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Shanghai Palace Chess. A blend of Chinese, Japanese, and Western Chess. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Apr 3, 2004 09:51 PM UTC:

I don't like to rag on a game invented by someone who just praised one of
mine, but in the interests of promoting good game design, I'll speak up
anyway.

This game reminds me of Frankenstein's monster, which was just pieced
together from the body parts of various corpses. I doubt that what makes
Chess, Xiang Qi, and Shogi such good games can be retained by combining
them in this way. Each game is a carefully constructed whole. If you just
rip pieces from each game and combine them in the manner that you have, I
don't expect that the new game will retain the appeal of any of the
original games. If you want to marry the best qualities of each game
together, it would be best to find a way that is more seamless.

However, that may be difficult, or even impossible. Combining all the best
qualities of each game would be sort of like combining all the best
qualities of a beautiful blonde, a beautiful brunette, and a beautiful
redhead into one woman. While the game may be interesting to play, it
lacks the aesthetic appeal that I find in games whose elements are woven
together more seamlessly.