Comments by arx

This looks fun. I like the idea of defining pieces by how many parts they can be built from. It might be interesting to have the augmenters assigned randomly, in a way that guarantees no redundancies.

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Pocket+Shogi+Copper&log=panther-cvgameroom-2021-304-264

In this pocket shogi copper game I'm trying to make the move k 8g-9h and I get an error

Syntax Error on line 376

The cond operator requires at least three arguments.

The games all say "White lost by absence of royalty!" and the board is filled with the same piece every time, which seems to always be whatever piece is labelled 's'

Is there a way to have different promotion options for different pieces, as in shogi?

I think mpsyasW is pretty clear, but perhaps not very intuitive. What if doubling a direction made it absolute instead of relative? Then the ship could be something like FyafvvF or FyavvsF. It's not clear to me how exactly combinations of directions should be interpreted.

I have, but not very much. I'll add descriptions of the pieces.

Does any of this make sense?

Yes, it does. Doesn't the withdrawer in Ultima move as a queen, so wouldn't need to detect the board edge? Detecting the edge is still very useful. The suggested uses of E and cc make sense to me.

I don't quite understand how dau and cau work now. I tried (dauf)Q, thinking that would describe a queen that could pass through friendly pieces, but if it captures after unloading the captured piece ends up at the starting square of the whole move. Is that intended?

I think if a 10x10 game ever became very popular, 12x12 wouldn't seem so huge anymore.

What would it take though, for a bigger game to replace the current chess in popularity? People would have to feel that 64 squares is too few, and be dissatisfied enough to try something else. But there would need to be an obvious game to try, or it's possible that none would ever attract enough attention to be considered the standard chess. Having multiple candidates diminishes the obviousness of all of them. Right now, perhaps, most people interested in chess variants aren't looking for a new standard, they're looking for variety. I know I am, at least.

I wonder why the 64 square chess is so popular anyway, aside from being popular for its popularity. Could it be that people tend to prefer smaller games, as long as they're not too small?

Worrying about bishops being stronger than knights seems unnecessary, since there would be new pieces anyway. Also, the time it takes for pawns to promote doesn't depend on the board size so much as on the setup and promotion rules. In Gross Chess, pawns can promote with 5 moves, and in Apothecary Chess they can promote with only 4.

I think this works for the ship, but I'm not quite sure how to do the Snake

def G fn (checkride #0 #1 0 1 and empty #0)
    where #0 1 1
    #1
    or fn (checkride #0 #1 0 1 and empty #0)
    where #0 -1 1
    #1
    or fn (checkride #0 #1 0 -1 and empty #0)
    where #0 1 -1
    #1
    or fn (checkride #0 #1 0 -1 and empty #0)
    where #0 -1 -1
    #1
    or checkleap #0 #1 1 1;

def GL mergeall
    leaps #0 1 1
    ray where #0 1 1 0 1
    ray where #0 1 -1 0 -1
    ray where #0 -1 1 0 1
    ray where #0 -1 -1 0 -1;

I'm having some problems with this game. First, I can't seem to get the piece images to show correctly. Right now it looks ok at first, but when viewing a game from black's perspective it's all wrong again.

Second, there's this error

ILLEGAL: P g4-g6 on turn 1:

There was no P on g4. The piece on g4 is a Z.

Go back with your browser's BACK button, reload the page, and try again.

For diagnostic purposes, here is the full movelist:

1. P g4-g6 
1... p g9-g7 
2. Z i1-g4 
2... a e11-i7 
3. P f4-f5 
3... a i7-d2; q-dest 
4. A h2-e5 
4... q d2-i7 
5. P c4-c6 
5... q i7-i3 // - check! -
6. E j3-i3

I have no idea what I did wrong

Having thus arbitrarily narrowed the search for what a Next Chess looks like, I thought Game Courier might reveal some really good candidates (already) for a (10x10) Next Chess. Of course, something else 10x10 might come along eventually, but people have not made this argument explicitly - instead there seems to be a slight lack of interest here, as if future generations/elite chess players will decide, not us, so why should we even try to explore the question/lay groundwork?

It is interesting to think about what might be the next step for chess; but, supposing there were one obvious choice, what would you do with it? It's interesting to try to find or design likely candidates, but to really become the "next chess" it would need to be promoted somehow. I guess the choice of board size and piece selection and other rules is limited by the need to appeal to existing chess players. Probably most, or all, of the games suggested are good enough in that way. What's really needed to replace chess isn't finding the right game, there are several of those already; it's getting enough of the right people, with the ability to promote such a game, interested enough in one such game to do so.

It would be better, I think, if people didn't think about chess as a specific game, but as a family of more or less related games. Being a good chess player wouldn't mean specializing in mastering one set of rules, but developing skills applicable to many different varieties and being able to adapt to different systems.

It seems to be fixed if you change each occurrence of "checkride" to "checkaride".

Well, I didn't mean to imply by my previous post there would be only one Next Chess - previous posts clarified a plurality may be fine, too.

I didn't mean to imply that you implied that. I actually like the whole Next Chess idea, whether it's one game or several. Others might have more worthwhile things to say about it than I have.

This returns to the main subject of this thread, if people already see the Next Chess topic as flogging a dead horse. Or would that also be flogging a dead horse, too?

I don't see it that way. It's an interesting topic. Regarding your question, I have some thoughts about that, but I don't know much since I've never been involved in organized chess playing. It seems like whatever variants do achieve some popularity are very conservative, such as 960. Perhaps many who take chess seriously are interested in chess primarily for the shared experience aspect, or competition—thinking of chess as a sport more than as a game. Someone who thinks that way might perceive any suggestion of a significant change to the rules as promoting an entirely different game—a revolution rather than an evolution. Does that make any sense?

Would that mean other pieces could only move if they're within range of a hostile mobilizer?

Isn't that because $flipped needs to be set for black?