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Storm the Ivory Tower. A Smess adaptation of Chinese Chess. (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This looks really good, Fergus. You've blended these two games such that they look as if they were meant to be blended!
One question: is a Yahoo allowed to move back to its starting square when the arrows allow for it, making a null move?
A comment about the 'Korean' Clodhopper -- following the analogy with the Korean Cannon, they should not be allowed to capture other Clodhoppers.
About the exit moves. I can see very easily how you ended up with them, and I for one like the forced exit rule, since it should make the game more decisive. An alternate approach if you did want to forbid them the tower in the first place would be to shade the arrows pointing into the tower, and add a rule that Ninnys and Yahoos may not follow a shaded arrow on their side of the board.
Here's what I'm thinking of doing now. When beginning a move within their own Ivory Tower, Yahoos and Ninnies must move against the arrows instead of with them. This would replace the exit-move. Any Yahoo move would automatically take it out, and any Ninny would be out in no more than two moves. This doesn't violate the spirit of Smess as much as arbitrary borders do, because I can envision a whole class of contrarian Smess pieces, which move against arrows rather than with them. I may make future Smess variants that include such pieces.
Peter, No a Yahoo may not double-back to its own space. When it moves, it moves to another space.
I have updated and clarified the rules concerning how Ninnies and Yahoos move. I have changed the blue color of the blue pieces to royalblue. This helps makes the features of these pieces easier to make out. I think the real problem with the blue pieces was that the blue was too dark to contrast well with the the black drawing.
Anonymous wrote on Mon, Aug 16, 2004 01:22 PM EDT:Under the description of the Brain, it says:<br>
'Since Brains are never captured, this works much like the rule against opposing Kings in Chinese and Korean Chess.'<p>
However, in the description of Korean Chess, under the rule against opposing Kings, it says:<br>
'If you cause this to happen in Korean Chess, you are placing the other General in check in a desperate last-chance move on your part for you irreversably foresake the right to checkmate the other side--you are hoping for a stalemate, which would be the case if the other side can not get out of that desperate check.'<br>
As such, this <b>is</b> allowed in Korean Chess.
The change to the squares to keep Ninnies out of the Ivory Tower is a great improvement on previous arrangements, particularly as it echoes a practical consequence of Xiang Qi rules. Seeing this updated soon after A. Black posted his Color Square Shogi makes an interesting contrast in ways to generalize directions.
I would like to see an additional board and piece set option for for this game. One that had a much less colorful board and used subtle direction indicators instead of bold colorful arrow displays. Otherwise, though it is a logical and challenging game, it looks too much as though it is for children. And pieces: I would have trouble getting into the comic, big-eyed pieces, whereas Chinese or Alfaerie-Stanton Style pieces would seem more fitting to an engineer, scientist, lawyer, etc. A similiar situation exists with the related game 'All the Kings Men.' I own a board and set (plastic pieces), which is the 'adult' or 'grown-up' version. But I saw photos of a children's version. For me, personally, I like the adult set, but would not want to play on the child's set. Of course, this is all visual perception, and visual preference. But picture Kasparov and Topalov, for example, playing a serious chess match on a Scooby Scooby Doo set or a Simpsons set. It would be the same game, but ... somehow not quite right.
If you want to make the board, I'll see what I can do about using it. The board should be made to the same dimensions, 540 x 600, and arrows should be visible even when a piece is on the space.
Actually, I like the colorful board and pieces. The theme wouldn't make sense without them.
I have a black and white version of the board here: http://www.samiam.org/new-ivorytower9x10-bw.bmp - Sam
All you've done is strip away the color from the original board. It still has the bold arrows Gary was complaining about, and it no longer distinguishes spaces by color.
As Fergus has pointed out, Sam Trenholme's black and white version consists of arrow outlines... with the squares not defined by borders or colors. But I think if these were added to basic color squares (as used in most chess setups) we would have a board similar to that of the 'All the King's Men' game, which has imitation wood and noticeable, yet much more subtle arrows. Note that I was likely spoiled by the physical board I own and the 3D plastic medeival-type pieces that came with it. Perhaps, most important here, is the fact that [other than myself and a co-worker] I know of no one else who minds the bright colors and the current piece set with eyes. So, as the Star Trek Spock once said, 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one or the few.' So there is certainly no need to create a second board and piece set on my account, that would be a waste of time and space. But I do thank Mr. Trenholme for taking the time to create and present his black and white bitmap.
I got the graphics. I do not share your estimate that they are excellent, but I'm not exactly your target audience, since I prefer Smess graphics anyway. I should be able to make use of the board after recoloring it. As for piece graphics, I already have that covered. I have already made plenty of different sets for Chinese Chess, both western and Chinese, and they can easily be employed for Storm the Ivory Tower. I am currently working on redrawing the pieces for the game, and when all is ready, I will package everything up with a single ZRF that gives players a choice of graphics.
On further inspection, I have to conclude that Michael's board is unusable. The problem is that it is creating optical illusions. Instead of using arrows, it uses little solid borderless black triangles. Because they're small and have no borders to define what they are, my eyes switch back and forth between seeing the triangles and seeing the shapes formed by the space between them. For example, the squares with the four diagonal directions sometimes look like octagons instead of squares with triangles in the corners. To see the triangles in any individual space, I have to focus right on that space, and the uniformity of the triangles makes that all the harder. Furthermore, the uniformity of the triangles creates global optical illusions. Instead of easily focusing on individual spaces, as I do with the Smess style board, my eyes focus on various patterns created by the overall arrangement of triangles. To avoid optical illusions, the board should use arrows with borders, not small borderless triangles.
'On further inspection, I have to conclude that Michael's board is
unusable'
Perhaps for some, but that's not a valid statement because it is unconditional. I had a very successful experience playing STIT last night using my graphics, the first time I was able to play the game to completion. I personally find the Smess-like graphics unplayable.
If you like it, go ahead and use it for yourself, but don't distribute it with a modified ZRF. I am not interested in playing semantics over my evaluation of your board. Even if you happen to be immune to the effect, it is a very serious problem when a board tends to induce optical illusions. The bottomline is that I will not have any optical illusion inducing board included with any of my games. As for your prejudice against Smess-like graphics, it is irrelevant to the matter at hand. I am willing to include a dulled down set of graphics for this game as long as it has no technical problems such as inducing optical illusions.
To Michael Howe: Michael, you have been a valuable contributor to these pages for several years. You have contributed, games, ideas, played in tournaments, provided Zillions files. Please re-consider your request to remove all your contributions. As an editor, I would do this with extreme reluctance -- and great sadness. This chess community is much larger than issues related to one game, or one project. It is also larger than the persons involved in one discussion. Please reconsider. Remember that you are welcome here by many people. (Friends, please support my appeal.) Best regards, Tony Quintanilla.
Michael, I was thinking of Antoine Fourierre's game, 'Chess on a Larger Board with Not So Few Pieces Dropped.' Sorry about the incorrect reference (removed). However, my other comments remain. I have followed your interesting comments and contributions on many games and topics (such as Nova Chess), and still hold those opinions. David Howe is an excellent contributor and our chief editor, however, I was, in fact, thinking of you, not David. Also, with regard to amending/deleting non-relevant comments on this page, I would agree they could/should be removed, but you should initiate the changes by editing your comments with your member password. Thanks.
Michael, I have long known you as someone who has his head on his shoulders, and you have long been one of the members of this site I hold the highest respect for. I still believe that you are that person I respect, and I will just assume you are having a bad day. I do appreciate that you went to the trouble to make my game more accessible to people who may not like my Smess graphics. I do not mean to be cold, but I do tend to be blunt and to the point. In this particular matter, I could not be very encouraging, because I was never excited over the idea of replacing my Smess graphics with something more 'classic.' As for constructive feedback, I did give that. I carefully explained how the board induced optical illusions and gave specific recommendations on what to do to fix this.
Where is this so called 'unuseable' board from Michael Howe? I would like to have a look at it before I will comment anything.
Michael, please send me your new board. I would like to include an alternate board if it doesn't induce optical illusions.
For those interested, here is Michael's original board. I converted it to PNG for viewing on the web. If you want to use it with my ZRF, you can convert it back to BMP and edit the ZRF to use it.
I have not played Smess, neither Storm the Ivory Tower, but I have some problems with my vision and by this reason I have some troubles visualizing, in a good manner, both boards, although some simplicity and high contrast with colors of the pieces would be a bit better for my case. My eyes are far from 20/20, these games can produce me headaches, so I try to avoid them, unfortunatelly, regardless they look interesting.
Thanks for displaying Michael's board, it is much easier for my brain to quickly see what's going on directionally. But I am wondering if a checkered version would be a further improvement? [The colors used on the Switching Chess pre-set, I think, would be very good] I think it would reduce the optical illusion factor (which if I stare at the board a while I do see). Anyway, given the choice of the two boards I greatly prefer this one. But what pieces would go on it? Chinese ? Thanks again to both Michael and Fergus for putting the effort into getting an optional, more traditional board and set. P.S. One reason I don't like the current set and board can be realized if you picture a book of chess problems. Now, imagine a similar book with STIT problems using the current board and pieces. I solve chess problems in my head every night, many quite fast... but the nature of the STIT board and pieces would require that I analyze the STIT diagram a long time just to understand what is where. Plus those little eyes and comic images, well I have trouble taking them seriously.
I also prefer the 'optical illusion' board. I prefer plain things over garish. And the idea of checkering it sounds very reasonable to me too.
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