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Canyon Chess. Small variant with Marshalls and Archbishops and some new rules. (8x8, Cells: 44) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]It should be standard practice to ask people who submit games to include diagrams. With Game Courier available, it doesn't even take any special software to make a diagram. You don't need Zillions of Games and a graphics program that you can cut a screen shot out of. With nothing but a browser that can display images, anyone can use Game Courier to make a PNG or JPG diagram that can be saved to one's own harddrive, then included with one's submission.
Is Canyon Chess an entry in the 44-squares contest?
I've added a graphic for this game (something that we editors do when we have time).
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As for the status of this game -- as I understand it, this game was actually submitted in time, but languished unnoticed in our inbox until Tony spotted it and posted it here.
I have posted a basic Game Courier preset, without rules enforcement.
Why is there a gap between each rank in the diagram?
Fergus, it seems to be an oddity with Mozilla and later versions of Netscape (which use the same rendering engine as far as I know). Most or all of the diagrams generated with the small graphics seem to display this behavior (I haven't checked all of them).
That ought to count as a good reason against ever using ffen2diag. I have never used it myself and never intend to. It's better to just generate and use a graphic image, which has the benefit of never varying in its appearance. At the time ffen2diag was written, it was useful to have, because there weren't readily available means for generating diagrams. But now there are. Let's stop using ffen2diag and use the better methods of diagram generation that are now available.
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That ought to count as a good reason against ever using ffen2diag.
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Well, given that we have hundreds of pages with such diagrams, it might be better to simply find a way to fix the problem. Also, ffen2diag can be used to generate very nice diagrams using only the tools that come with the computer (yes, you can generate diagrams using Game Courier and Paint, but there are sharp limits to the quality of Paint's jpg generation), as well as generating diagrams better sized for most web pages.
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Also, since this phenomenon does not occur with IE or older versions of Netscape, I suspect it might be a bug in Geko renderer used by Mozilla and later versions of Netscape.
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Does anyone out there use Opera? How do the diagrams look in that?
I'm using Opera myself, and ffen2diag never gives problems there.
Having looked at the code for ffen2diag, the problem seems to be that it generates a diagram as a series of linebreak-terminated lists of images. If it generated a diagram as a table, CELLSPACING and CELLPADDING could be set to zero, thereby allowing the diagrams to look right on Mozilla and Netscape. This would also fix the problem of wrapping ranks, which I saw one page.
Charles Gilman wrote on Thu, Jun 3, 2004 07:37 AM UTC:On the positive side: The game can be played with a standard set, using Rooks and Bishops to represent their Knight compounds. I do not agree that a lack of diagram is good grounds for a rating of poor, or that submissions should include a diagram. I have always found that listing the first rank e.g. RNCCKBBNR enables the page editor to add a diagram. On the negative side: The board is an awkward shape. The edge changes direction 36 times - even for 4-player variants on a large board 12 is the norm, and this is a 2-player variant on a small board! On balance I am inclined to rate this variant as poor, but as the first rating of poor was not well grounded (and would be redundant even if it were as a diagram has been provided) I will let that stand for mine.
Well, I am going to break the mold here. I don't think its fair to the game to let a 'poor' rating dominate. There is justification for some of the comments, such as a lot of power for a small board; an odd-shaped board; a lot of board edge changes; and the possibility of 'stereotyped' play. However, the game should be played first before relegating it to the 'poor' bin. There are some good points: the use of Knight moves mitigates against the odd-shaped board; the higher power density provide more options on a small, restricted board. In fact, the odd-shaped board provides some of the interest, as the name implies. The game will probably be very tactical and very exchange driven. I think it would be fairly enjoyable. Give it a chance!
I agree. Although it wasn't one of my favourite games, I wouldn't rush to lable it 'poor'. I think the board and the pieces placement was quite nice, my quirk with it is that there are too much power pieces located on what is a very small and limited board. I agree it is a manner of taste, I use very restricted pieces in my small board designs, but if one likes to play a game of power, kill-or-be-killed, then this variant offers a nice solution. There does seem to be a problem with the image, though.
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