Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

OK thanks that is a good point.

Another question:

Does anyone know of a site or "Chess site" whereby the "Chessmen" actually "fight" as in a video game type scenario? (using hand held controller compatible with computer website game)

This would be a variant obviously of Chess, but I am considering such a game scenario using "Bishops". This format would continue until the game was played "as Chess" , 2 players, as Chess is Chess.

Please reply with info or comments.

Information for crowdfunding of "Bishops, The Game" can be viewed here....

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bishops-the-game/x/6547888

Not too much worried about developing robots or computer play.

Could Bishops, The Game be added to an existing chess engine with the extra 64 squares plus the four (4) corner squares?

Legal move detection is needed for a basic game.

Looking for programmers.

Starting from an existing Chess engine is probably not a good idea, as these are too specifially tailored for playing Chess. Your 'Bishops' seems to be a 4-player game, and that alone makes it so radically different from Chess that all Chess knowledge will be totally invalid. E.g. in Chess it would be good to capture a Rook at the expense of a Knight. In Bishops that seems a losing move, as it leaves the other two players unscathed. So that the average strength of you your opponents goes down 1/3 of a Rook (i.e. 5/3 = 1.66, while you lose a Knight (i.e. 3) yourself.

Personally I have always doubted the viability of multi-player Chess-like games because of this 'king-maker effect'.

Multi-player games are totally different from zero-sum two-player games, even when they do have perfect information. They require different search strategies, and opponent modeling becomes very important.

Thanks for the comments.
Bishops is a four player game yes, but it ends as "Chess".

Since I am not a programmer I might ask silly questions at times.

What I am looking for is just a good visual game and only "smart" to the point
that legal moves are recognised.

To develop a "smart" bot to play Bishops would not be needed at this time.

As Bishops has to be played offensively to the left and defensively to the right, it adds
a more challenging effect. Skill and possibly a factor of luck is needed. Still luck
cannot be used in order to win consistently.

When the final 2 players are reached and are on the Chess playing area, then it is a Chess game to determine the winner. What pieces they have remaining depends on their overall Bishops playing ability.

The game was invented to allow four players to play a "Chess like" game. Which I think it does.

I do have a Java online version at another location and may have it online in May-June hopefully. However it will need bug fixes.

Looking for  programmers who may be able to get another version up and running
for play on Google Chrome etc etc...

Yes losing a Knight for a Rook would affect only 2 players, but there is how many combinations of 2 players ?......uh....WG..GB...BP...PW...plus WB...WP ...uh....16 combinations I think.....

Also as an upgrade to the rules will be the "option" to have the "Backline" placed at random starting points. Therefore a King could be placed beside its "safe" corner,,,then immediately the Bishops obtain the power of a Queen.

Any Chess variant is not meant to replace Chess and never will. Some variants can be fun to play and viable if given a chance and Bishops is one maybe. As it ends "as Chess" , not many other variants I have seen do this.....??

Correction, adding an option to have a random backline is not a rule change , only an option that any game can use. Including Chess itself as I think proposed once by Bobby Fisher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960

OK, I see. You had me confused by the terminology you use: normally a Chess Engine means a program that thinks up Chess moves, without any graphical capabilities. It just prints as text what it wants to play, like 'e2e4'. It seems that what you want is not an engine at all, but a Graphical User Interface. So one should not modify a Chess engine, but a GUI like WinBoard or XBoard. It seems it would require a pretty invasive change, though, because such GUIs are of course based on the idea there are two players.

It also seems you don't just want a GUI for local play, but really an internet client that connects to a remote site (e.g. embedded in an internet browser), so that people could play against each other over the internet. This begs the question whether you would want to support 'live' (i.e. real-time with running Chess clocks) or turn-based games (i.e. like correspondence Chess).

About your statement that the game ends as Chess: what if the two surviving parties were neighbors? I suppose their Pawns would move at right angles then. That doesn't seem much like a normal Chess game to me...

BTW, there do exist plenty of two-player Chess variants that end in perfectly normal Chess. For instance Seirawan Chess. Most variants that contain just a limited number of unorthodox pieces on an 8x8 board would turn into normal Chess when these pieces get traded out of the game.

It seems it would require a pretty invasive change, though, because such GUIs are of course based on the idea there are two players.

>>>>>yes it would be the 164 squares and the 4 corner squares only.

It also seems you don't just want a GUI for local play, but really an internet client that connects to a remote site (e.g. embedded in an internet browser), so that people could play against each other over the internet. This begs the question whether you would want to support 'live' (i.e. real-time with running Chess clocks) or turn-based games (i.e. like correspondence Chess).

>>>>>yes "live" and in real time. People would have to know that other opponents would be ready to play for example at 8 pm their local time. or world-wide would have to arrange specific times etc etc.  Unless enough interest and then when 4 players join the game begins automatic , live 24 hours a day. Also to start, a site that has no "bots" or ability to have "bots" as I would prefer more "humans" playing and some "humans" may like it that there is no "bots", only "humans'.

About your statement that the game ends as Chess: what if the two surviving parties were neighbors? I suppose their Pawns would move at right angles then. That doesn't seem much like a normal Chess game to me...

>>>>>The rules state when a player is checkmated, whatever player that colour is then removed. Play continues with three players until another colour is removed. Then for example if Black and Pink remain,,,Pink must move to the seat at its left. If Black and Grey remain,,,Grey moves to its right. (This part of the rules may be re-written someday to more properly explain it.) If White and Black remain they remain in their respective seats.

It is basically a GUI I want and the ability to allow the legal moves of Chess pieces while playing Bishops and then allow legal moves of Chess when all the remaining pieces of the 2 final players reach the 64 square chess playing board. (Also one problem scenario would be if one of the final 2 players had 2 Bishops on one colour of the diagonal squares , which could theoretically happen, then one Bishop would need to enter the Chess area on a different colour square. ) (Also other problem scenarios may occur with pawn movement but precise writing of the rules would fix these scenarios)

One thing I do not know, since not enough actual Bishops Games have been played out to completion, and would like to know is how the average piece count would fair when the game continues "as Chess". If the 2 remaining players skill level at Bishops is more or less evenly matched , then the remaining pieces should be of similar strength. The ability to "survive" until the game becomes "Chess" is an added feature that "Chess" itself does not have. In Chess you either win or lose or draw. With Bishops you must first "survive" to reach the final stage which is then played as "Chess". Position and strength of the 2 remaining players will most likely not be similar to an "average" Chess game. With Bishops, if a player cannot learn how to "survive" then he will never be able to finish the game "as Chess". This feature and others is why I think Bishops, The Game could be someday.....viable.

Well getting 4 players together at the same time will definitely be the major problem to solve. On the 81Doju Chu-Shogi server (AFAIK the only one in the world where you can play live Chu Shogi, a game that has tens of thousands of players) there are typically zero people to be found.

Do you already have a design in mind for how people could negociate a time to play a game, when they would never be present on the server at the same time spontaneously?

Well I dont have a design for meeting times but it should be not too hard 
to figure one out.
For example the first player to join a game could set a start time maybe 3 days 
into the future at 8 pm MST his/her local time. This would give enough time for 3 
challengers to join the game at their own specific times. For example one player 
may be in China and his/her local time would be 10 am. 

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/ 

This site gives a good over view of time zones and there are others.

The program ( game) could include an automatic time insert for each open game 
that has been started or invited.

I have a "Bishops notation" system invented too but I cannot read it on the small
pink board image here (and I dont remember it) and I wont be at my house until mid-

May to review my files. The notation uses the same Chess notation and also adds 

more similar for the extra 64 squares and 4 corner squares.

https://twitter.com/Edwin_1952

Edwin, I haven't had a chance to play this yet and can't give a rating right now, but after reading the rules from the external website, I think it would be worth a try.  The idea of only checkmating the player to the left makes a lot of sense, so that's a good idea.  The restriction on pawn captures in the first round is practical too.

I was a bit curious about some of the other rules like this: "Kings may enter their own coloured corner square and become immune from check or checkmate, provided that both of their Bishops are not captured. When a King enters his corner square, both of his Bishops become Queens instantly."

Were those rules added to bring some more unique flavor to the game (hence the game title), or is it something you feel is necessary to avoid problems that would occur from more orthodox rules in a 4-person chess game? 

This rule was added to speed the game up after a King is "safe" in its own corner square. The King must re-enter however when 2 of the 3 "Queens" are captured and if he cannot enter the Chess playing 64 squares without being in check , then he is checkmated in his corner square and loses.

Hello anybody: October 18, 2024 I am trying to reach ANYBODY in the admin dept of Chessvariants.com? Fergus seems over worked and too busy. I have suggested to him that he SELL this site or get new webmasters. The site is too complicated and "busy busy" and IMO is old fashioned. It is likely keeping new members away. Also if anybody can or is able please delete the word "commercial" from my pages. ( found under my name Edwin J Wilhelm) We have switched to Non-Profit . Also IMO the "Game Courier" should have its own domain separate.

How many MEMBERS does this site have?

Thank you Edwin J Wilhelm

I don't know what you count as 'admin department', but I have the status of editor here. Meaning I have FTP and SSH access the the server machine, and can edit other people's Comments and articles through extra menu options. I was given these rights for the specific purpose of maintaining and developing the Interactive Diagram, and upgrading articles wherever possible by replacing their main diagram with an Interactive Diagram that could play the described game. Sadly I haven't been able to do much of the latter lately, due to lack of time. I had been going at it alphabetically earlier, but never progressed beyond H. And in the mean time the capabilities of the I.D. have been extended such that many variants I had to skip at the time could get one too.

I am not sure what 'old fashioned' means. But suggestions for improvements are always welcome.

Things I personally dislike about the site is the primitive nature of the article-submission system, without any help for inserting diagrams. (Requiring you to go to other diagram-generating pages, and then copy-paste HTML code.)

I am not sure why it would be beneficial for Game Courier to be on a separate domain. (It used to be at play.chessvariants.com before it was moved to the 'play' sub-directory.) Domain names are pretty much becoming a technical detail, which users mostly ignore. If there is a page they want to visit often they just book-mark it.

Hello Well thanks for the reply. I will be away for 5 weeks now so I will Add more details of my ideas in December 2024. The site needs to stay "alive" forever do not get me wrong. But it should be updated and more user friendly. Ttyl Edwin J Wilhelm

Fergus seems over worked and too busy.

I have been busy making music playlists and AI art. See

https://www.pinterest.com/fduniho/my-spotify-playlists/

I have suggested to him that he SELL this site or get new webmasters.

The site is not for sale, and work on the site is done by volunteers.

The site is too complicated and "busy busy" and IMO is old fashioned.

The site began in the 90s, and it has lots of old content. Some parts do get updated, but updating everything would be a lot of work. You're welcome to make specific suggestions or to volunteer to do some of the work you think needs to be done.

Also if anybody can or is able please delete the word "commercial" from my pages. ( found under my name Edwin J Wilhelm) We have switched to Non-Profit .

Done.

Also IMO the "Game Courier" should have its own domain separate.

It used to be on a separate subdomain, but using subdomains made navigation and site maintenance more complicated. Putting it on its own domain would introduce similar complications. It draws on site resources, and it also provides a diagram generator that can be used to show diagrams on other pages.