Jean-Louis - thank you very much for such an elaborate commentary and ideas!
Sanskrit associations for the name it's an interesting idea and sounds good. There are some 6x6 chess variants, like Mallet chess and so on, but it definitely can be a part of a nice and unique-sounding name.
"Familiar" relates to the magical familiars in Western mythology, with often a cat, a dog, or a crow\raven. Also, for warriors a familiar could be a magical horse or some kind of dragon, so I named the piece Hippogryph - as a nice hybrid. So the current naming is mainly for context integrity and my amusement, which is important in game design =).
But you have a good point, so I think it would be a good middle-ground solution to add the more common names and mention, that the game could be played with those pieces instead.
And I think I would change the crocodile to a Squirrel - it is more of a joke piece anyway, and the Squirrel is even funnier.
Now, for the movement part. To give the Hound and the WildCat additional leap square it's an interesting and, possibly, a great idea. I definitely would check it in future test games (my main concern is that the Hound and the WildCat can become too powerful) and if it works, I would be happy to implement this in "Familiar Chess 2.0", with all the appropriate mentions, of course.
Jean-Louis - thank you very much for such an elaborate commentary and ideas!
Sanskrit associations for the name it's an interesting idea and sounds good. There are some 6x6 chess variants, like Mallet chess and so on, but it definitely can be a part of a nice and unique-sounding name.
"Familiar" relates to the magical familiars in Western mythology, with often a cat, a dog, or a crow\raven. Also, for warriors a familiar could be a magical horse or some kind of dragon, so I named the piece Hippogryph - as a nice hybrid. So the current naming is mainly for context integrity and my amusement, which is important in game design =). But you have a good point, so I think it would be a good middle-ground solution to add the more common names and mention, that the game could be played with those pieces instead. And I think I would change the crocodile to a Squirrel - it is more of a joke piece anyway, and the Squirrel is even funnier.
Now, for the movement part. To give the Hound and the WildCat additional leap square it's an interesting and, possibly, a great idea. I definitely would check it in future test games (my main concern is that the Hound and the WildCat can become too powerful) and if it works, I would be happy to implement this in "Familiar Chess 2.0", with all the appropriate mentions, of course.
Thank you again!