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Comments by ChessShogi

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Scramble. 36 pieces scrambled on the board. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Feb 8, 2024 07:38 PM UTC:

This page looks good enough to be approved.

The rules may be slightly unclear in some places, but overall they are clear enough that approval is warranted.


Colorbound Chess. Pieces never change their squares’ color, so army is divided into two halves – attacking and defending. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Feb 8, 2024 07:44 PM UTC:

This is rather intriguing.

Just a thought, but it would probably work better to either:

  • Have all pieces on the same color
  • Have two Kings, one for each color, and only require one of them to be checkmated to win.

This is since only half the army can reach the enemy King in the current version, and would be quite drawish if that half got depleted.

The page works quite well in presentation though.

Also, when you modify a page, if you change the Modification date in its metadata so that it is more recent, you can push it closer to the top of the Unprocessed Submissions list.


Queens (conquer style). A game with 7 queens and no pawns. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Feb 8, 2024 08:10 PM UTC:

Queens without the conquer rule has been played many times on Game Courier and has always come to checkmate or one side has resigned. Queens with the conquer rule will be no different.

You'd be surprised at how much a simple rules change can affect a game. Take Annan Shogi. It adds only one new rule - that if the moving pieces has a friendly piece directly behind it, it moves as that piece instead of itself. This doesn't sound like much, but it changes the game so much that the setup is changed and other rules are relaxed or tweaked to account for it.

While the conquer mechanism is interesting, the perpetual capture problem definitely holds it back a lot in terms of playability. The reason normal Queens works is because the pieces get removed from the game after being captured. Because this is not the case in the conquer version, and the flipped pieces is on the origin square, it is very easy for pieces that move alike to perpetually capture one another, making the conquer mechanism very drawish as it is now.

This mechanism might work with piece rosters with a lot of forward bias (e.g. Shogi), but this idea is untested.


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.

Queens (conquer style). A game with 7 queens and no pawns. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Fri, Feb 9, 2024 02:10 PM UTC in reply to Gerd Degens from 10:04 AM:

Okay, so maybe I was a bit harsh on the conquer rule, and in hindsight lost sight of my review process...what can I say, human beings are strange sometimes.

Overall, the page looks good.


Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Fri, Feb 9, 2024 02:26 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Wed Feb 7 04:41 PM:

However, since the revisions and comments are in separate tables of the database, the ModifiedDate will probably not reflect the last action taken.

Just a thought, but would it be possible to list these two values separately? Perhaps this would give the Editors a better clue of the state of a page.


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.

Colorbound Chess. Pieces never change their squares’ color, so army is divided into two halves – attacking and defending. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 10, 2024 02:45 PM UTC in reply to Diceroller is Fire from Thu Feb 8 09:18 PM:

I have approved this page.

Some of your wording could use some work, again owing to your Russian roots. However, the page does its job.


Hibernian Chess. Members-Only Missing description (14x14, Cells: 196) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

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Wild Rose Chess. Game with Wild Roses. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 10, 2024 03:39 PM UTC in reply to Вадря Покштя from 06:14 AM:

Wild Rose (Queen) - this piece combines the functions of the Queen and the King: it can move and capture like a Queen, it cannot be captured, but it can be declared check or checkmate like a regular King in chess.

How so? Also, the inability to be captured basically nullifies check and thus checkmate.

Also, what happens if you have more than two Wild Roses? How does that affect win/loss conditions?


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Feb 12, 2024 04:28 PM UTC in reply to Вадря Покштя from Sun Feb 11 04:12 PM:

- By giving check to two of your opponent's Wild Roses at the same time, you win the game (checkmate)
- If two of your Wild Roses are in check (under attack), you win the game (blossom roses)

These seem to contradict each other. If you give check to two enemy Wild Roses, that fulfills the first condition for you, while fulfilling the second condition for your opponent at the same time. So who wins in this situation?

Also, like H. G. said, the promotion rules would benefit greatly from simply having a Pawn promote an enemy piece to an enemy Wild Rose and then ending the turn there.


Black Swan. Pieces are replaced by Black Swans with unpredictable outcomes. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Feb 12, 2024 06:47 PM UTC in reply to Florin Lupusoru from Sat Feb 10 04:26 PM:

This looks significantly better in terms of covering all possible situations, save for the following:

  • Clarifying the rules on the Pawn's double step that Reiniger mentioned
    • Does the double step for Pawns also apply to White Swans?
  • A distinctive piece image for the Black Swan
  • The movement of the Black Swan

There are other improvements that could be made as well, but these shouldn't really be a blocker to publication.

If a White Swan coming from the first rank gets flipped over on the second rank, it can be subject to capturing.

This should be in the Rules section in my opinion, if it is meant as a rule. You may want to be careful with this though, as you may encounter a problem with having to keep track of which White Swan started where, and thus which ones are able to be captured.


Fairyranga. Game based on Chaturanga & Makruk with Southeastern, Mongolian and even Russian elements. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Feb 12, 2024 06:55 PM UTC in reply to Diceroller is Fire from Sat Feb 10 09:48 AM:

Unfortunately, only three player's Frogs per game can promote to Tsarevnas.

Do you mean to say here that only three Frogs per player can promote to Tsarevnas?

This rule is unnecessary in my opinion, as there is already a limit on how many Tsarevnas can be on the board at a time, and the piece that promotes to it, the Frog, cannot deliver checkmate by itself.


Homo Scacco. Several games with pieces of same type and a royal amongst them. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Tue, Feb 13, 2024 07:58 PM UTC in reply to Diceroller is Fire from Sun Jan 7 07:16 PM:

I guess technically this is a chess variant by that definition.


Fairyranga. Game based on Chaturanga & Makruk with Southeastern, Mongolian and even Russian elements. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Tue, Feb 13, 2024 08:11 PM UTC in reply to Diceroller is Fire from Mon Feb 12 07:23 PM:

There's no garauntee that players will get five Frogs in the first place (which is required for checkmate with two Frogs to happen at all with the limit surpassed), since pieces are removed from the game as in Chess. And from what I can tell, there is no way to tell how many Tsarevnas one has obtained over the course of a game with the equipment one has on the board. except through looking at the game log, and most players don't keep track of that when playing over-the-board.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 17, 2024 02:42 AM UTC:

I have approved this page, since it does what it needs to do and looks decent.
Personally, I would recommend making the 3-Tsarevna limit optional. Take it for what you will.


Neoteric Different Pawns Random Chess. Really different pawns are shuffled in asynchronous way on pawn rows. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Feb 22, 2024 08:46 PM UTC:

All pawns are capable of en-passant capture (taking a piece, which’ve just moved two squares, by moving to square it have passed, if possible). But only half of pawns (F, P, A, S) can be taken by this way.

For en passant, I assume that the moving Pawn has to land on the square that was passed over? If so, how does the Warrior capture en passant, since it captures in the same way that the en-passant-capturable Pawns move?


Play Chess Variants with Jocly. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Fri, Feb 23, 2024 02:29 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Mon Feb 19 09:50 PM:

The new Tenjiku sprites look great. Can we also get similar versions for Chu Shogi, Shogi, and Mini Shogi?

Also, the new cache rule for jocly means we can fix the Two Pawns bug in Shogi and the Three Swallows bug in Tori Shogi (the former doesn't apply to Mini Shogi). If it involves switching lines, I could fix it right now for you, if you tell me which lines to swap.


Neoteric Different Pawns Random Chess. Really different pawns are shuffled in asynchronous way on pawn rows. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Fri, Feb 23, 2024 03:45 PM UTC in reply to Lev Grigoriev from 09:01 AM:

Same en-passant question also applies to the Footer.


Wild Rose Chess. Game with Wild Roses. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 24, 2024 03:20 PM UTC in reply to Вадря Покштя from Mon Feb 12 08:05 PM:

If two of your Wild Roses are in check (under attack), you win the game (blossom roses)

Leaving one of your Wild Roses under attack means you lose the game (rose cutting)

What happens if a win/loss condition based on leaving Roses in check occurs for both players at the same time?


Transformer. They change the army and the game - according to the player's ideas. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 24, 2024 03:33 PM UTC in reply to Gerd Degens from Tue Feb 20 02:44 PM:

It's a rather novel take on the Chess experience, but it eventually devolves into Chess with more (enhanced) pieces, and no Pawns on a slightly larger board.

Nonetheless, the page is good enough to be approved


Camelopard Chess. Game with Camelopards. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 24, 2024 03:37 PM UTC:

Can you include some images please (at the very least a setup diagram and matching piece images)?

Also, perhaps an introduction?


Regenerative (Oceanic) Chess. Members-Only Piece can return to owner by 5 moves of his similar piece; King is more returnable… so take all opposite army! (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.

Pyramid Chase. Chase on a pyramid, 561 hexagons.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 24, 2024 03:50 PM UTC in reply to Florin Lupusoru from Tue Feb 20 03:05 AM:

Pawns only move orthogonally forward up to three cells per turn. They capture sidewise. 

The Bishop moves orthogonally forward and backwards any number of cells, but not sidewise.

Does this mean along any of the four non-sideways orthogonals for Bishops, and the two forward-facing orthogonals in the case of Pawns?

The Knight makes a 2+1 move. 

Is this the same as the Knight in Glinski's Hexagonal Chess? The current wording tells me nothing.


Play Chess Variants with Jocly. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sat, Feb 24, 2024 03:58 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Fri Feb 23 04:03 PM:

François Houdebert also made Shogi sprites for use in his Shogi jocly implementations that can easily be used for this site's Shogi and Mini Shogi implementations, although some minor tweaking may be needed for the promoted Lance/Knight/Silver.


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