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Insect Chess. On a 12x12 board. All pieces are insect and arachnid representations, with some unique pieces. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

George Duke wrote on Sat, Feb 26, 2005 06:35 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

'GHI,LargeCV': Theme-based on the largest board that works in a CV. Tarantula, which strengthens Edgar Burroughs' Chieftain, is not an insect; and neither is Black Widow. Missed opportunity to make 'Monarch', instead of Praying Mantis, the enhanced King (Butterflies are insects). [Thousands-yr.-old Monarch migration, once a billion, into Mexico's Sierra Madre was down 75% in 2005, because of 'advanced' civilization's intensive agriculture in USA and Canada.] Hornet is Gryphon; Wasp Renaissance Chess' Duke; Locust (D+A+Q). 'La Cucaracha' is never wholly eradicated. Horsefly is Shogi Dragon-king; Mosquito Dragon-horse; Maggot; Waterbug. The playable tip is to keep many pieces together to thwart Tarantula especially. Spiders and insects are 'bugs', saving its theme.

George Duke wrote on Sat, May 3, 2008 08:50 PM UTC:

Okay. Praying Mantis is another (D + A + F + W), like very recent Mastodon. In Cockroach, at last precisely a new Betza triplet. Squirrel (N, D, A) we just looked at elsewhere is the best known one, almost overused, a Betza triple compound. But here this Cockroach, being (Knight + Wazir + Ferz), is a Betza tri-compound for sure. There are only six(6) possibilites and we have now located two of them back in history -- without going to 'ECV' as yet.

George Duke wrote on Mon, Apr 20, 2009 04:21 PM UTC:

Short-range pieces easily can number millions in variety for a great time-waster. [Just vary capturing or not, one step or two or three, en passant capture, back-step or side-step or nay, leap or occasional leap, a direction or two verboten, and all foregoing as to front and back, check condition or location on the board. Or mix the last sentence around. Presto! Now start multiplying the twos and threes of each modality, for example, 2x2x3x2x3x2x2... -- most of the imagined Mutators are presenting only 2 or 3 or 4 possibilities, but there are so many of them. -> Hundreds of thousands of piece-types come out.] Insect Chess high-rated has several screwy ''new pieces'' short-range to monkey around with. Bostick's PRAYING MANTIS moves one square any direction or hops to any square two steps away. TARANTULA moves one square in any direction or hops to any square two or three steps away (powerful). HORNET moves diagonally one square and continues after a half change or direction. COCKROACH moves like King or Knight (previously employed by Betza et al.) BLACK WIDOW moves one square omni-directionally or hops further one (like later Mastodon and all precedents going back to 1890's Paulovits'.

Calvin Daniels wrote on Fri, Sep 9, 2011 03:35 AM UTC:

I was intrigued, but the piece array gets too confusing for casual play

Tim Bostick wrote on Tue, Sep 27, 2011 11:26 AM UTC:

There's a smaller variety, played with fewer pieces on a smaller board, which reduces the confusion. I just need to get on the ball and upload the update. Even the pieces now look like bugs instead of strange hybrids of standard chess pieces.

(zzo38) A. Black wrote on Tue, Sep 13, 2016 05:23 PM UTC:

If Tarantula is too much powerful then maybe to add a rule that Tarantula is not allowed to capture Cockroach

George Duke wrote on Wed, Mar 28, 2018 07:19 PM UTC:

Themed CVs were further developed by Charles Gilman starting with also biologically inspired Great Herd in 2005.

Praying Mantis is D+A+F+W, only Mastodon replay. Cockroach is N+W+F. Locust is D+A+Q, a piece-type about Amazon value. Those two Amazon and Locust would be interesting match-up in some Chess Different Armies version of Insect Chess.

Insects. Techies and game geeks in general are relatively unaware for well-educated of the ecological crisis not to say catastrophe under way: Trends.

Forces plan for next year's Chess Championship, Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, and even ten years ahead activity, speculative and problematic that they occur at all. In Tim Bostick's CV Insect, 'Monarch' would be better name and image for royal figure. Tarantula and Black Widow are arthropods but not insects, though can be thought of as "bugs" in rude vernacular.

Short-range. There could be up to a million short-range piece-types that comment claims, and a lot more CVs.

Walker wrote on Sat, Jan 30, 2021 05:09 PM UTC in reply to George Duke from Mon Apr 20 2009 04:21 PM:

Using the Musketeer Chess Board Painter tool? Well, represent bugs with chess pieces (some turned upside-down). King: Praying Mantis Inverted King: Waterbug Queen: Tarantula Inverted Queen: Locust Rook: Horsefly Inverted Rook: Wasp Knight: Black Widow Pawn: Maggot Inverted Pawn: Cockroach

Bn Em wrote on Wed, Feb 3, 2021 12:22 AM UTC:

George Duke's comments interpret two- and three‐square leaps as along radial lines. It's not clear to me, however, esp. given the talk of the tarantula being ‘easily most powerful’ and of ‘smothering’ towards the end of the page, that it's not referring to oblique leaps as well, making the Mantis and Waterbugs WFNAD's rather than WFAD's and the Tarantulas full (and indeed very powerful) 3‐square area‐leapers.

Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Feb 3, 2021 01:10 AM UTC in reply to Bn Em from 12:22 AM:

One could download the zrf he made and see how it is programmed.

Bn Em wrote on Wed, Feb 3, 2021 06:47 PM UTC:

Good point. I took a look and although I don't have Zillions, the code seems to define 24 leaps for the Waterbugs and Mantis and 48 for the Tarantula, which indeed corresponds to the area leaping rather than just radial moves.

Interestingly the header comment in the .zrf calls it Entomology Chess rather than Insect Chess. Perhaps he deemed it too obscure a word?

Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Sep 20, 2022 04:30 AM UTC:

This looks interesting, but I wonder how well it works allowing the maggots to move backwards.

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