Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Fergus wrote:

"... it looks like this game has 5 ranks, 5 files, 5 3D rows or levels, and 5 4D columns or realms."

Yes, I suppose it could be put that way.

When representing a 4D game in two dimensions, which is what we're limited to on a computer screen, it makes sense to pair together a higher-dimensional label with a lower-dimensional one. This is especially so with something like Game Courier, which gives you only files and ranks to work with. This can lead to a coordinate like Dc23, which I hovered over randomly, which transposes the second and third dimensions. Bearing that in mind, it looks like this game has 5 ranks, 5 files, 5 3D rows or levels, and 5 4D columns or realms.

I edited my previous comment, for any who missed it.

4d games are rare enough that I wouldn't have bothered to add a database column.

Since I was adding code to the footer to indicate a board's dimensions, it seemed more appropriate than treating them as 3D games.

It will probably cause confusion for new authors.

I have added tooltips to the Edit Item form, and if there are other forms they should be added to, I can do that. I have also used parentheses to make it clearer what the dimensions of a board refer to. For 3D boards, a single pair of parentheses go around the files-by-ranks part, and levels goes on its left. For 4D boards, another pair of parentheses goes around the 3D board dimensions, and the 4th dimension goes on the left. The convention I'm following places increasing dimensions on the left, and it treats the number of ranks as the first dimension. This is because in the typical Chess variant, the board has two sides, and each player starts with all his pieces on one side. So, the distance between two sides would be the number of ranks. The second dimension, the number of files, is about how much space each side has to spread out its forces. Since we normally write files before ranks in algebraic notation, it makes sense to add higher dimensions to the left side. Also, this was the convention followed in some 3D games I looked at last night. And it's also sort of how Arabic numerals work. The leftmost digit in a numeral has a higher value than those to the right.

If I recall/recognize the diagram correctly, at the diagram's bottom e.g. 'Ae' indicates (4D) Board column A and (2D) board file e. The labels at the sides e.g. '15' indicates (4D) Board row 1 and (2D) board rank 5 (a column being like a file by my understanding). True for both the rules page diagram and the preset diagram.

edit: I had to re-read the labelling by zooming in on the bottom of the diagram, so I could tell lower case letters apart from numbers - my eyesight/laptop's not the greatest, maybe. Also, there are over half a dozen 4D CVs in the database, as I recall seeing (I got a few of my own published over the years). Not as many as there are 3D CVs, true.

It should be the same as for rows/columns in 2d hexagonal games, right? (I'm not sure if we have a consistent policy for that...)

4d games are rare enough that I wouldn't have bothered to add a database column. It will probably cause confusion for new authors. But there's already reason to expound on the categories and index information on special cases, maybe as tooltips plus a link to a page describing non-obvious conventions?

I have updated the database and relevant scripts to better accommodate 4D games by including a new field for the 4th dimension called BoardRealms. However, I'm not sure what value to give it for this game or what value to change BoardLevels to now that it doesn't have to do all the work for both the 3rd and 4th dimensions.

The diagram for the rules page alone still has the pieces too big, it seems.

The script is fixed, but the image is cached. If you modify the URL in some way, such as rearranging arguments in the query string, this will stop it from showing the cached image.

Hi Fergus

The diagram for the rules page alone still has the pieces too big, it seems. 52Chess' rules page diagram doesn't look so bad, nor does 4D Quasi-Alice Chess (although the pieces are still on the big side).

This is now fixed. After changing how drawdiagram.php uses the scale value, I didn't properly account for pieces that were smaller than 50x50. While David had made the Alfaerie pieces all 50x50, I had not done the same for my pieces, which usually came in various sizes that fit within 50x50. So, I added some code for that.

Game Courier has not been designed to use the scale value while drawing the board. It still uses it only after the board has been drawn, but the script that drew the board was not using the scale value on desktops. So, I corrected that.

Curiously, the board looks better on Game Courier than in the Diagram Designer. So, I may have to modify drawdiagram.php to use the scale value after drawing the board and while drawing the pieces.

@ Fergus:

Somehow the pieces have become too big for the diagrams on both this page and the preset's.

In spite of my finding at least two possibly interesting setups, a thirty-seven boards 37 hex 2D board 4D Hexagonal variant version of this game seems to be an undesirable goal. In favour, there is the clear Pro that knights would have more scope, allowing for a knight's tour of a single 2D board, when moving on just that board. There seems to be many Cons against though. A diagram for it, say on Game Courier, would have the pieces very small, or else the board taking up more than a whole screen (at least on my laptop), either of which I'd be uncomfortable with as a player (let alone whether a modern CVP editor might find small pieces acceptable). In the setups I've thought of so far, pawns take too long to promote, and/or a king lacks pawn protection on his 2D board in the setup (seems worse than is taken into account for in Hyperchess4). The pieces to empty hexes ratio would also be large (about half as dense as for Hyperchess4 in one setup I'd thought of, one that has a large number of pawns, which seems undesirable in itself) and other than making knights happier I'm asking myself why have such a very huge 4D board. Then there's the time, effort and aches that might go into submitting such a large sized variant. All in all, I think I'm content to rest with the effort I put into 4D Hexagonal Chess, at least for now.

I've now submitted a preset for this game, and it's awaiting editorial review.

Thanks for the comment Joe. I'm planning to shortly make a preset for this game (perhaps it may then get playtested), and I may next give more thought to making a thirty-seven boards 37 hex 2D board 4D Hexagonal variant version (though this may prove to be clearly too ambitious, if further reflected upon).

Kevin

I like this idea. It's a natural extension of the easy version of 4D (said very tongue in cheek.) This does imply that with a little work the game is playable, and probably won't exhibit chaotic behavior, unplayability, generally through chaos, being the bane of many 4D efforts.

I'm guessing the knight will not be as relatively powerful in this as in H4 because the board is a bit tight for knight moves. But the knight is the only fully 4D piece in either game, so I think it gets a significant boost in power from that, compared to FIDE. Conversely, the bishops lose some power, I believe, since they are now restricted to 1/3 of the board, rather than 1/2. And yes, I know they aren't really restricted, but for each move, they hit proportionally less of the entire board.

Finally, the pawns. In H4 they are forward-sideways wazirs, which effectively makes them (very) minor pieces. I'm not familiar with Glinski's pawns, though I prefer them (and thus the board grain orientation) to other versions. The board orientation and pawn moves seem to cry out for Glinski's interpretation. But this means the pawns cannot get to the outside columns of big hexes without capture. And that means they can be (and are in some sense?) flanked without the pawns having any preventive recourse.

All in all, I like the idea, but suspect it could use playtesting to work out the rough edges. The designer in me wants to increase the size of at least the 3 central coulums of big hexes, and spread pieces as well as pawns across the backs of the 3 central big hexes. Or mess with the knight's move, making it 2 ortho moves and a diagonal out finish (or the diagonal part first, and then finish on the same hexes "from the other side".) Or even add a row of 5 big hexes across the middle of the board, and keep everything else the same. While 2 of the 3 increase the pawn distance, they might mitigate enough other things to be worth looking at.