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Comments by TonyQuintanilla

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General Comments Page. Page for making general comments.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Tue, Apr 2, 2002 09:53 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
David, Peter, great idea! This makes it easy to comment, is practical, timely, and should have a wide audience.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Wed, Apr 3, 2002 04:55 AM UTC:
David, will this page be linked to the side bar somehow? That would help in the future when it is not longer the new item in the Feedback page.

Chaturanga 4-84. An Updating of Chaturanga for Four Players with modern pieces and an 84-square board. (10x10, Cells: 84) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Wed, Apr 3, 2002 05:09 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very nice game. It is highly playable. Very enjoyable. The double teams
interact in a cooperative way. The board is interesting to play on,
especially with the center squares which change your piece types.
   Although the game harkens back to Chaturanga, even the 4-player version
of Chaturanga, and other 4-player games, there is a lot on ingenuity here.
The idea of changing piece type in the center adds some of the ancient
flavor too. The double team environment in-itself adds a new element in
many ways.
   The rules are simple to grasp. Traditional chess moves are used, along
with the ancient moves in the center. The center, of course, alludes to the
traditional struggle in chess to capture the center.
The game is very nice. By that I mean that it is graceful and evocative.
   Nice game. Try it!

Full Double Chess. 32 pieces each, including all combinations of the basic Chess pieces, on a 16x8 square board. (16x8, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Thu, Apr 18, 2002 05:36 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Interesting game. The wide board creates both tactical and strategic situations that are 'regional'. The doubled King adds a certain element of interest. The strong pieces promote tactics. However, they do not overwhelm the game because the large board still allows for strategic maneuvers. <p> I'm sure interesting sub-variants could be created with different setups or different mix of pieces. One possible issue, though, is that the overall evolution of the game may move more quickly than players are able to develop their pieces, thus leading to a certain amount of attrition-type of play, more tactics and less strategy. But I am not sure that this overwhelms the game. It seems playable. Regarding some of the debate about faerie pieces versus traditional pieces, I personally tend to design games with traditional pieces because usually I am more interested in the game system than the pieces themselves. However, I have played many variants with interesting faerie pieces. The movement of the pieces is an appealing element in itself. In this game they work quite well. And, actually, the mix here is not all that exotic-- as variants go. Check-out Mulligan-Stew Chess <a href="../42.dir/mulligan-stew.html">Mulligan Stew Chess</a> for an example of faerie pieces gone a-muck, but in a very playable and interesting game--with double Kings, by the way!

ZoG world view[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Apr 29, 2002 04:23 AM UTC:
I usually think of the game first and then try the Zillions implementation.
The result is, sometimes, that the Zillions implementation is unwieldy. It
is true, though, that some I have not even tried to implement. 

There is a great alternative, and that is our very own (thanks to Fergus)
play-by-e-mail system which is available to any square or hex board design,
requiring enforcement of the rules by the players--like a table-top chess
set. 

As far as 'mentally' creating games. Yes, when the game idea is very
interesting, I find myself mulling over it and the game design works itself
out conceptually--to a large degree, however, not completely. There are
some details of playability that only work themselves out in playtesting.


Zillions is a great way to work out the playability of a game, at least as
a first step. One pitfall that Zillions has is that the farther a game is
from orthochess the poorer the Zillions engine plays the game. Some games,
it plays very poorly, some in a skewed way, some extremely well.
Ultimately, play against a person is best for testing. 

If one is interested in play by e-mail, a Zillions implementation can be as
basic as a board and pieces that can move on it, without full rules
enforcement--this liberates many of the programming restrictions--since it
does not matter how well Zillions itself plays the game.

Back to the orginal question: I have found that in some practical ways,
Zillions does 'suggest' the development of a game because of the
programming practicalities. But I would not say that it inhibits ideas
altogether. There is one game I would like to try but have not found a way
to play by e-mail: Star Trek 3-D Chess (the 'real' one with the shifting
boards!) Any ideas?

Anti-King Chess. Each player has both a King and an Anti-King to protect; Anti-Kings are in check when not attacked. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Jun 2, 2002 03:16 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Nice game. Getting accustomed to the Anti-King's role takes a little unlearning. Its much easier to keep thinking about checkmating or protecting the King. Isolating or keeping one's Anti-King under 'attack' takes more thought. At the begining of the game, one can get lulled into complacency. The end game certainly gets interesting as it gets harder to keep one's Anti-King under attack. The very effort to checkmate the opposing King works against one's Anti-King. Which will happen first? In a way, its a race to the finish.

Chess Variant Set Construction. Describes a chess variant set made with ceramic tiles and wooden cubes.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Jun 2, 2002 08:07 PM UTC:
John, Tomas, thanks for the kind comments. I really enjoyed making the set and mulling over different ideas as I worked on the set.

Chess with Different Armies. Betza's classic variant where white and black play with different sets of pieces. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Tue, Jun 4, 2002 10:12 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Chess with Different Armies is certainly a very enjoyable set of games. I
particularly liked playing the Remarkable Rookies, perhaps because of their
mutually supportive and jumping capabilities. On the other hand, I had a
much more difficult time with the Colorbound Clobberers. Before I knew it,
I had trapped myself in an off-balance position. 

The overall idea of CWDA is very clever. The idea of balanced, yet
different, armies should see more use in Chess variants development. But,
as remarked by Ralph, this is not so simple and takes quite a bit of work.
On the other hand, it has endless possibilities with a simple theme. One
thought, would it be possible for players to 'assemble' an army from
'equivalent' sets?

Something else, there is a playful character to the armies, which is a nice
touch.

Chess Variant Set Construction. Describes a chess variant set made with ceramic tiles and wooden cubes.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sat, Jun 8, 2002 03:55 AM UTC:
Peter, thanks! I would really like to hear about how your set turns out.

Index page of The Chess Variant Pages. Our main index page.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Jun 9, 2002 03:52 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
A link to the Graphics directory http://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/index.html would be helpful. It's hard to find it, otherwise. Thanks.

Shatranj ZIP file. Version with fancy graphics.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Thu, Jun 20, 2002 02:34 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
David: I really like the piece graphics, particularly the Chariot. The traditional Rook image is great, but its not a Chariot! The Elephant is neat too! The Ferz image is very nice. My only question: how about taking the transformation of these images to the next step by changing the King?!The background image is interesting, but I prefer the plain board. Same for Chaturanga.

Alpha Variant Font. More Alfaerie graphics, plus a preview of the new Alpha Variant font.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sat, Jun 22, 2002 05:35 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
A great addition to an already excellent graphics collection. For me, the Alfaerie set is quickly becoming the set of choice for Zillions Chess variants implementations. The nice thing about it is that its ever expandable, and the graphics are simple and appealing.

Chess Rules for Kids. An illustrated guide to the rules of chess for children.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Wed, Jul 10, 2002 03:35 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I think that this page will appeal to kids. Its clear, illustrated with both graphics and animation, and well organized.

Feeble Chess to Weakest Chess. Some Chess variants with weaker pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Jul 15, 2002 04:53 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very interesting game. I hope to try it out soon. The idea that assuming a
capturing posture is in effect part of the movement of a piece is
fascinating. 

A suggestion for a table-set: for a capturing posture, place the piece
slightly over the edge of the square towards which it is oriented. For
orientation of a piece, locate the piece just within the edge of the
square towards which it is oriented.

Regarding Ralph's aspirations to create a Chess variant that feels like
Go, one that is primarily intuitive, that would be great--although I
cannot claim to understand master level Chess thought. Kids play
intuitively, until they get 'spoiled' by reading Chess books! Intuitive
play is definitely more fun. I read that Capablanca played intuitively (I
guess he could get away with it because he was so brilliant), but that was
part of his downfall when he encountered players that studied a great
deal. In fact, part of the appeal of Chess variants is that they keep us
guessing. I have to say, though, that Zillions spoils the fun a little by
making it quite easy to study new games.

Hexagonal Chess Set. Home made set of Glinski's Hexagonal Chess.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Jul 29, 2002 01:21 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Very nice!

Contest to design a chess variant on a board with 42 squares. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Jul 29, 2002 01:25 AM UTC:
Thanks primarily to Peter, yes, we have ZRFs or ZRF game editors for all the games!

84 Spaces Contest. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Aug 4, 2002 11:12 PM UTC:
Would it be possible to extend the submission deadline?

PBEM Tournament[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Wed, Aug 21, 2002 04:03 AM UTC:
Wonderful idea! As far as the timing, either the 3 days per move or the
total day limit idea would work, I think. Total days used could be tracked
manually with each PBEM exchange. As far as a list of games, here's some
ideas:
- Chaturanga (worthy grandad of Chess)
- Jumping Chess (interesting capturing mechanic)
- Glinski's Hexagonal Chess (hex mechanics)
- Makruk (wonderful old and contemporary variant)
- Take Over Chess (I'm partial to it!)
- Chess on a Longer Board (its that Wall)
- Xiangqi (another worthy variant)
- Mulligan Stew Chess (crazy but fun)

Alfaerie Expansion Set 3. More chess variant graphics based on the Alpha chess font.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sat, Sep 7, 2002 05:07 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Another excellent addition to the Alfaerie set!

Index page of The Chess Variant Pages. Our main index page.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sat, Sep 7, 2002 05:10 AM UTC:
Could I suggest a link to past, present, (and future) tournaments either on the index page or the side bar? Thanks.

Multivariant Tournament 2003. 2003 Multivariant PBEM tournament headquarters page.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Sep 8, 2002 09:18 PM UTC:
I agree with Glenn's proposed time structure. I also agree that re-voting on a select subset of games (including the most requested write-in games) would add more focus to the set of games chosen. The idea of using only games voted for by players is also a good idea. I would also support not worrying about size too much. I bet that the tourney will proceed faster than anticipated--especially if the most-favored games are being played! Thanks to Glenn for all his work!

Anniversary[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Tue, Sep 10, 2002 09:06 PM UTC:
I would suggest that with the anniversary of 9-11 tomorrow that--although
perhaps in a small way--Chess is a point of sanity in this world, a world
much in need of this. Remember the candle?

Separate Realms. Pieces capture like normal FIDE pieces, but have limited moves that only take them to part of the board when not capturing. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Fri, Sep 13, 2002 05:02 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Nice game. One minor thought: the King is substantially weakened by the restriction against moving orthogonally without capture--in cases where it is threatened this can be fatal. Note that the capturing moves of all the pieces are standard, so the King is at a net disadvantage relative to FIDE chess.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Fri, Sep 13, 2002 01:05 PM UTC:
That's an idea. By the way, I have played the game. It flows nicely and is quite interesting. Thanks.

84 Spaces Contest. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Fri, Sep 27, 2002 05:14 PM UTC:
I'm in Chicago.

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