Single Comment

I'd feel odd being the 1st to rate this game, as I'm mentioned as an
inspiration, but, from reading through it, I'd say this is another
excellent Gary Gifford game that examines the opening by giving a unique
way to set up some pieces. I'd say this do-it-yourself-setup game is more
subtle than Shatranj of Troy (another excellent game) except that he uses a
cannon to fire the pieces onto the board. Many games use drops to vary the
setup. Gary may be exposing this technique as deus ex machina. Pieces
don't just fall from the sky in Gary's games; they are maneuvered to the
spot where they land by the laws of chess as applied in the game. 
I quite enjoy our discussions about games and their nature; both of us get
ideas that turn up in games. I like that Gary says there's no connection
between chess and go*, then designs exquisite chess games that feature the
placement of pieces. Of course, he goes beyond go, which does feature
pieces falling out of the sky; so we can continue the dialogue and the
disagreements. There's more games in this conversation. Enjoy.
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*Edit: in later discussions, we clarified our positions, and I need to 
clarify them here. Gary says there are plenty of connections between chess
and go; but he does not see them as variants of each other. I have no
problem seeing them that way. Gary tends to see games as sort of quantized,
they come in discrete, different games. I can agree with that idea, but I 
find it more productive to view all games as a continuum, as variants of 
one another. I will say he has put up the first game from this discussion, 
so he's proved his ideas work. I'm still working on mine - currently 
playing mini-go by placing stones that will become either wazirs or ferzes.
Enjoy! Joe