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Outer Space Chess. Space-themed game with hyperspace and regular space boards. (2x(5x8), Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Carlos MartÃn-F. wrote on Mon, Jun 30, 2003 04:24 PM UTC:

After having a look at your game, I'm afraid that we have very different points of view about what a chess variant game should be (still, I'm not saying this is a problem, the world would be rather boring if we all had the same opinions!). You seem to develop your game from a strictly mathematical basis. As a result, I sincerely wonder if the game is playable at all. I was disappointed at reading things such as 'The game has not yet been playtested, so most of my discussion will be coming either from rigorous analysis, or from the strategies that I tried to embed into the rules.' I think games should be developed through playtesting, rather than from abstract mathematical theories, and I firmly believe that it is not the strategies that make the rules, but vice versa (although you have the right not to agree with me). I am absolutely surprised that you even dare write a 'Strategy and Tactics' section, when 'Not actually having played this game, some of this might be wrong'. I also do not see what the 'impediment' is about 43 being a prime number, unless the only shape you can think for a board is the rectangular one. And as for the notation of the cells, I don't think there's a need to add one number to identify boards when you only have two of them: let's call cells in ordinary space from a1 to e8 and cells in hyperspace simply a, b and c. Finally, a word about simplicity. When I first tried designing Chess variants, I had the temptation of including a lot of special rules, and have lots of different pieces with complicated moves... then I learned that a game is not a recopilation of rules, and that a complex game is not necessarily a good game. Actually, when things are too complex, it is harder to keep all the rules in mind, and it results in a lack of playability. Some of my favourite Chess Variants are as simple as Mono-dimensional Chess by Luiz Carlos Campos, whose board has only ten squares. This refers to some of the rules you include, such as 'No piece may remain in hyperspace for more than five consecutive turns unless it is impossible for them to leave' (which makes you have to keep track of how many turns a piece has been in hyperspace), 'Nebulae may not move twice in a row. If a player is forced to move his Nebula in two consecutive turns, he must pass on the second'... all this seems as if every time you find a flaw in your game, you fix a new rule to 'mend' the error somehow (an example of this would be tha last rule I mention, probably invented after suddenly finding that the Nebula was too mobile). I don't think this is an appropriate way of writing rules for a game. (I hope I'm not offending anyone, since it is far from being my intention!)