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Daniel Hancock wrote on Thu, Aug 3, 2023 07:13 PM UTC:

Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place, I didn't know where else to post about this. I've recently finished (or at least almost) a chess variant that I've created, (I have had other ideas in the past and some I might figure out in the future) my problem is how to test it? I don't know enough about there various programs (like Zillions of games), I don't know their capabilities, limitations etc (I've only foumd brief info on that) so I'm not sure if my game could be made with any, also I do have a little coding knowledge, but not sure of it's enough. The main issue is whether or not it's worth investing in one or more programs if they're going to be useless for me and I don't think it's a good idea to submit without testing it first. So I feel like I've hit a brick wall.


H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Aug 3, 2023 09:52 PM UTC in reply to Daniel Hancock from 07:13 PM:

It all depends on how exotic the rules for your variant are. If these are not too unusual, you could create an Interactive Diagram for it.

Without having any clue about what your variant is like, it will be hard to give sensible advice. Is it 2- or 3-dimensional? Are the cells square, hexagonal or irregular? What is the shape of the board, and how many cells does it have? Do pieces move regularly from one cell to the other, replacing what was in the latter, in a way that only depends on their type, or do they exert all kind of side effects on each other? Is there a single royal piece that you have to checkmate to win? Etc....


Daniel Hancock wrote on Sun, Aug 20, 2023 11:20 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Thu Aug 3 09:52 PM:

Sorry for no replying sooner, basically a brief description of what may be the problem rules (btw this the entire rules)

It's a 16x16 board with two types of terrain (water and land) and each player has 3 sets of 16 pieces (the 16 standard pieces) 1 set is land-based (only moves on land and only pieces on land can block them) 1 set is water-based (similar to land but on the water terrain) and hybrid (can go over both within certain rules

Pieces move the same as regular chess, but with the rules altered according to the terrain.

To describe the terrain, (using the a to p along he bottom, from left to right for the files and 1 to 16 along the side, from bottom to top)

ranks 1, 4, 7. 10, 13, 16 are water channels (meaning all squares are water files a, d, g, j, m and p are water channels

the other ranks and files consist of water, land, land, water, land, land etc (ending with water) so there are 25 islands (5x5 array) with 4 squares per island (2x2)

Also intersections (where to channels overlap) have a different colour scheme other water squares

To move a piece 1 space orthogonally it either moves 1 square (if the next square is the same terrain) 2 squares (for land pieces jumping over a channel) or 3 squares (for water pieces jumping over land)

To move a piece diagonally you move 1 "space" orthogally in one direction (horizontally or vertically) and 1 "space" the other way (acting like a leaper)

for water there are 8 directions, to combat this I invented right-screw, left-screw (this also applies to the knight since it would have 16 moves)

basically 1 player moves "Right then Up", "Up then left", "Down then Right" and "Left then Down" (this is right-screw) swap these over for left-screw (the other player)

So on the land square h11 the 4 orthogonal moves that 1 "space" are to f11, i11, h12 and h9.

On the water square m10 (intersection) the 4 orthogonal moves that 1 "space" are m11, m9, l10 and n10

On the water square g5 (non-intersection) the 4 orthogonal moves that are 1 "space" are d5, j5, g4 and g6

On the land square h11 the diagonal moves that 1 "space" are f12, i12, f19, i9

On the water square m10 (intersection) the 4 diangonal moves, right-screw, 1 "space" are n13, p9, l7 and j11. Left-screw are l13, j9, n7 and p11

on the water square g5 (non-intersection) the 2 diagonal moves, only right screw are d4 and h4 and only left screw are f4 and j4, the squares for both right and left screw are d6 and j6

So a piece moving 1 space (a king, a pawn excluding it's double step move) it moves as above.

For multiple steps (slider pieces)

Orthogonal moves aren't changed, it just doesn't land on the opposite terrain.

for diagonal it chooses one its 4 direction types (the left-screw or right-screw directions if it's for water)

e.g if it starts right then up, it continues right then up even of the "leaper direction" changes to the terrain (as in the number of square it moves right changes and/or the number of up moves changes)

with a knight it moves up 2 spaces (this always be 3 on land since at least 1 square will be water and 2 or 6 squares on water) then 1 space in a purpendicular direction (1 or 2 on land and 1 or 3 on water)

For hybrid pieces their moves are mostly unaffected, there's just certain squares they can't land on (but can be blocked by pieces on them) for a hybrid piece on land, it can't stay on the same island and for on water, it can only move to a water square on the same channel (since knights and bishops don't move orthogonally they have to move to land)

Hopefully this explains it.

AlsoI mentioned 3 sets of pieces, which implies 3 kings, each player makes 3 move per turn (1 with each type in any order)

basically if at least one king is in check (all kings are royal) if the player can't create a situation where no king is in check after 3 moves (of different types) it's checkmate (during the first 2 moves the player can leave or move a king into check) I have looked into how to recognise when a checkmate has occurred

For stalemate it's basically one of 3 situations if you have king(s) in check at the start of a turn but not after the second move and you have no legal third move, you have no king in check at the beginning but do have after the second turn and can't remove the check at the third move or you not in check at the start or scecond move and can't make a third (if you were in check both times it would be checkmate) then it's stalemate (you can of course try and retract the moves and try again, but if there's no way to make 3 moves with different types of pieces it's stalemate


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