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The Bermuda Chess Angle. Pieces can vanish in a central grid (The Bermuda Chess Angle) depending on dice-determined coordinates. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Apr 30, 2005 08:43 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★I appreciate Greg's comment. In regard to the '10' factor it only plays
in the board size (10 x 10) and number of pawns per side, & number of pieces in the 1st
and last ranks.
<p>On another note: I just wanted to point out that I cut and pasted the text
from my Word.doc into David Howe's easy-to-use submission form and used
that to get the game page. A nice, painless method. Quick too.
<p>I also see that I can now upload graphics; and I did upload one for the
game setup... but I don't know how to get it into the page, or if a CV
editor has to add the graphics.
<p>If I can add graphics myself I will update the Bermuda Chess Angle page
with illustrated examples.
<p>I encourage those with unposted games to give David's submission form a
try (a link to it appears in one of David's recent comments).
<p>Best regards to all, Gary
This needs to be added to the contest index. Perhaps it would be possible in the future to add 'this is an entry to thus-and-such contest' flags to the submission page? Of course a check would have to be used to see whether 2 entries have already been submitted by the same person.
I have updated the game page with a setup graphic and with 5 illustrated positional examples pertaining to piece disappearances, checks, and/or King capturing. I also changed the game objective from 'delivering checkmate' to 'capturing the opponent's king.' The reason for this change becomes easy to understand from the examples.
I really like this game concept: randomness at a managable level. The Bermuda Triangle imagery is rather enjoyable as well. Some rules clarifications: 1. If a Knight leaps another piece on c3 and c3 is the BCAF, then both the Knight and the piece leaped over disappear? 2. If a piece captures another piece on d5 and d5 is the BCAF, the catured piece does not reappear? The rules as a whole seem to me to indicate that the answer is 'yes' to both questions--I'd like to hear the designer's intent.
This is to thank Mike Nelson for taking time to comment and also to confirm his correct conclusion regarding the following two scenarios. Mike asked: 1. If a Knight leaps another piece on c3 and c3 is the BCAF, then both the Knight and the piece leaped over disappear? 2. If a piece captures another piece on d5 and d5 is the BCAF, the captured piece does not reappear? The answer in both cases, as Mike correctly deduced, is that both pieces vanish. An easy way to visualize this would be to imagine the BCAF (Bermuda Chess Angle Factor) as creating a momentary hole in the board. A piece presently on the hole will disappear, the piece moving onto [or through, or over] also disappears. Immediately after the disappearances the square returns to normal. Also see the game rules (Rule #3 and Rule #4).
'The Lost City of Chesslantis?' Is that the same thing as Ultima Thule? Sorry. If you actually understood that joke, you used a lot of fairly specialised knowledge to grasp a lousy pun like that. Good Lord, I'm a geek.
Ian, thanks for the comment and for the eyebrow raising question, i.e., Is Chesslantis the the same thing as Ultima Thule? The answer, of course, is 'no.' Ultima Thule was, according to the ancient Greeks, a habitable region very far north (the most north of regions on planet Earth). On a related note, perhaps Chesslantis is seen as having been 'myth placed' in the introduction. But I believe it helps create atmosphere for the game.
The latest theory on the original Bermuda Triangle can be found at http://www.terradaily.com/news/life-05zr.html, although I'm not sure how that could be incorporated into this variant!
In response to Mr. Gilmans' comment regarding how the latest Bermuda Triangle theory could get into the game, it already is. In the last paragraph of my rules introduction we read '...the rising of frozen hydrocarbons which makes the board density so sparse [by releasing methane] that pieces simply fall through.'
I just noticed that all the graphics are missing for the Bermuda Chess Angle page. Could the links have been broken? Has this happened with other games? The page without the graphics is rather bland.
Why not call Chesslantis Chatlantis after chaturanga?
I made a beta version game courier preset for the Bermuda Chess Angle. It is at the link below. Square colors may be changed as it currently looks like a square cloud is hanging over Bermuda region (perhaps that is appropriate?)... I cannot add the pre-set link to the rule page as I am locked-out. Now that the '10' contest is over perhaps the lock can be removed? ? QUESTION ? Does anyone know how I can get 2 simulated dice to roll in this game so the Bermuda Chess Angle Disappearance Factor can be randomly generated? Once that is implemented the game can be fairly played with random disappearances. Thank you. http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DThe+Bermuda+Chess+Angle%26settings%3DBermuda
The preset for Vegas Fun Chess has dice implementation.
Game Courier includes a binary built-in function called rand, which is for generating random integers. Its two arguments specify the range.
Antoine and Fergus: Thank you for the dice/random related comments. I cut and pasted cde from Vegas Fun Chess and tried to edit it. The Goal is this: 1) Player # 1 moves. 2) 1st Dice rolls a letter 'CDEFG or H' 2nd Dice rolls a number '34567 or 8' (Combined, these indicate a board coordinate like F6, where a piece or pawn, if present, gets removed from) 3) Player # 2 moves 4) Action 2 repeats So, these are post-auto move actions, instead of pre-auto move actions, as in Vegas Fun Chess. I imagine it is a simple thing.... but I've been playing around and keep getting error codes. On the last attempt I tried adding some quotation marks at the front and back of the dice possibilities... but still no go. If easier, I could use one 36-side dice... but the two will work if coded right. Here is my latest error. Fergus and/or Antoine, if you know what I should do to fix this I'd be much obliged. ERROR IS AS FOLLOWS: on line 1 ['CDEFGH']-Dice7 is not a valid expression, because ['CDEFGH']-Dice7 is not a recognized piece, coordinate, command, or subroutine. For the sake of debugging, here is the full GAME Code program that this error occurred in. The lines have been properly indented to help you spot scope errors. 0 sub postauto1 1 ['CDEFGH']-Dice7 2 ['345678']-Dice5 3 endsub 4 sub postauto2 5 ['CDEFGH']-Dice7 6 ['345678']-Dice5 7 endsub 8 moveindex 0 9 f2-f4 10 postauto1 11 end The game in question is located here: http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DBermudaChessAngle%26settings%3DBermuda Thank you...
Here's what should work:
Place this line in each post-move section:
set BCAF or (>= rank dest 2 and <= rank dest 7 and >= file dest 2 and file
dest 7) (>= rank origin 2 and <= rank origin 7 and >= file origin 2 and
file origin 7);
Place these lines in each pre-move section:
if #BCAF:
set BCAF join chr + ord c rand 0 5 rand 3 8;
capture #BCAF;
endif;
It is important that the actual capture occur in the pre-move section, so
that a player will not know which space a piece will vanish from until he
has verified his move. Note that I recycled the BCAF variable for two
different purposes.
Fergus, thank you very much for the code. The Bermuda Chess Angle is now
functioning, and I witnessed 3 pieces disapearring in my partial test
game. But I think it is functioning at 1/6th power. Here is why.
While I earlier had commented that a piece would disapear when on the
random coordinate, such as 'F6' I was expecing F and 6 to show up in the
two dice indicators. But the game currently has no code for visible dice
values. If dice could be seen [after a move was verified], then I
expected that the second player would manually delete the affected piece.
But it goes beyond having a piece actually residing on the affected square,
for if a piece passes through the square it also disappears (i.e., not just
when it lands there or is already at rest there). That is why I pictured
visual dice and manual removal.
However, your code method is far superior! Far superior because the piece
automatically disappears if on the random coordinates. [Though not if it
passes over - or maybe it does... I don't know.] I can't tell from the
following:
set BCAF or (>= rank dest 2 and <= rank dest 7 and >= file dest 2 and
file
dest 7) (>= rank origin 2 and <= rank origin 7 and >= file origin 2 and
file origin 7);
and the pre-move's code of:
if #BCAF:
set BCAF join chr + ord c rand 0 5 rand 3 8;
capture #BCAF;
endif;
Anyway, thanks for the excellent code you've provided and if you know
what it would take to get the Bermuda Chess Angle up to 100%
functionality, again it would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely, clueless and codeless Gary
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