Comments by Omnia Nihilo

The page for chess 2: the sequel has an outdated download link for the rules. I found the new page after finding out that the old one was dead. 

http://sirlin.net/s/chess2_rulebook2-4.pdf is the direct link. Is it possible to just post the rules on the game page directly rather than linking to the rules or is there an issue with copyright and all that? I would try to edit the page myself, but I'm not sure how and my understanding is that only editors can do that.

Second, I have a second account here using the email gatesrules91@gmail.com, I have tried emailing every email I could find and got no response. So, I was wondering if it would be possible to delete my old account so I could use my main email (the gatesrules one) on this account. I only really made a second account to make this username more in line with my others. I can prove I have both emails and accounts if some verification is necessary. 

 

I'm in. I don't know how tournaments are played here, but this sounds fun. I agree with Cetina that we should probably have people pick a game and everyone plays against them that way, or we find a way to randomly select what game we all play. 

 

But I'll go with pretty much any format. Half the fun of chess variants is leaving your comfort zone and trying new and different games, so I don't have any pet game I wanna play or care which ones are selected.

The first bug involves this game: http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/indiangr1.html

And the actual game in question where it occured: http://play.chessvariants.com/pbm/play.php?game=Great+Chess&log=redpanda-cvgameroom-2017-149-874

 

Trying to move any piece led to a "syntax error on line 324". I couldn't figure out what the issue was or how to fix it and had to resign since I couldn't pass to actually leave a comment to tell him this.

 

The second bug isn't as severe, but still odd so I figured I'd bring it up. https://ibb.co/ceSUOF (sorry about having to use an image upload, but the inline one didn't let me just select a picture to download and wanted a direct link, which I'm unsure of how to do on android). As you can see at the bottom of the screenshot is the page saying it was last updated in 1969. Which I doubt is accurate. I mention it here mainly in case there's any weird exploitable bug due to this or something. Not sure how minor or serious it is.

I'd say 3 games for 3 rounds. Seems easier to me. 

https://ibb.co/kpeZAQ

I seem to be getting some weird code showing up whenever I click the button to go back to my games, or just going to the list via the "your games on game courier". 

I found some spots where  the code displays itself, not sure if that's a bug or not. Pictures of the spots are here:

https://ibb.co/mLPCra
https://ibb.co/jBmQBa
https://ibb.co/mTCnPv

I somewhat agree with Mr. Muller that the logo shouldn't change all that much. I think the Google approach works best here. Their logos have changed, but it became a more minimalist design. Minimalism seems to be the going trend with logos. So, something along those lines is best in my opinion. I'd even recommend that the logo for play.chessvariants.org be changed. It looks a bit too kiddy I think. Designs should be simple and convey the point of the 'brand' and no more. Simple and clean also makes a better impression on people.

I just had an idea based on a game of heavy gravity chess I'm playing with Vitya Makov. Vitya told me via the comments that he wanted to be able to play with castling. This had me thinking; is it possible to add a way to make notes to games when making them? Because I figure it is easier to be able to say "this is heavy gravity, but castling is allowed" or "this is shatranj, but let's play with a two pawn step" or whatever. Given we do play variants, I figure it may be helpful rather than having to start a game up before being able to talk to the opponent to present any house rules you want.  And it could maybe be put somewhere near the time controls when you go to accept a game. This way the person who wants to play with such changes will be able to play them without running into people who do not like it, and people who don't wish to play that way won't accept a game and then find out there are changes they may not like.

 

This isn't a knock, by the way. I actually liked Vitya's idea a lot and I figured this would make it even easier to be able to play a game with small tweaks, and be upfront so that both parties are aware of the tweaked variant that is to be played.

When viewing a page (for example http://www.chessvariants.com/invention/universal-chess ) it will say that this item has comments and to click there to see the comments. However, when I go there to see the comments I get directed to http://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?itemid=MSuniversal-chess and I don't see any comments and get this message: "ERROR: The value of order may not be set to anything except ASC or DESC." And then a bunch of query parameters.

For awhile I've been having issues with the way things display on mobile. Games all work fine, but some things seem to fly right off the page, particularly in the comments and diagram designer. At first I thought it was just my browser (I was using tint browser at the time), but I am getting the same display issues on my new browser (naked) as well. Long links and diagrams used to shoot off the page, but I went back a few pages and that seems fixed because I can scroll left and right within the comment box. But I'm not 100% sure. Here are a few pictures showing what I mean.

 

https://ibb.co/ftZq5m
https://ibb.co/gWUq5m
https://ibb.co/jcPOQm

I think minor variants with different pieces would have a better shot at becoming popular. Games like Shako or even Hannibal chess seem like good candidates. Weird shapes like hexagons or too many exotic pieces aren't likely to catch on fast; while those two games just have cannons, alfils, etc. Pieces that are simple enough to learn, but provide a significant change that might interest people. And given how small the changes have been historically it seems to fit. Look at chaturanga vs regular chess, or shatranj. Even Xiangqi and Shogi aren't massively big in terms of a change. Historically chess and games in general seem to change very slowly with a few slight modifications that people find useful. Like the alfils turning into bishops rather than being gimped and only touching 8 squares on a board. 

 

And change is likely to be slower because there is an "orthodox" chess. It isn't like the old days where someone forgetting a rule or house ruling the game (in this case chess) slowly over time will branch off into its own thing and become a different game. People can just look it up now and information travels faster. And there aren't any real issues in chess that bug enough people for a change to catch on. The average person who plays chess isn't a grandmaster who knows the most precise moves or memorized openings a ton and faces any real annoyance to their gameplay. Whereas the weakness of the alfil would spur people on to change it. But what piece is really weak in chess? Aside from high level play, there is no real gameplay weakness to speed up the desire for change among your average Joe sitting down to play a game. Yeah, at high level play this results in a lot of draws, and it may bore people who watch it, but most people aren't sitting around firing up their engines and seeing those underlying flaws. They're just playing the game or watching it and it's still fresh to them. 

Standard chess is just too well balanced for there to be some outcry against a weak or gimped piece like with shatranj and such and there aren't enough people who know chess like an engine and find the game dull. Change rarely happens for the sake of it. And I'm just not seeing what would make chess change in any significant way when chess has barely changed from Shatranj, and that was barely, if at all, changed from Chaturanga. 

I'd be interested in joining up. And any game works for me. I don't even mind if there's no rule enforcing preset as long as the rules are available on the site or something.

I just see a few useless pieces. 1 rook, bishop, and knight (the standard ones) are superfluous. You already have one of them and then a king compound of the same piece. And if you remove the amazon you can get rid of four and it may make it easier to slim the game down evenly (even if I do like the piece and would love to see it in there somehow if it can be done without resorting to a weird board shape). 

 

But other than that it seems fine. I'd just simplify it that little bit and probably put the king in the back to allow for some castling. Then it's a little more like regular chess, albeit with a compound of every piece. 

Edit: you can also replace the pieces. Alfils, a man, etc. Assuming you want the same piece amount and don't want to mess with that much.

The power of the pieces doesn't mean much. Look at the larger variants or even Sho Shogi which is just regular Shogi with a drunk elephant and no drops. Weak pieces doesn't and didn't necessarily imply that drops were used.