Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
Ben Reiniger wrote on 2023-04-22 UTCI wanted something specific to capturable, immobile, neutral obstacles, but indeed, each of those adjectives can be left off for a different flavor of object (and probably there are other relevant adjectives to consider). In Eight Stone, I think of the stones as pieces rather than other objects, but I'm not sure if there's a clear line to draw.
How about obstacles? It would also cover a game like Eight-Stone Chess.
Ben Reiniger wrote on 2023-04-22 UTCI was going to mention Ice Age and Rubble, but I see Gilman pointed those out years ago. I think a tag for this mechanism would be nice, but I'm not sure what to call it; "blocks" as in this page to me sound more like an uncapturable terrain and "ice" as in Ice Age is too specific to that variant. "Rubble" seems a good fit to me (capturing is "clearing the rubble"), but does anybody else have a better suggestion?
Ludii identifies a different game by the name Breakthrough Chess.
Can I assume that knights are unaffected by the blocks, as a piece can stay on the block it captures? Not that I have a problem with this, but it would make knights extremely useful in the opening as they already are, correct?
(no rating yet as I have not yet tried this variant)
Joe Joyce wrote on 2007-05-20 UTCOnce again the Muse of Redundancy, goddess of second-hand ideas, has struck: /play/pbm/play.php?game%3DJungles+and+Mountains+Chess%26settings%3DJPG-juxta
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Whether capturable or mobile, obstacles should be thought of as neutral pieces that do not capture. If they are neither capturable nor mobile, then they are just features of the terrain like holes in the board and shouldn't properly be thought of as obstacles. If they can be moved by only one player and not the other, they would count as part of that player's forces rather than as obstacles. Likewise, if they could be captured by only one player, they could be considered part of the other player's forces in some sense. If they could capture other pieces, they would be equal-opportunity weapons rather than mere obstacles. So, to count as obstacles, they would have to be neutral non-capturing pieces that are either capturable by either player or movable by either player.