Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

As a bonus, since today is World Okapi Day, I give you Okapi Chess!

(I might make an actual page for this once I'm able. Unless, of course, someone's already done something like this; then this is just an okapi copy.)

94. Chef. This is an alternate Royal piece that I came up with more or less by accident. There are many pieces named for food -- not just the Mushroom, Sausage, Pepperoni, and Meatballs of the Pizza Kings, the Rutabaga and Rhubarb from the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity, or certain Betza inventions such as the Pancake. I've had this thought (which I'll act on as soon as I'm able) of a game where all the pieces are food, and so what better to have for the King than a Chef?

Since a chef moves along a counter all day, I figured the piece be adept at moving sideways, but not so much forwards and backwards. I therefore replaced the direct forward and backward moves with an additional space sideways. It still can move forward or backwards diagonally. (FsW2)

The Chef might also be usable as a non-Royal piece, particularly in a low-powered Shogi-style game.

Well, maybe not if it looks like that. But you get the idea.

95. Yagn. Like the Yaf (#73), the Yagn is based on a letter of the Tifinagh, one that makes a sound like the ñ in Spanish, and it takes both its movement and its figure from the letter. In this case, the Yagn can slide forward or backwards orthogonally like a Rook, but can also make a right-angle turn after two spaces to move sideways. (vRvafyasW)

(I thought about making the turn after only one step, but somehow that didn't seem to represent the letter quite right.)

A few other Tifinagh letters can also make for existing pieces: the Berber Academy yadj (ⴵ) as the Bishop's Dog (B3), Tuareg yax (ⵆ) as the Ferz, yan (ⵏ) as the Reverse Chariot (vR), yar (ⵔ) as the Templar (ND), yat (ⵜ) as the Vertical Mover (vRsW), and yat [fricative] (ⵝ) as the Bishop. Original pieces from various other letters are also possible; I already have yaa (ⵄ) and yagh (ⵖ), which I may feature in the future, and I can imagine pieces based on yey (ⴻ), Tuareg yah (ⵂ), yal (ⵍ), and yu (ⵓ); and I'm trying to figure out what can be done with the curved lines of the Ahaggar yaj (ⵋ) and yaz (ⵣ). All together, it can make for Tifinagh Soup!

96. Butcher. and 97. Baker. This weekend's pair came about as I was simply considering what two-leap combinations hadn't been done yet (that I'm aware of). I don't know why these particular names came to my mind for them, but here they are.

The Butcher combines the moves of the Camel and Dabbabah. (DC)

Perhaps I was thinking of the people over in the city of Washington... though this was before the current leadership crisis. Anyway, the physical piece was a simple matter.

The Baker (as you've probably already guessed) is the Butcher's rotary companion, and combines the moves of the Alfil and Zebra (AZ).

For the physical design, all I could think of was trying to simulate an open flame.

I'm not sure I succeeded (especially since a lower ring refused to render), but it's definitely visually distinctive.

98. Candlestick Maker. It probably stands to reason that where there's a Butcher and a Baker, there's bound to be a Candlestick Maker (or Chandler). This one is simply a compound of the other two. (ACDZ)

I could also, based on the move diagram, see a Four-Leaf Clover as an alternate name (and piece design, though I don't have one right now because that only just now occurred to me).

In my own opinion, this is one of my best designs. Then again, it's all simple geometry.

99. Nao (Chinese Nightrider). What the Pao (Cannon) does orthogonally and the Vao does diagonally, the Nao does along a Nightrider's lines: it moves normally when not capturing, but must leap over a piece to capture. (mNNcpNN)

We don't see this one much these days, which I think is too bad; it seems to me like a rather interesting piece, especially on larger boards.

It is very hard to develop a good game using this piece. The nightrider is already too much a troublesome piece. It can jump over pawn chains (unless you have two of them) an cut through the back pieces which many times are defenseless. The NAO only makes that worse as far as I can see!

That's worth a consideration; I've been thinking about doing another 16x16 game, this time with the row behind the Pawns filled with Spears (and similar pieces); if the back row (out of four) has the Nao and other "problem pieces" (like my own creation, the Sniper), it could make for an interesting game.

Can you make a Torch or Astra as 101st piece? (100th is maybe already planned).

Or one piece I've currently doing (if I will drive this to the pretty-ready stage begore your 101st).

Probably not for 101st, for the short notice, but you never know.

I can't quite wrap my head around the Astra, but the Torch is basically a Skip Queen, so it shouldn't be too hard to diagram, and the piece not much harder.

And yes, I've had tomorrow's #100 figured for a couple of weeks now.

100. Fairy. I'm abit amazed that, in over a century since the term "fairy chess" was coined, nobody (as far as I can determine) has invented a piece that's actually called a Fairy before now.

The Fairy, as I propose it, is a sort of "Relay Friend." Like the Friend, it has no moves of its own (though some may prefer to give it a King's move), but gets its moves from friendly pieces that guard it. It can further relay those moves to any friendly piece that it could reach using those moves.

For example, in the illustration below, the White Fairy is guarded by the Knight and the Bishop, and so borrows their moves. It could move using either of those abilities, but it can also use the Bishop's move to relay the Knight's move to the Rook, allowing the Rook to capture the Black Queen.

The Betza for this is still under development, but I'm pretty sure it'll involve the M atom and the x modifier.

This piece (Nr. 87 "King Cheetah") is featured as Pegasus in Beastmaster Chess by Glenn Overby II (2002)

So it is, Jörg, and I hadn't noticed -- the King Cheetah/Pronghorn does share that move. That's worth noting, though for the Pegasus I really prefer the Tiger Chess version ([N?fR]).

The KC piece is named General in Paulovits' game from 1890.

EDIT: Corrected spelling of Paulovits

That one I was aware of, and in fact I've mentioned it a few times here and there. While Ciccolini's General (BDD) is more widely known, I'm reluctant to ignore Paulovitz's version, so for my own part I'm calling it Janaaral (the English loanword of "general" to Arabic), and I'm using the name General as the basis for all other K+leaper compounds as I go along (Jikilele, Mkuu, etc.).

101. West Wind. This is another interesting piece from Adran King's fertile mind. Its move is actually much simpler than one might thing: it slides right like a Rook or Bishop; directly forward or backward up to three spaces; or leaps like a Knight's leftmost moves. (rRrBvW3lN)

For the physical piece, I opted for looks somewhat like a room fan or wind funnel I once saw when my age had just one digit, set to be pointed to the player's right (the large end is where the air came out of that funnel). The arrow keeps the piece pointed in the right direction.

@Lev: Sorry I couldn't get your Torch piece up here today. I'll try to have it Monday.

102. East Wind. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that, if yesterday's piece was the West Wind, today's would be the East Wind. In Adrian King's original take, the East Wind's moves to the right are a single orthogonal step or a (1,3) leap, but I prefer symmetry, so I use the mirror of the West Wind. (lRlBvW3rN)

These are pieces that I could see on a large-board game (especially 16x16), set a couple of spaces in from their respective sides. The asymmetry of their individual moves give a shogi-like quality (which I'm pretty sure was Mr. King's intent), while mutual symmetry gives them some strength among some of the more powerful variant chess pieces.

And of course the physical piece design is also a mirror image of the West.

The North Wind would be an aggressive attacker with a good deal of forward forking power but relatively poor in retreating, while the South Wind is a rather nice defender but hasn't got much attack potential. Bob, do you feel like designing Four Winds Chess?

I've thought about it, though you have the North Wind and South Wind backward (the direction is where the wind comes from, not where it's going).

That said, I still have a lot of stuff to do here before I can add more games to my roster.

You're right of course, Bob. Should be interesting pieces, though. Perhaps a game where the winds are extinction royalty? I expect it will use a large board. I may try my hand at it myself in a a day or two.

I've already gotten a few ideas. I have visions of a 15x15 board, four rows of pieces per side, with the East Wind at c3, the West Wind at m3, the North Wind at i3, and the South Wind at i2 (with rotational symmetry, of course). A week and a half ago ago I also featured the Blue Gecko and Purple Finch (#89-90), and I'd definitely have those at the ends of the third row. The rest of the third row would include Arabian Spears, Berolina Spears, Vivi, Major and Minor Annoyances, and maybe Archers. A variety of Pawns in front (Standard, Berolina, Mongolian, Scorpion, maybe even Knight or Moose); second row full of good mid-range pieces (of course including Bodyguards and Okapis); and powerful sliders (like the also-recent Exorcist and Tax Collector, and the Midnighter from early on) helping out the back.

Actually, what I was initially thinking of didn't have the North and South Winds, and was on a 16x16 board, and would probably have some deliberately bizarre, esoteric name.

103. Minor Annoyance. and 104. Major Annoyance. Speaking of these two inventions of Ralph Betza, I thought they'd be interesting as this weekend's pair. He discusses them, more or less in passing, in his article on Bent Riders, As far as I know they've never appeared in any actual chess variant... yet.

The Minor Annoyance steps one space sideways, then proceeds outward and forward like a narrow Nightrider. (sWsyyyafsW)

(The diagram only shows forward movement because of an earlier misunderstanding on my part. The same reason applies to the rest of the images here.)

The Major Annoyance has the exact same move; plus it can move one step backward, allowing the piece to reach every row rather than just every other one. (sbWsyyyafsW)

With or without the backward move, I think either (or both) of these pieces would be handy in a row of Spears -- not as the Spears, but supplementing them.

As for the physical pieces, the only difference between the two is the little Wazir's hat on the Major Annoyance, the extreme similarity only increasing how annoying they can be to both players.

105. Torch. By request, here's the Torch from Lev Grigoriev's game Orthodia. It slides like a Queen, but can only move an odd number of spaces -- basically, a Slip Queen.

But given its setting, it does deserve a figure of its own.