Single Comment

7.7 out of 10. Very complicated and cross-references as 'Fiction'. Nice diagram 'Board and Initial Deployment'. Produced in 2005 the year after Gridlock, we take Dragon here mostly as satire. One giveaway is the number of pieces having ''no power of movement or capture.'' No one outside Gridlock's or Dragon's coterie are likely to play either. With respect for readers' time, Glenn Nicholls has cut Rules-Set articles to the two, TigerChess and Dragon. Anyone interested can easily enough master them, unlike the work of several dozen 'prolificists'. By and large, it is prolificists' bodies of work that remain out of reach by very burden of their being 15 and more separate, undistinguished Rules Sets. As examples: we are still working through potential fourth 'Joyce' CVs to Comment, no small task to do adequately with citations that author always omits. Likewise, we have not yet re-familiarized with the other 25 'Aronsons' (after evaluating Rococo, AntiKing, Horus and Illusionary). Some prolificists have even more than their 'only' 20 or 30 CVs. Staying true-to-form in style and structure, as Gilman remarks, proves nothing but hobgoblin 'consistency'. In general, one interesting, ironic effort like the present Dragon is better than yet another earnest, formulaic new-combination Rules Set. To anyone not self-absorbed in own CVs' sheer numbers, the game Dragon conveys its sense of self-parody, and even spoof, very readily -- without of course trying to comprehend all the embedded Rules and notwithstanding Nicolls' own combative denial of any such intrinsic ambiguity. The remote coherence of Dragon's Rules, obviously intentional, is diverting for a change.