restart it). At some point it is better to maintain consistency than it is to change things to match the traditional Shogi roster.

Another variable to keep in mind is that the Seireigi family incorporates the drop rule. This rule demands that most pieces have a forward bias to their movements and that most pieces be relatively weak. This means I have to carefully consider what moves to give each piece so as not to destroy the delicate balance of power in each game.

That being said, renaming is not completely out of the realm of possibility for some pieces.


💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Dec 9, 2023 01:47 AM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from Mon Dec 4 11:07 PM:

While all the stated options are technically implementable, these are severely limited by the piece graphics available to me from Eric's 1-kanji set and from Ludii's Extended Shogi set. Many of the pieces have the same names but different moves when compared to their Shogi counterparts. However, I will summarize my thoughts on your picks below.

  • Flying Ox: While their are other options for this piece, none really go well with the theme of the games, which is a drops-playable version of their Shogi counterpart. Then there's also the problem of the Free Boar and what to change that to (this piece has fewer options and the same problem).
  • Golden Bird and Heavenly Horse: The former's full Kanji name translates to "Oriental greenfinch," and the first Kanji in the latter's full Kanji name also translates to "winged." Under this logic, you could call them Golden Finch and Winged Horse, respectively, and it would only barely be cheating.
  • KirinPhoenixLion, and Treacherous Fox: Unfortunately, these don't really have options for alternate names within the limits that I set for myself. For the latter, there is another fox piece that I could use (Dai Dai Shogi's Enchanted Fox), but it is displayed incorrectly in Ludii, thus making it unviable.

The Greenwade icons for the Strong Bear and Running Leopard may need to be adjusted depending on your preferences.


💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Dec 9, 2023 02:28 AM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 02:19 AM:

The Golden Finch and Winged Horse options seem good. I'd have to make new icons (I have a specific "finch" icon so finch-goldgeneral instead of bird-goldgeneral; and then, horse-wings instead of horse-angel), but I'd even call them new inventions. The Winged Horse could even use a simple pegasus icon (if not the name).

I'm not actually renaming the Golden Bird and Heavenly Horse, as there is simply no need to. I'm simply pointing out the fact that these options exist due to translations from their current Japanese names (金翅 kinshi and 天馬 temma, respectively).

I can get on the Strong Bear and Running Leopard icons over the weekend, if you don't go do them yourself. (The bear should be fine by itself, just removing the sword; the Running Leopard will be leopard-wind.) I can also do the Golden Finch and Winged Horse icons if you decide to go that route.

(The colors, in case you decide to do them yourself, are A9A9A9, 444444, 80FF80, and 008000.)

The only thing I plan on doing myself is uploading the updated images to the directory used by the Diagram. It makes much more sense to have you update the images themselves, seeing as you are the official author of these graphics.


💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Dec 9, 2023 04:18 PM UTC in reply to Bob Greenwade from 04:02 PM:

That fen2 tool may be helpful in the future...


Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Dec 9, 2023 04:40 PM UTC:

I have some new set files for the Seireigi presets available for Game Courier. You can find them here.


@ Fergus Duniho[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sun, Dec 17, 2023 03:28 AM UTC:

I have PHP set files for my Seireigi graphics available for Game Courier.

Set Group: Seireigi Pieces

/membergraphics/MSchuseireigi/seireigi-set-files.zip


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Dec 18, 2023 02:48 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Sun Dec 17 06:22 PM:

Thank you. However, it looks like I made some mistakes when defining the sets, which I have fixed in the updated set files below.

/membergraphics/MSchuseireigi/seireigi-set-files-v2.zip


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Dec 18, 2023 05:14 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 05:00 PM:

Thank you. I double-checked the sets again, and everything is mapped properly.


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