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Critter Mate Chess. Minichess, but the king has a magical familiar. (6x6, Cells: 36) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Florin Lupusoru wrote on Fri, Mar 1, 2024 12:38 PM UTC:

Great games are made of simple rules. But you should have chosen a better name.

💡📝Ilya Yudovski wrote on Fri, Mar 1, 2024 12:51 PM UTC in reply to Florin Lupusoru from 12:38 PM:

Thank you, I know, the name "familiar" is a little misleading, but it's the best I've come up with for now. I'm definitely open to suggestions =)

Florin Lupusoru wrote on Fri, Mar 1, 2024 01:31 PM UTC in reply to Ilya Yudovski from 12:51 PM:

What about "Hybrid Chess", or "Hybrid Minichess"?

Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Fri, Mar 1, 2024 01:58 PM UTC:

Interesting. Few friendly comments and suggestions.

Name: as it is based on a (rare) 6x6 board, I was thinking to ... sanskrit, as we had Ashtapada and Dashtapada for 8x8 and 10x10 in old Indian texts, why not a Shatpada, shat meaning 6.

Familiar is strange because those added pieces are not at all familiar.

Pieces: for sake of consistency, I regret that the Hound and the Wild Cat are not able to leap when moving as non-Knight. I mean, now we have Hound=W2N and W.Cat=F2N. However Corvus may leap and is WAN. Have you thought of having Hound=WDN and W.Cat=FAN so they would leap to the 2nd square as well?

One more piece could be then added is FND (moving 1-diag or leaping 2 orth or as Knight)

Name of pieces: Corvus and FND are never used in chess variants or I missed it (which is possible).

KAD (your Hippogryph) is better known as Mammoth. It is also found as Mastodon, Pasha, Squire. Too bad to invent a new name if not really needed.

ADN (your J.Crocodile) is MUCH better known as Squirrel. Also found as Bear (in Russian Bear Chess) or Castle. Again too bad to invent a new name if not needed.

If you change Hound and W. Cat, WDN and FAN have been used as Minister and High Priestess. However those 2 were for a specific game, I would prefer your names here. THose pieces are not often used anyway.

Thank you

Kevin Pacey wrote on Fri, Mar 1, 2024 02:12 PM UTC in reply to Florin Lupusoru from 01:31 PM:

I already have a 'Hybrid Chess' invention, on a 'Private' Rules Page. This may show a more general problem with having it Private, if it does not 'count' as a taken name in the database yet, and/or no one else but editors can see it.

A separate, longstanding, possible issue, almost, is that a CVP member can make a [preliminary] settings file with a name for a CV chosen, and it doesn't yet count as a name for a CV in the database.

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Hybrid+Chess&settings=enforced

💡📝Ilya Yudovski wrote on Fri, Mar 1, 2024 06:42 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 01:58 PM:

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!

💡📝Ilya Yudovski wrote on Sat, Mar 2, 2024 10:28 AM UTC:

(Oh lord, why is naming so hard?)

After some research with google, thesaurus, and chatGPT, the name was changed to "Critter Mate Chess". Some changes to fairy piece descriptions were made (Jean-Louis Cazaux - thank you for the advice) Lastly, I've added .stl files for self-print.

I think the current edition is ready for publication - for the consideration of the editorial team.

🔔Notification on Sun, Mar 16 07:53 PM UTC:

The author, Ilya Yudovski, has updated this page.

💡📝Ilya Yudovski wrote on Thu, Apr 10 11:51 PM UTC:

This page of mine is ready for publication for the following reasons:

The rules are clear, unambiguous, and easy-to-understand.
The rules are comprehensive.
There is a locally-hosted setup image, or the setup is the same as Chess.
Locally-hosted images are being used for pieces, or only Chess pieces are being used.
No code on the page is broken, or it has no code.