Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

That's a possibility, if I can find a way to differentiate the piece from the regular Turtle (the move for which I still need to edit).

How about Three-Toed Box Turtle?

293. Three-Toed Sloth. As of this writing, fellow CVP user Bn Em has found the piece that would take the longest to force checkmate against a bare King, with only a King's help, and after looking at a diagram of its move I decided that it deserved a name, and probably some use in a game somewhere.

The choice of move is quite complex: it moves one step directly forward, or diagonally backward and to the right; or leaps two spaces diagonally forward and to the right, or backward and to the left; or leaps two spaces forward and one to the left; or makes one or two leaps of two spaces directly forward. (fWbrFfD2lfNfrblA)

Extra points (and, of course, due credit) to whomever can come up with a good name for fWblFfD2rfNflbrA (to go with this piece the way I created the Purple Finch to go with Adrian King's Blue Gecko). I think they'd be a fun addition to my Kagamigi games.

That's a rather fearsome-looking sloth, and probably needs a bit of reworking; I only just modeled it yesterday, and arguably didn't give it the time it needed (and that I normally give a piece like this) to really look right.

291. Señora (Argentinian Queen) and 292. Saltador (Argentinian Knight). I actually was getting something else ready for this weekend, and then realized that I'd already uploaded another version of it, so here are two pieces that go with the Faro and Loco from two weekends ago.

To refresh, the Argentinian sliders capture like the conventional pieces, but must jump over another piece in order to move without capture. The Faro (Rook) does this orthogonally and the Loco (Bishop) does it diagonally, so naturally the Señora (Queen) does both. (cQmpQ)

The Saltador (Knight) is a slightly different story. It moves like a normal Knight, particularly when capturing, but can only move without capturing if at least one of the two spaces it's jumping past has a piece in it. (cnNpafsmK)

The Saltador looks a little weird, but then again most of my "enhanced Knight" pieces look weird because the enhancements are meant for symmetrical pieces, which Knights are not.

In other news, I'm told that the problem I was having with Thingiverse's editor has been patched up as of last Tuesday. I haven't tested it out yet; I probably will do so over the weekend.

290. Threeleaper. This piece is one that I had assumed was purely a problemist's piece (or a piece used only as part of a compound, such as the Frog) until I learned that it apparently is used in a version of Tamerlane. Said version isn't on this site, so I don't know how well it works in practice, but given that it can only reach about 11% of the squares on a board (at most) it's probably not impressive.

Its move is simple: it leaps three squares orthogonally. (H)

Like I say, it can have some value; just not a lot. (Still, I was surprised when I found that I hadn't already posted it.)

Such a straightforward piece deserves a straightforward model. (And of course you can easily imagine what the Fourleaper and Fiveleaper would look like!)

I do have my issue at Thingiverse reported, and the staff moderator has been able to duplicate my problem; so while I'm waiting for the dev staff to fix it, I might as well post a bit of a something to keep the PotD slots filled.

284-289. The Orthodox Pieces (King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn). While they're not really fairy chess pieces on their own, they do appear in a majority of chess variants, and I do have models of them in a single set. I don't think I need to identify any of them or discuss their moves.

Now, however long the team at Thingiverse takes, at least I won't (necessarily) have to worry about it before Friday. :)

283. General. There have been many pieces called simply "General" over the years, not even considering those in Shogi and elsewhere that have adjectives and other modifiers in their names. This version, the one that I prefer to use, was created by Guiseppi Ciccolini in 1820 for his version of chess. It slides diagonally like a Bishop, or orthogonally an even number of spaces like a lame Dabbabarider. (BnDD)

István Paulovits also created his own General in 1820, which moves as Mann or Camel (KC); I'll address that one at a later date.

The model is based on a bit of 2D art that someone did for what a Gold or Silver General from Shogi would look like as a chess piece. Looking at it now, I think the center strut probably should be thickened (both for sturdiness and to better match the illustration).

282. Sandworm. This spawned from a recent comment on this list, like a throwaway line in a movie that becomes a classic.* This is inspired by the creatures from well-known desert planets in the Star Wars and Dune franchises (Tattooine and Arrakis, respectively), but it's not the full-sized version (which probably would be something to go into a four-square space, though with rather similar moves). This can be thought of as a "Juvenile Sandworm."

A main feature of the fictional sandworms is that they burrow underground, so as a piece the Sandworm simulates that by jumping others. At its basic, it slides in any radial direction, like a Queen. In the interest of game balance, I limit that to two pieces that it can burrow under, though in games with particularly large armies that may increase. If there are no pieces to burrow under and the Sandworm moves no more than 4 spaces to capture, it may continue to capture another piece in the next square. ((paf)2QcyafQ4)

In this (hopefully not overly confusing) diagram, the White Sandworm is able to capture any of the Black pices on the board. The only two that it can capture in a single move, however, are the Knight (i9) and Queen (j10), since the Knight is only 3 spaces away, the Queen is in the next adjacent space, and there are no intervening obstacles.

I probably could've posted this much earlier, but (aside from the previously-mentioned issues at Thingiverse) the shape kept coming out so that Thingiverse's sample-graphic (above) made it look like... well, something that probably shouldn't be shown on this site. It still kinda does, but I think it reads OK. (I might see about making the teeth large enough to be visible in the image.)

*It's even happened to my own comments, at the Super-Team Family: the Lost Issues blog. I was only kidding when I mentioned Snow White and the Seven Soldiers of Victory -- which became my first idea to be published there -- and my remark about Bugs Bunny vs. Doctor Doom was supposed to be an example of things we probably wouldn't see done!

An army with your pieces. What'd you call this army?

If it's a CwDA set, probably "Mad Movers."

By the way, Chinoise Rose in problemist language is called Rao.

I should've suspected that it would be something that rhymed with the others.

An army with your pieces. What'd you call this army? Greenwade Gravels?

By the way, Chinoise Rose in problemist language is called Rao.

I still have Astra (Rosetta) on your queue, but also I’ve recently created Astromech (even squares diagonally or odd ones orthogonally, AA[W?DD]). Try to guess who is Astromech)

The issues that the Tinkercad website is having recently may lead me to take a break after this weekend. Since the problem mainly affects new uploads, I may continue for a short while, but otherwise I'll just wait for the problem to be fixed.

I had already planned on only going to #366 (I'm running out of possible pieces to post), posting only occasionally afterward for extensions of sets, missed rotary counterparts, special requests, new discoveries, and so forth. I also had planned, if I hadn't done this already by then, to take the time to create an index of sorts that I could post as an article.

281. Mei (Chinese Rose / Rao). If a Nao is a Chinese Nightrider, then could there be a Chinese Rose? Well, of course there could! Like the Nao, the Mei (the best translation into Chinese for the word "rose" that I could find*) moves without capture normally, but must jump over a hurdle to capture. It's just that the Mei moves like a Rose. (mqNcqpN)

I don't think a move diagram is needed in this case, since most of us here knows how the Rose moves. I can vouch that the above XBetza does work; I tried it out in the XBetza Sandbox, and it behaves just as intended.

As I was informed in a later reply, this piece is called a Rao by chess problemists.

Creating this led me to discover some serious design flaws with my original Rose piece, which I've now corrected on my own system and will upload some time soon (Thingiverse is still having problems.)

*I have no doubt -- and, in fact, much hope -- that someone well-versed in the language will correct me if I got it wrong.

Thanks for the catch. I only just recently realized my error there. I'll go fix that, both here and in my games where it appears, today and tomorrow.

Demiurge Turtle is mScK4 since it's based on Mock Turtle from Jupiter.

280. Yak. No, this isn't another Tifinagh piece*; this is named for the animal.

It simply occurred to me recently that particularly large boards could use a piece that's the equivalent of a Buffalo (NCZ), extending one space further. I considered naming it for a pouncing predator, but besides most such creatures being already taken, it didn't seem to fit the established pattern. This piece combines the leaps of the Knight (horse), Camel, Zebra, Giraffe, and Antelope, and also includes many compound ungulates (Gnu, Bison, Okapi, Buffalo, and so forth), so an ungulate seemed fitting. After a little bit of research, the animal that stood out was the Yak. (NCZFXNY)

I deliberately excluded the (4,2) leap of the Hare/Stag/Lancer since it's just an extension of the Knight move; pieces that add the DY or N2 can be considered separately. As it is already, it can be a formidable and versatile piece.

*The two forms of the letter yak are ⴽ and (in Tuareg) ⴾ, neither of which (in my opinion) make particularly good chess pieces -- at least, not without some sort of mirror image.

That's one take, though the larger sandworm like that is one that I'd want to represent with a giant piece (one that takes up more than one square), something that isn't implemented in XBetza, and probably -- probably -- never will be. In any event, removing adjacent pieces upon capture of a central one will probably have to wait until HG can program in the semicolons for bracket notation.

I have something a little different in mind for something more man-sized. I'm not sure yet whether it'll be today's PotD, or tomorrow's...

@Bob: Yes. I imagine a piece that can land on a friendly piece and immediatly kills (removes) that piece and all pieces in the 8 squares around, friend or enemy.

It is possible to capture an enemy sandworm. It is possible to move to an adjacent square to a sandworm, friend or enemy. The sandworm capture adjacent pieces only when it moves.

Has anyone besides me even used this piece?

Now that I have a name for it, I intend to. In fact, I've already added it to the piece list for my all-Dragon game.

Has anyone besides me even used this piece? It seems strange to say it's generally known as anything. A less overused alternative could be Salamander, although that does seem to be used in Typhoon for KmyadabuQ4. Striped Dragon sounds like a decent solution.

A Sandworm might make an interesting piece.

It reminds me of the sandworm of Dune. Well, if it was a sandworm it would have a larger diameter, which a could be a good idea because in reality I would fear this piece breaks too easily.

279. Striped Dragon. I was trying a couple of months ago to figure out a good counterpart for the Tiger, but all anyone could offer as a name was Dragon, which I'm reluctant to use because there are so many Dragons running around the site (I even have some work done on a variant featuring every one I could find). So, I waited until something presented itself; and finally, a few days ago, it occurred to me that if it's related to the Tiger, maybe this Dragon is striped. So, while it's generally known as just Dragon, I decided to call it Striped Dragon.

The move is simple: the Striped Dragon makes a (2,3) leap like a Zebra, then may slide from there orthogonally outward like a Rook. ([Z?R])

And so now we have a pair.

Despite the lack of wings, I think this piece looks quite draconian.