I see that Nicholas Wolff once won a game of Bishop Knight Morph Factor. Joe Joyce's Pieces thread from 2009 contains some interesting comments on various pieces, including Changelings. Looking back on my 2007 comment here, what if a Pawn promoting to a Rotator can choose the R/N/B mode? That allows a player promoting to a Rotator [N mode] to deliver a needed Knight check, while obtaining a new piece that is (perhaps) twice as valuable as a Knight.

NOTE: many old thread links here use subjectid which must be replaced by itemid

This is nearing completion. One complication is that this game has descending ranks, while Game Courier and the Diagram Designer have been using ascending ranks. Both methods are perfectly logical ways of handling ranks for hexagonal variants, and the choice between them is arbitrary. So, I want to add support for using descending ranks to represent hexagonal boards.

Well, Shako was already working after I put the original shako-chess-model.js file back.

Rollerball also seems to have model and view source files where there should have been uglified library files, in my directory. I will have a look to see if I can find the originals.

[Edit] OK, done. I uploaded the originals, but to make those available the CloudFlare cache will have to be flushed, and the model and view files have to be loaded directly with cache flushing in the browser.

I think it is ready to be published.

I see you equiped the Radioactive Queen with hit-and-run captures now. But would that not make it too strong? Can anyone beat the Diagram below with black?

Please, this variant is ready to be published.

My submission is ready)

Hi Christine! I strongly resent Grand Chess forbidding any position with "extra pieces" on the board - one example being eleven pieces on one side (not counting pawns). These rules make me feel like I am playing chess with Damocles and we are both sitting with swords suspended over our heads. I am not comforted by any statistics proving that a sword almost never falls - just get me another chair!

Searching ChessBase 2000 for some standard chess games with nine pieces on one side produced: Stefan Fazekas - Norman Littlewood, BCF Championship 1963. The first capture (a pawn) was on move 23. A White Pawn captured a Black Rook on move 26 and promoted to a Queen. Black quickly won the game after White played 28. Rh1 - all three Queens staying on the board until the end. Worth noting: Stockfish calculates 28. fxg4, leading to a White victory.

1. Nf3 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. d4 Bg4 5. e3 e5 6. Be2 Nc6 7. O-O Nge7 8. d5 Nb8 9. h3 Bd7 10. b4 O-O 11. Rb1 f5 12. c5 Bf6 13. Nd2 g5 14. e4 Be8 15. Nc4 a6 16. cxd6 cxd6 17. Be3 b5 18. Na5 Kh8 19. f3 Rg8 20. Rc1 f4 21. Bf2 Ng6 22. a4 Bd7 23. axb5 Qf8 24. b6 Qh6 25. b7 Bxh3

26. bxa8=Q Bxg2 27. Kxg2 g4 28. Rh1 gxf3+ 29. Kxf3 Nh4+ 30. Bxh4 Bxh4 31. Rxh4 Qxh4 32. Qg1 Qh3+ 0-1

Perhaps there could be a way to allow usage of the special characters in piece IDs in parameters like morph and captureMatrix? Maybe using {} curly brackets to enclose IDs using one of these special characters (e.g. {+P} for a Tokin (promoted Shogi Pawn))? In particular, the +[A-Z] ID is quite common in certain Shogi variants.

I can add that, except in the late end-game, it is extremely rare you would be allowed to promote and survive. The opponent will almost always sacrifice a minor to prevent promotion or capture the resulting piece on the promotion square. So it doesn't matter very much what is available as promotion choice; you will gain a minor for a Pawn when you can force a Pawn into the promotion zone. So you don't suffer very much if a minor is the only piece available as promotion choice. It is just that the opponent gets the choice not to trade his minor for it.

So the promote-to-lost-only rule doesn't affect the game that much. The most notable effect is that in a late end-game where there still is a super-piece and an unobstructed promotion is possible, you will have to pick a different super-piece. But since there are three nearly equivalent super-pieces, each giving an advantage so large that the game ceases to be a serious contest, that doesn't make much difference.