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Alice Chess ZRF

. New Alice Chess ZRF plays Alice Chess on two boards.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Fri, Sep 22, 2006 01:09 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

wow, this zrf is just fantastic, congrats Fergus, so good to play Alice on
two boards the way you have done it (seeing move on brd 1 and auto -> to
brd 2). Also, the options you give for play, with armies on different
boards and zero move. I know sometimes people may think i 'over praise'
games, but stuff it, i can't help it if i love chess variants and am
excited about them lol. i'm like that movie rater in US that rates most
movies highly, he says he can't help it, he loves movies!
So, this zrf is like an 'event' in the history of Alice Chess and chess
variants itself :)

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Oct 6, 2004 11:44 PM UTC:

I've just uploaded the fourth revision. This one doesn't fix any bugs or change how anything works. It adds some variants with clear boards for doing problems in Alice Chess or Ms. Alice Chess. It also includes some ZSG files of all the Alice Chess games described in Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants and our own Alice Chess page. This ZRF handled them all without a hitch.

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Wed, Oct 6, 2004 11:02 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Good work, Fergus!. I tried it briefly, and I have not seen bugs yet.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Oct 6, 2004 03:58 PM UTC:

I've now uploaded the third revision. It works the same as the second revision, but it includes some macros for making the movement definitions shorter and easier to read. So far, it seems to be bug-free. Let me know if you spot any bugs in this one.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Oct 6, 2004 03:58 AM UTC:

When I unzipped the same zip file to another computer, I got the same
problem Roberto described. Since I started revising it, I haven't checked
back whether the same thing would happen on this computer. Prior to
creating the zip file, it had been working. Anyway, I have now uploaded a
new revision. I called it the third revision in the ZRF. Someone on
Andromeda said, 'There are three kinds of people in the universe: Those
who can count and those who can't.' It's actually the second revision,
since the original version doesn't count as a revision. I'm tired, which
is why I'm releasing this version now instead of continuing to test it.
I'll check if there are any bug reports in the morning.

It occurred to me that the previous version might not let pieces move from
the board opposite to the King's to block a check. So I checked for this,
and the bug did indeed exist. Shortly after I began implementing the
solution, I realized that what I was doing could be applied to the whole
ZRF to eliminate the need for add-partial moves. So I rewrote how
everything works. This new revision still has a piece moving from one
space to another on the same board. But instead of having you move the
piece to the other board with an add-partial move, it automatically
transports the piece to the other board. This makes it work more like the
Game Courier preset I wrote. I have spent some time testing and debugging
this, but it is now time for me to sleep.

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Tue, Oct 5, 2004 10:32 PM UTC:

I have downloaded the new Alice ZRF, but it does not run in my computer. It is showed an error message when loading. I have only seen the images using an images editor. Nice!.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Oct 5, 2004 03:42 PM UTC:

I just fixed a bug in this ZRF and uploaded a new version. The bug showed up in a game that Antoine Fourriere sent me. At one point in the game, Black had checkmated White, but the game continued anyway. White's next move was to block the Black Queen's check by moving a Pawn. But this move should have been illegal, because the Pawn was supposed to move to the other board after temporarily occupying the space it would need to occupy to block the check. Instead, Zillions let it stop there without moving to the other board. To fix this bug, I gave all pieces but the King an invisible? attribute. Except for King moves and castling, any piece that moved would have this attribute set to true on completing the first part of its move, and it would have it set back to false on moving to the other board. I then allowed Rooks, Bishops, and Queens to treat spaces with invisible pieces the same as empty spaces. This removed a piece's ability to block checks on the board it is moving from, forcing such moves to be illegal from the start. After this, Antoine's game concluded in checkmate at the point it should have.

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