Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

30. Springer. The Springer starts by moving to any occupied adjacent space; the occupant may be either a friendly or enemy piece. From there, it moves like a Queen, including continuing the direction it was going and its reverse. If none of the adjacent squares are occupied, the Springer cannot move.

I honestly have no idea if a Betza code is even possible for this.

In the illustration, White's Springer (at d4) can bounce off either the White Pawn at c3 or the Black Pawn at e4. The first would allow him to capture the Black Rook, while the second would allow him to capture the Black Bishop. However, the only place that the Springer can move to where it would put the Black King in Check is e7, where it could spring off the Bishop.

I'm planning on using this piece for an upcoming submission.

31. Sultana. We've had the Caliph and Canvasser for a while, but I don't see any counterpart anywhere combining the Queen and Camel. Charles Gilman suggests calling it the Acme, but I prefer keeping with the Arabian/desert theme, so I propose Sultana (QC).

It's not often I find such a perfectly suitable icon on Board Painter for a piece, but the "crowned Camel" clearly has some background. I just happen to think that Sultana makes a bit more sense as a name than Crowned Camel or Acme.

The real challenge of this design was making it visually distinctive and recognizable from the back, so the player can easily tell what it is without turning it around. The "crown" has a curved crease along the back that hopefully will do the trick. And of course the gem does the same for the front.

32. Helepolis. This piece is named for a very large ancient Greek siege tower. It moves like a Rook, but when moving laterally (left or right) it mows down anything in its path -- and why not? Those things were 130 feet tall, about the size of a modern 12-story building. (I would've done the same thing for forward and backward moves, but that would've been too overwhelmingly powerful.)

On its initial move, the Helepolis can jump over the first piece in its path, but cannot capture if it does. (Rsb(caf)RifpafmR)

This is actually meant for a larger board than the 8x8 used in this illustration; it's featured in, and was originally created for, Vanguard Chess, where it's undergone more changes than Jimmy Olson (as of this writing, I haven't even edited in the change to the above move yet, but this is what it'll be going forward whenever I use it).

33. Owl. and 34. Pussycat. These are a couple of pieces I devised on a whim while developing fifth-perimeter leapers, and I rather fell in love with them.

The Owl moves one square orthogonally, or leaps to one of the next four spaces from there diagonally; it becomes a combination of Wazir, Knight, Zebra, Antelope, and (what I call) Klipspringer (4,5): WNZNYZY.

I don't know why it struck me that this combination should be called an Owl. Somehow I just looked at the move diagram, and imagined an owl flying along those lines.

And then I thought about what would go the other way, rotated 45 degrees, and the only thing I could think of was Pussycat (from the old Edward Lear poem The Owl and the Pussy-Cat). This combines the Ferz, Knight, Camel, Giraffe, and Ibis: FNCFXNX.

As with any other fifth-perimeter piece, I generally recommend these only for variants on boards of at least 12x12 (despite my plans for using the Owl in an upcoming 10x10 variant).

They're not perfect (the Owl's neck and the Pussycat's face could use some tweaking, and I'm still debating whether I should put wings down the sides of the Owl), but I'm overall fairly pleased with how these came out.

You fell in love!

Yes; while the Bodyguard is my favorite fairy piece from elsewhere, these are two of my favorites of my own creation. They're right behind the Midnighter for my favorites from the fifth-circle leapers.

Now these two have me wondering if there's anything anywhere that's WNZ and FNC.

35. Okapi. I've seen the Gnu, Bison, and Buffalo used in variants here and there, but as far as I can tell the Okapi has yet to appear in an actual game.

Though it's a relative of the giraffe, the okapi is distinctive for the white stripes on its legs and hind quarters, while the rest of its body (other than a white face) is solid brown. Because of this partial striping, creators of fairy chess problems used it for the piece that combines the Knight and Zebra (NZ).

I think some authors may have "re-invented" the piece under other names, but I find the name Okapi fun to say, and it invites a plethora of puns.

(Admittedly, I may need to rework the head -- but the stripes are just right.)

36. Butler. The Butler moves to any adjacent space, or can capture with a Knight's move (KcN).

It's not greatly innovative in terms of its move; but if you ever want a Butler in your game (without just using a Mann), now you can have one.

37. Jackalope.  The (2,4) leaper is alternately called the Lancer, the Stag, or the Hare, and it's the last one (its original name in German was Hase, which means "hare") that this piece exploits. Combine a hare with an antelope (1,4) and what do you get? A Jackalope, naturally! (DYNY)

Both the Hare and the Antelope have appeared in fairy chess problems, but not in any actual games that I'm aware of. The Jackalope may suffer the same fate... though I may yet drop it into a variant (there's a "random pieces" game I have brewing).

38. Cloud Eagle. This is a historical piece, coming from larger variants of Shogi (despite its Native-American sounding name), that I don't think gets enough attention. It moves forward or backwards like a Rook, up to three spaces forward diagonally, or one space in any other direction (fbRfBK).

I'm not typically a fan of pieces with asymmetrical moves, but this is one exception. It's clearly an offensive piece, and a potentially effective one, but one that could get into trouble if its main retreat is cut off.

39. Dayrider. Adrian King created many interesting pieces for his games, most famously Scirocco, but this one is from Jupiter (the game, not the planet; at least, this is the earliest reference I can find for it). He created it as a counterpart to the Nightrider, and I think he did better than I would have.

The Dayrider's main movement is that of an Alibabarider -- that is, it moves orthogonally or diagonally like a Queen, but can only stop on every other square. To keep it from being colorbound (not to mention bound to every other row and every other column), the Dayrider can also move without capturing to any adjacent space (AADDmK).

The evolution of the piece design was a fun one. I started with the Alibaba, without thinking it would go much further; I just took the turret from the top of the Dabbaba and put it on the Alfil (which is basically an Elephant), much like the icon I've generally seen for the piece (one that I happen to find very cool). Then, for the Alibabarider, I added "rider's wings" to the back. Learning of the Dayrider, I evolved the piece one more step, putting a King's crown over the turret. (I'm open to suggestions for something else besides the King's crown, but this will work in the absence of other ideas.)

It also has me wondering what else I can add, for an even more complex piece. Giraffe's horns, perhaps? I also have bits I can add for the Displacer (switching places) and Immobilizing powers. What else is there? [Sounds of evil cackling]

The way you draw your diagrams is not logical in my opinion. Fortunately we have the Betza's notation to figure out what you are saying.

It's hard with some of the limitations on Chess Board Painter; this one was a particular challenge, and (as you say) depends more on the Betza than the diagram.

This, I think, is probably at least a little better:

You use a bended arrow to mean a leap for the first leap (A or D) but then you use a plain circle to mean the subsequent leaps. I would have put bended arrows everywhere. In between you use white straight arrows that are more often used to mark slide moves. In the Musketeer Tool you have the possibility to use narrow black curved arrows that are more explicit in my opinion.

I don't agree with all of that: to me the bended arrow implies a direct (unblockable) distant leap to the marked square, while the circles indicate moves that can be blocked, or steps to adjacent squares. There obviously is some ambiguity here in the case where a move can be blocked on some of the squares along a straight-line path, but not on all. This is a comparatively rare case, so that dedicating a third (rarely used) symbol to it would run the risk that people would not know what it means. So I think the least of all evils is the way Bob did it: use the arrow to indicate the first step can jump over anything between origin and destination, and circles to indicate more distant moves can be blocked. This is how the move diagrams provided by the Interactive Diagram would treat riders as well. It should be intuitively clear that the individual later leaps are similar to the first leap; riders that alternate the jumping properties of their leaps would be very rare indeed. (I never encountered any, but one can of course always design something just for the purpose of breaking existing methods of representation.)

I do agree that the arrows should be reserved for indicating slider moves (i.e. repeating King steps), and that these are redundant as well as confusing in this case. Personally I don't like the arrows much even in that case, and think marking the entire trajectory with circles would be clearer. But one could argue that they are needed to indicate infinite range for moves that run into the board edge of the move diagram. If additional symbols are to be super-imposed to indicate divergent slides, I would recommend to place them only in the square that contains the arrow head (e.g. a red cross if the slide is capture-only). Basically the arrow represents a move to where the arrow head is, blockable on any other square it passes through, with the understanding that this is just one of a sequence of possibilities, and that any other length of the arrow also gives a valid move.

I use the straight white arrows to indicate any sort of infinite-range move, whether slide or ride. (To be fair, though, I should've extended the ones on the left and bottom of the second diagram to the edge of the board.)

In the case of the Dayrider, the situation is complicated somewhat by the non-capturing King moves. But at least there is the Betza; and I always use a text description to describe possible moves, leaving the diagram for visualization. Sometimes the diagram is clear enough on its own, and sometimes it's a hot mess (this is simplicity itself compared to the Thunder from a couple of weeks back -- and that one isn't even the worst!).

The use of the plain dots for subsequent stops on a rider move is based on H.G.'s advice, by the way.

40. Bongo. & 41. Serval. This weekend's matched pair is one I made for my variant Short Sliders (and the Leapers Who Love Them), and they definitely fall into the latter category; they're both mid- to long-range leapers.

A bongo in this case isn't referring to a drum; it's a striped antelope that lives in the forests of sub-Saharan Africa. This seemed appropriate for a piece that combines the moves of the Zebra (2,3) and the Antelope (3,4); the piece can also leap two or three spaces diagonally (AGZNY).

A serval is a long-eared cat, also living in sub-Saharan Africa, that's notable for having the longest leap of any species of cat relative to its body length. It combines the leaps of the Camel (1,3) and Giraffe (1,4), and can also leap two or three spaces orthogonally (DCHFX).

(I have a harder time working out spots for something like the Serval -- the one detail this piece should have, but lacks -- than I do stripes for the Bongo. I'm also not satisfied with my cats' snouts, in general. I think I nailed the ears, though.)

The originating piece for all this was the Leon, or Spanish Lion (CH). I wanted something to go with it rotationally, so I invented the Jackal (GZ) (merge those two and you get a Cheetah). But since Short Sliders is a promotion-rich game, I wanted something that those two could promote into, and these are what I came up with.

Well, it is a bit discussing the sex of the angels. When the moves are so complex every representation could be argued. The cercle does not suggest a square that can be reached by leaping for me.

The cercle does not suggest a square that can be reached by leaping for me.

I can understand that; I initially used leap arrows for all leaps. But this is why I use the arrow lines for riders; to indicate that these are blockable subsequent rider leaps, not lame rider destinations.

The real trouble is, there seems to be no real standard for these things. There are customs and generally-understood things, but nothing like what Ralph Betza did for the text notation. I'd do it myself if I thought I was up to it (I'm pretty sure it'd involve creating my own chess board painter).

I’ve also invented a Jackal but named it Tiger (Ť)

I’ve also invented a Jackal but named it Tiger (Ť)

I will make a note of that!

Addendum: There are, of course, multiple creations called the Tiger; the one I lean toward (such as in Hundred Acre Chess) is the one in Daniel Zacharias' Tiger Chess, though Greg Strong's Cataclysm gave me what I'm calling the "Little Tiger" in Short Sliders.

42. Piglet Pawn. The Piglet Pawn moves, with or without capture, one space diagonally forward; or may move without capture diagonally or directly backward (it's timid, but not as bad as the Chicken Pawn from earlier). For an opening move, it may leap forward diagonally two spaces (fFmbFmbWifA)

This is the first time I've named a piece after a specific character: Piglet, from A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books. It is, in fact, intended for Hundred Acre Chess, a variant inspired by those stories (I'd provide a link, but it's still currently under construction), and is the only piece in that game specifically built for it. (All the others either existed already, or were designed around some other feature.)