💡📝Jeremy Good wrote on Fri, Oct 16, 2009 12:20 AM UTC:
Thanks for taking time to look over my variant, Sam, and of course I appreciate your feedback too. Certainly you propose valid variants in their own. Your idea about a checked piece not being allowed to transform is especially worthy of experimentation! ;)
You also indicate one serious lacuna in the rules which I shall now attempt to remedy. An extra rule had been in there before but then I thought erroneously I'd already eliminated the loophole. You helped me realize there is too much ambiguity without it. What I should have preserved was the rule that you must have either a queen, mamra, king or wuss at all times or you've lost. So I shall now point out the another way a win can be effectuated by stating the same thing differently in the rules.
I will quibble with you just a bit from the Department of 'Many Ways to Skin a Cat'. Games with supernumerary royal pieces address the issue of checkmate successfully in different ways, each one having its own flavor. Some allow you to capture one before checkmating the other; some are not so merciful. Here I have potentially more than four royal pieces (if pawns promotes to a queen or mamra, there can be more) and to deal with that curious situation, I steal some flavorful ideas from Dan Troyka's Wuss and from Abdul Rahman-Sibahi's Kings. In Mamra Chess with Wuss there are two royal pieces and four ways to win (perhaps you might say five if you include checking simultaneously king and wuss). It is not necessary to checkmate both kings in Mamra Chess with Wuss (likewise here). It's only necessary to checkmate one and usually that one is the Wuss because the Wuss, even though it can move like a queen, is generally easier to checkmate.
The Wuss is so relatively easy to checkmate in fact that I thought the game itself would have more punch and vibrancy if I allowed it to transform instead of always remaining a Wuss. Enter the Werewolf. That is also in keeping with the theme of this game which welds the most powerful pieces to the most weakening pieces (queen to king). The Mamra, more powerful than the Queen, is hybrided to the Wuss, which is more weakening than the King.
Thanks for taking time to look over my variant, Sam, and of course I appreciate your feedback too. Certainly you propose valid variants in their own. Your idea about a checked piece not being allowed to transform is especially worthy of experimentation! ;)
You also indicate one serious lacuna in the rules which I shall now attempt to remedy. An extra rule had been in there before but then I thought erroneously I'd already eliminated the loophole. You helped me realize there is too much ambiguity without it. What I should have preserved was the rule that you must have either a queen, mamra, king or wuss at all times or you've lost. So I shall now point out the another way a win can be effectuated by stating the same thing differently in the rules.
I will quibble with you just a bit from the Department of 'Many Ways to Skin a Cat'. Games with supernumerary royal pieces address the issue of checkmate successfully in different ways, each one having its own flavor. Some allow you to capture one before checkmating the other; some are not so merciful. Here I have potentially more than four royal pieces (if pawns promotes to a queen or mamra, there can be more) and to deal with that curious situation, I steal some flavorful ideas from Dan Troyka's Wuss and from Abdul Rahman-Sibahi's Kings. In Mamra Chess with Wuss there are two royal pieces and four ways to win (perhaps you might say five if you include checking simultaneously king and wuss). It is not necessary to checkmate both kings in Mamra Chess with Wuss (likewise here). It's only necessary to checkmate one and usually that one is the Wuss because the Wuss, even though it can move like a queen, is generally easier to checkmate.
The Wuss is so relatively easy to checkmate in fact that I thought the game itself would have more punch and vibrancy if I allowed it to transform instead of always remaining a Wuss. Enter the Werewolf. That is also in keeping with the theme of this game which welds the most powerful pieces to the most weakening pieces (queen to king). The Mamra, more powerful than the Queen, is hybrided to the Wuss, which is more weakening than the King.