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<p>I have created a new free and <b>open-source</b> program for playing Chess variants. At present, it plays about ten variants, and supports opening book for variants, pawn structure evaluation, and other features of 'regular' Chess programs.</p>
<p>To find out about ChessV, please see:<br>
<a href='http://gregstrong.com/ChessV/index.html'>http://gregstrong.com/ChessV/index.html</a></p>
<p>I would be very interested in any feedback, including bugs and requests for new features/variants!</p>
<p>Thanks,<br>
Greg Strong</p>
I have posted a link at: http://www.chessvariants.com/link2.dir/chessv.html
Thanks for the list of variants, that is what I was looking for. Some of these are quite easy; Berolina, Kinglet, and Extinction should be a breeze. I was already planning on doing Extinction Chess next. I am also eager to do Cylindrical Chess, because it'll be fairly easy, and will be a proof-of-concept for supporting unusual boards. As for the others: Chessgi, like Shogi, it problematic for computers because of the drop rule. In Chess there are about 30-35 legal moves from most positions. In Chessgi, if you have several pieces in hand, there could be a hundred legal moves. This branching factor provents the computer from seeing very deeply. Professional Shogi programs do some very clever stuff; hopefully some professional Shogi programmers will join the team :) I have absolutely no idea about Refusal. Fascinating game, but it is not at all clear to me (at least at the moment) how it could be programmed. Even Zillions can't do this one. Rettah doesn't look too hard, but I couldn't find the 100-square version you mentioned. SuperChess and Centennial Chess have pieces that face in a specific direction, and can be rotated. Support for that shouldn't be toooo hard to add, and I'm sure lots of Chess variants have pieces with facing. Doublemove and Progressive: Hmmm... to be honest, I have no idea. This could be really, really simple, or really hard. There are only a couple of places in the code where the 'current player' is flipped, and it wouldn't be hard to change that. Problem is that I really can't fathom what all the implications of that would be. This will require some experimentation and careful testing, so it's not real high on the list. ABC Chess: at a quick glance, this doesn't look bad. Similar to Chess with Different Armies. It is going to require some time to get more variants in, to say nothing of all the general 'bells-and-whistles' kind of things ChessV needs. Fortunately, I am unemployed, and working on ChessV full-time. And hopefully other C++ programmers will help out. I hope to release a new version in about a week with more features.
Greg,
<p>
I would like to congratulate you for making this program available. I currently am unable to download it on Sourceforge (for some reason, the files have not made it to Sourceforge's mirrors); if Sourceforge continues to be a problem, you may be interested in getting it hosted at <A href=http://savannah.gnu.org/>GNU Savannah</A>
<p>
This program is something I've been waiting for for a long time; I'm glad to see there is finally an open-source program that can play chess variants; it's annoying struggling to get Zillions to work under WINE in Linux, and Zillions' weakness with chess openings even annoys a patzer like myself.
<p>
- Sam
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