Ratings & Comments

When Nemoroth finally appears, you will be amazed by the piece called the
Wounded Fiend, and the distant resemblance to the Tron Queen.

There must be something in the air that makes people come up with similar
ideas at nearly the same time.

I've heard vague rumours that this game, or a game very much like it, is
still played at Miskatonic University...

The excellent rating applies to presentation and originality. I have not
playtested this game (yet). Truth be told, I'm not sure I *want* to! :)

Apart from the paradox problem, the need to take into account temporary
powers makes assessment of overprotection a bit complicated. 

I would suggest ignoring temporary powers in assessing overprotection.

I thought this page was good becuase it gave you all the rules.  They wer
eeasy to understand and showed diagrams for furthur clarification

Wow!!  

Who said theme doesn't count in abstract games?  I want to play this, but I
think I'm going to be disapointed when the pieces remain silent.  I want to
see a ZRF, but not too soon.  Whoever does it needs to do a good job on the
graphics, not to mention audio, to do the game justice.

'What eldritch noise did I hear?'  Perhaps the screech of the El.

You have trapped me and won the game of game-making!

You suggested recursive, and I said 'sure, okay', and then you hoisteded me
with me own petard by pointing out a most ingenious paradox, more ingenious
than Doctors Einstein and Schweitzer. I am bereft, like an apprentice to
Pilate.

Where can I find an mp3 of busy editorial beavers whistling the 'Happy
Editor' song as they undo a previous change?

'Favors Black, you think? Then perhaps you will be willing to offer me
substantial odds as we play a game for some enormous stake of money, 
perhaps a penny on a1 doubled on each successive square?'

I had almost put the above statement into the story of getting a regular
chessplayer to play Chigorin Chess, somewhere after the part where 'variant
rhymes with deviant and that starts with d and rhymes with t and stands for
trouble.', and way after the part where the regular chessplayer says with a
sneer is that some kind of fairy chess.... (I'm not suggesting that
you're
the offensive non-PC 'regular chessplayer'; the misinformation
about relative values of N and B is part of general unwisdom, that's
all.)

Read any monograph on the Chigorin Defense. You'll find that many 
players now believe the N to be superior in the early stages of the game,
which agrees with my findings on the theory of chess values so I think
it must be right.

Given the advantage of the first move to go with the advantage of fast
development, the *white* side in Chigorin Chess probably has a large
advantage. In order to Castle K-side, Black needs to move two Pawns and two
Bishops; and one of those P moves looks suspiciously like a weakening
move.
White can go 5.O-O at the earliest, but Black can choose to go 3...O-O;
think about it!

And, of course, this is the whole point of Chigorin Chess! You can get a
'regular chessplayer' to play, because he will want to prove that the
Bishops are so much superior...

It recently occurred to me that I might have named the Zombie an Iron
Golem so that its dissolution by ichor would be a nethack reference.

But perhaps that would have been inappropriate after all. Lovecraft never
played a game of Nethack in his life.

Very interesting.

1. At first sight, the board seems unbalanced because a Black R at b6
attacks
both b2 and c2, but a WR b3 does not get its power doubled.

I would suggest that in the long run this advantage is much greater than
W's advantage of first move.

2. The Bf1 can't go to c4, right? Perhaps Bishops should be replaced by
something else. (Not zFF, that would increase Black's advantage.)

3. A Knightrider on a6 attacks both f2 and e2, right? And a Rose on h6
attacks both d3 and e3, and therefore... interesting.

gnohmon, you're wrong about a few things. first of all,
while black rooks can control double files if they are on the
a,b,g, or h files, a white rook on the b-file would control
both the a-file and b-file, and likewise a white rook on the 
g-file controls both the g-file and h-file. Download the ZRF
and you'll see. 

Bishops may seem weak but they may yet have a purpose in the game.
It may be true that their ability to penetrate the other side of
the board and attack is more difficult, but they'll still be
pretty good as stay-at-home defenders. Note however that white
bishops at a3 or h3 control very long diagonals (bishop at a3 
attacks e8, bishop at h3 attacks d8)

and while black may be able to control the outside files with
his rooks faster, white should be able to occupy the escalator
squares more quickly. In order that white does not get an overwhelming
advantage in the game, I gave black the first move. Time will tell
if the game is balanced sufficiently or not.


Incidentally, if anyone who has ZILLIONS OF GAMES would like to
play either SLANTED ESCALATOR CHESS, or SPINAL TAP CHESS

http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/spinal-tap-chess.html

or both, with me by email, drop me a line at DavidNYJfan@hotmail.com
We can email each other the notation and record and save our games
with ZILLIONS. 

What I really like about SLANTED ESCALATOR CHESS is that not only
is there interesting connectivity around the board, but that it's
going to be a bit challenging for each side to try to navigate the
board to get to the other side and get a good attack going. 
Should make things very interesting!

The trouble with my Zillions implementation is, a piece that captures a
Wall disappears until you make the board redraw itself.  When the computer
plays against itself, it's not a problem.  But when a human captures a
Wall, he needs to hit Ctrl-F twice or something.  It would be an easy, easy
thing for Zillions Development to fix.

I guess it's my own fault for trying to make two boards, one on top of the
other.  I just thought it would be more elegant that way.