242. Left Rotor and 243. Right Rotor. This weekend's matched pair came as an admittedly quite strange inspiration. Each is a divergent Nightrider/Rose combination, but how they move depends on whether the initial Knight move goes to the left of the orthogonal, or the right.
In the case of the Left Rotor, the move to the left of the orthogonal gives the piece a Nightrider move, while moving to the right gives a Rose's move -- but only counterclockwise. (hlNNhr(afl)N)
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Right Rotor moves like a Nightrider if it starts to the right of the orthogonals, but like a Rose if it starts to the left, but only clockwise. (hrNNhl(afl)N)
Originally I was calling them the Left Finger and Right Finger, because if you take the Rose and Nightrider moves that pass through the same space (Nightrider outgoing, Rose incoming) they look like a little like a hand with a pointing finger. Even so, I think they'd work well with a Left Rotor on the left side of a setup and a Right Rotor on the right.
As presented, the Rose move allows the piece to return to its origin point (if the seven intervening squares are all empty), effectively allowing a "null move." If you don't like this, just put a 6 (or even a 5) after the (afl) part of the move.
Of course, there are many possible variations on this idea, perhaps the most obvious being reversing the direction of the Rose moves (using (afr) instead of (afl)). Other possibilities include replacing one side or the other with a Quintessence ((al) or (ar)) or Worsen ((abl) or (abr)), only using left or right as the starting move, using a Zebra for one or both sides, and more.
And with the Right Rotor you can now see the inside of my Rose model, and I'm still conflicted about whether to fill in that top. Doing it and leaving it as-is both have their arguments in favor.
242. Left Rotor and 243. Right Rotor. This weekend's matched pair came as an admittedly quite strange inspiration. Each is a divergent Nightrider/Rose combination, but how they move depends on whether the initial Knight move goes to the left of the orthogonal, or the right.
In the case of the Left Rotor, the move to the left of the orthogonal gives the piece a Nightrider move, while moving to the right gives a Rose's move -- but only counterclockwise. (hlNNhr(afl)N)
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Right Rotor moves like a Nightrider if it starts to the right of the orthogonals, but like a Rose if it starts to the left, but only clockwise. (hrNNhl(afl)N)
Originally I was calling them the Left Finger and Right Finger, because if you take the Rose and Nightrider moves that pass through the same space (Nightrider outgoing, Rose incoming) they look like a little like a hand with a pointing finger. Even so, I think they'd work well with a Left Rotor on the left side of a setup and a Right Rotor on the right.
As presented, the Rose move allows the piece to return to its origin point (if the seven intervening squares are all empty), effectively allowing a "null move." If you don't like this, just put a 6 (or even a 5) after the (afl) part of the move.
Of course, there are many possible variations on this idea, perhaps the most obvious being reversing the direction of the Rose moves (using (afr) instead of (afl)). Other possibilities include replacing one side or the other with a Quintessence ((al) or (ar)) or Worsen ((abl) or (abr)), only using left or right as the starting move, using a Zebra for one or both sides, and more.
And with the Right Rotor you can now see the inside of my Rose model, and I'm still conflicted about whether to fill in that top. Doing it and leaving it as-is both have their arguments in favor.