Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

53. Terror. You already know about this one; it's an alternate name for the Amazon (QN), so I don't think a move diagram is needed here. But while I could find plenty of versions of the Amazon, I couldn't find a model specifically for the name Terror.

This is what I was able to come up with.

I've been going through some of my early designs and removing bits that were originally taken as remixes of others' work, replacing it with my own. This is one that I'll not be doing that with. I'm sure others can do something better, but this nails what I was going after.

I do have plans for using this (along with yesterday's Zombie Pawn, the Ghost from some time ago, and several others) in a special Halloween CV, once I come up with a decent name (Monster Chess having been taken).

54. Exorcist. and 55. Tax Collector. This weekend's pair represent my experiment with doubly-bent sliders. I'm not sure about the Betza here, as I'm still very much in the learning phase for the more complex moves; hopefully H.G. will correct my mistakes (or tell me I somehow got it right!).

The Exorcist moves one space diagonally, then may continue one space away orthogonally, and may proceed from there sliding diagonally in the original direction. (FafsFafsyafF) [F?fsW?fzB]

The Tax Collector (as you've probably guessed) starts by moving one space orthogonally, then may continue one space diagonally away, and may proceed from there sliding orthogonally in the original direction. (WafsWafsyafW) [W?fsF?fzR]

Of course there's not much difference between these and the Gryffon/Rhinoceros pair; this pair merely rotates the first squares of the moves. Even so, I can imagine someone coming up with a way to make "super" versions of these that can turn either way for the long slide, giving possible four lanes of diagonal or orthogonal movement in each direction instead of just two. And either could be combined with a Bishop, Rook, Camel, Alibaba, etc. And what would one call a Gryffon/Exorcist or a Rhinoceros/Tax Collector? Or even a merging of these two pieces?

I'm also thinking about pieces that move two or three spaces before a single or double bend.

The piece designs here are, I admit, quite cheesy, and I'm not sure the box on the Tax Collector properly "reads" as a briefcase. Still, they're pretty easy to recognize at a glance for what they are.

By writing f for the third leg, you fail to make it bend there, so that what you wrote are in fact just needlessly complex notations for Griffon and Manticore. To make a 45-degree deflection you need fs, but since you don't want the trajectory to branch there, you must specify in which sideway direction you want to bend. This is l for some trajectories, and r for others, but always opposit to the way you bended after the previous leg. So that you can use z to describe all trajectorise, rather than having to split in a left-then-right and right-then-left group. So WafsWafsyafzW. The bracket notation [W?fsF?fzR] also works for this, alleviating you from the necessity to specify the first two steps separately by use of the 'optional continuation' symbol ?.

In a future version it could even be simplified to [W?F?fzR], but currently the fs in the second leg is still necessary to indicate it must be an F step. (When expanding the bracket notation the later atoms are currently ignored apart from their leaping/sliding aspect, and the direction is purely derived from the directional prefixes.)

Thanks for the assist! I edited both for the bracket notation, according to your info. (But shouldn't it be [W?fsF?fzR]? Like I said, still learning....)

Yes, you are correct, but too quick: I was still editing the comment! As it now explains currently it doesn't matter whether you write W or F there (or even N), since fs after W implies a diagonal step, and the actual leap indicator is completely ignored.

Ah, I gotcha, Professor. ;)

I feel certain that I've seen a Mann/Camel (KC) compound recently, but I can't recall where.

I'm thinking to see what I can do in collecting QBRM groups (Queens, Bishops, Rooks, and Manns) as they're compounded with various leapers. (I'm pretty sure there aren't any beyond the Camel, Aurelian's Sangoma and materials in Charles Gilman's articles notwithstanding.)

The discussion on some of the Piececlopedia pages about AI design led me to do a bit of experimentation, and two different AI art systems gave me remarkably similar results for a Tax Collector piece. So, I emulated the ideas there to come up with a look for the piece that I think is quite better.

It's somewhat more abstract, and it's less obvious about what it is without being told, but it's pretty recognizable and distinctive from other pieces, and less awkward in many other ways, so I like it better.

56. NARF. This is another name-describes-the-move piece, I was just walking around the other day, trying to come up with words that would fit this in some way, and this word popped into my head. I tried it out and, somewhat to my surprise, it makes for a fairly elegant-looking diagram. (NARF)

I'd give it a counterpart, but somehow BWND doesn't quite work the same way (unless you're Welsh). I may yet relent, though, if I can come up with a decent visual.

Still, this piece is ready to stand tall next to any rodentine Royal piece on a mission to take over the world.

(And hopefully it won't generate any heat from a certain media company.)

The counterpart BWND is obviously a highly-Br[w]ain'ed rodent.

That's so tortured a stretch, I'll help those unfamiliar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_and_the_Brain

:)

A question for piece hunters here. Does anyone have ever seen a WAN and a FDN played in any chess variant? Although being rather "simple", I can't remember having seen them somewhere. If they exist, what is their names? Thanks

Scheherazade has a WAN piece called a Jumper, but I'm not finding anything with FDN. Scheherazade's FNDD is called a Flyer, so based on that I'd suggest that FDN could be a Glider.

Thanks Bob. I didn't know about that Jumper in Scheherazade. Something is strange, I see no mention of the Jumper in the text of the rules, only in the ID made by H.G. Are we sure that this piece, the Jumper, was invented and named by the author, Robert Shimin, in 1999? Or is it a later addition, by whom?

If the name is only used in the Interactive Diagram, and doesn't appear in the text, you can safely assume that I just made it up for the purpose. Usually in a way that was convenient for the Diagram. (E.g. starting with a letter that was not used by any of the other pieces yet, so that it could have an obvious 1-letter piece ID in the move notation.)

If the name is only used in the Interactive Diagram, and doesn't appear in the text, you can safely assume that I just made it up for the purpose.

In this case, I'd call it a joint invention.

If it were me, I'd go with Panda (FDN) and Sable (WAN).

57. Vivi. This piece was created by Ralph Betza, though as far as I can tell it's never appeared anywhere other than his Bent Riders article. I think that's too bad; I think it'd be very welcome along with Spears (expained below).

The Vivi gets its name from the appearance of its move diagram: it moves one space forward or backward; and then, from either space, moves diagonally forward like a Bishop.([fW?fB][bW?bB])

Spears are pieces with sliding forward moves but little or no backward move -- basically, "Pawnriders," with almost as many possible variations. Because of the latter, they're typically as eligible for promotions as Pawns, at least in my mind. I like sometimes to put Spears in a row right behind Pawns in a game with four or more rows of pieces.

As you can imagine, this was one of the easier and simpler piece designs.

Panda is reasonably well‐established already as a term for the slip‐rook, i.e. the piece which can stop on odd‐numbered squares on the rook's path (t[WDD])

I really do like this one, both the piece and its design. The name is also great, an uncommon occasion when it is something that couldn't be made better.

@Bn Em: Ah, well. I'd rather just call it Slip-Rook, but that's just me; I was just speaking off the top of my head anyway.

What''s the diagonal counterpart (Slip-Bishop)?

@Max: Thanks! (The design was kind of a no-brainer, though.)

I've done enough Pieces of the Day that I've made myself a document here (at home, on my computer) listing them all. I had to fix a couple of numbers here -- plus, I found a couple of pieces that I should've shared somewhat earlier, so I'll get to those over the next couple of days.

Remember: these aren't just pieces invented by me, but also obscure historical pieces, and of course cool pieces invented by other contributors on this site. The latter two are ideas that I think deserve more recognition and application (even if a lot of my own are more thought exercise than practical piece, the recent Root-N25 Leaper being a deliberate case in point).

Next week, I plan to pick out my second-worst group of physical designs (because the first-worst group is too awful to even upload) and see who might have suggestions for them to improve.

The slip bishop doesn't seem to have an established name — its move seems to be less suggestive than the slip rook's colourswitching. Gilman dubs it ‘Bear’, Bear Chess notwithstanding.

Incidentally, apparently the original Seeping Switchers proposal refers to these as wazir‐ and ferzriders (and their compound, that army's queen, as manrider). Looks like Gilman wasn't the first to try to reappropriate these otherwise redundant terms

I think that's about as good of an answer as you're likely to get, Jean-Louis. Name them what you want.

(I still like the idea of using the names of animals indigenous to China. Maybe Australia -- Koala and Dingo?)

Thank you Bob. I don't need to name them as long as I don't use them. In my most recent book, I was just mentionning those two pieces saying with a smile that they are offered to authors who will want to use them.