Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I've now removed all remaining unwanted primitive (ASCII) diagrams from my 4*Chess submission, replacing them with Diagram Designer generated diagrams that still show possible legal moves on an empty 4D board by all the various piece types.

I've now added some justification for my chosen values for the pieces in this variant.

As an observation for Fergus, lately some of the diagrams haven't been showing up properly when I've visited this game's webpage (the many diagrams all used to do so at times in the past, and I haven't changed any of them in any way). Also, I've noticed that when a 'Comment' is posted re: anything, at the same time the main Chess Variant Pages webpage indicates that some item has been 'Rated', too, which is not the case.

Another note to Fergus: when viewing this webpage's many diagrams from my laptop, i.e. with a more modern Firefox browser, I can now see all of the diagrams (unlike from my desktop computer, with its old browser). The same goes for Comments for Circular Chess' webpage when viewing from my laptop (i.e. the error message I see when using my old desktop is no longer there). However, the problem I mentioned about the Chess Variant Pages main webpage is real enough regardless.

Perhaps your old browser is so old it doesn't display PNG images.

Hi Fergus

My old browser did show me many (but not all) of the diagrams (PGN ones, I guess) for this variant's webpage, as I alluded to earlier. I find my old desktop computer more comfortable to use, especially if for a long time, with my neck & back troubles, but when I once tried Firefox with this computer, it caused crashes for it, for whatever reason. So, I'll use my laptop (with Firefox) when I wish to do more things with the Chess Variant Pages, or Game Courier.

Btw, I'm not moving from my apartment in Ottawa, for this year at least, so I feel more free to play online slow games if I wish to again. I'll study Game Courier's time control features at some point, as I couldn't understand them all when looking at the instructions briefly, at least. I felt comfortable playing Carlos with the unlimited time allowed to move time control, anyway (don't know if there was a finite number of days/weeks that were alotted before a player forfeited all the same, though).

My old browser did show me many (but not all) of the diagrams (PGN ones, I guess) for this variant's webpage, as I alluded to earlier.

The script will display a diagram as either a JPG or a PNG file, depending on how many colors the image uses. But your browser would have to be very old, such as Internet Explorer 6 or earlier, to not display PNG images. In case you aren't sure whether you have PNG support, check whether you can see the diagram on the Gross Chess page, which is a PNG file. If you are able to view PNG files, then it might be a problem with your internet connection.

Hi Fergus

Using my desktop's old browser (Windows Internet Explorer [can't figure out what version], as used on Windows XP), I suppose can see all of the diagrams (the diagram with abstract pieces, and the photos of real-life sets) on the Gross Chess webpage (which, due to my old browser has a fatal error message at the bottom of it, preventing me from viewing or making any Comments).

I'm hesitant to experiment with any of my desktop's settings, since I can just use my laptop with Firefox on it instead when I see I'm missing something I should see on the Chess Variant Pages. I'm still pretty much all thumbs with modern computers, and it took my old man some time to fix my desktop after I tried Firefox with it before. Still, I can try to provide more info if you're curious.

I think you can find a version number by looking at the About item in the Help menu.

Hi Fergus

After your advice, I see that my desktop's old browser is Windows Internet Explorer, Version 8.

Wikipedia says that Internet Explorer 8 supports PNG but has still some issues with it. Unfortunately, IE8 is the latest version you can run on XP. If Firefox is not working out for you on XP, you could try Chrome.

At the end of the Notes section I've now added a setup diagram for an alternative 4D variant that I've suggested that's called "Slim 4*Chess", which has the same rules as 4*Chess, except it uses slightly less pieces (i.e. 80, instead of 96).

Your current set-up can be described as the following: an architect’s plan for a four story building, and there are four such buildings. My question is this: imagine these four buildings lined up next to each other as they would be in the 3D modeling of your game, in addition to this, could we quadruple the entire set up so that there were, for the sake of example, 4 rows of 4, four-story buildings? If we did create what would be 5D spatial chess, what would the initial board set-up look like? What would the new 5th dimensional piece be called? Thank you so much for your effort on these variants.

Thanks for rating this CV. While I've seen the 4th dimensional piece called a Balloon in more than one source in the past (the Unicorn is the 3D piece), I'm not aware if anyone has named the 5th dimensional piece. Former CVP editor Joe Joyce is knowledgeable about higher dimensional CVs (i.e. 3D and beyond), and he may know if such a 5D piece already has been given a name.

edit: here's a link to a six-dimensional CV, for the curious:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/ecila

I recently edited this CVs Rules Page by correcting formatting changes that resulted from a systemic change to CVP site long ago. The spacing of many of my rules pages went off as a result, so I used HTML coding ('(p)' and (/p)) in places with edits to correct all that (instead of '()' think <>). A total of 11 of my rules pages needed editing, it seems, including Sac Chess' Rules Page (I did other editing for that one too, such as some deletions).