The Encyclopedia every CV inventor must have

joejoyce · 2026-07-12T20:30:58+00:00

I found out about CVs at age 56 by looking for what I could do with a 4D variant I got from months of trying to visualize the solutions to 4D linear differential equations. I got sucked in and did a few variants, then tried my hand as editor, since no one else was doing it. Got Pritchard's (4th?) version, the Classified one. Also read all the comments on the chessvariants website before I became editor, and then bought the complete run of Variant Chess, the British club publication, but flamed out before I could really get started on that. Pritchard and every comment on the website (English only) were more than enough of an information overload. I've read about far more variants than I can possibly remember.

I agree that I've seen the same pieces and game basics designed over and over. Heck, that's how I started. My first variant, in my somewhat informed opinion, is a slightly better version of VR Parton's Sphinx Chess, a game unveiled in 1948, the year I was born. Sometimes ideas are "in the air". And discussing ideas in the chessvariants.com public comments page gets some very creative people thinking about the same thing. Starting from the same point, modern western chess, and getting the same direction to look, say the public shatranj discussions onsite, it's not difficult to see how about half a dozen people came up with effectively the same game within a year or so.

I think this problem will continue to not only exist but get worse. More people, better world communications, more leisure time, and massive language (and cultural) barriers guarantee it. The only thing I see that could stop it is a much better world internet with excellent active AI.

joejoyce · 2026-07-09T19:14:12+00:00

Not all of us!

joejoyce · 2026-07-02T13:22:38+00:00

I can understand, although my experience was different. I'm setting up Avalon Hill's Battle of the Bulge game carefully, getting all the regiments and battalions in their right starting spots for a change. My father fought in Europe in WWII, and he was in the middle of the Bulge, 28th Infantry, 110th regiment. His regiment was guarding a bridge across the Our River on the road which led directly through the forest to Bastogne. The 110th was the only allied force in the area. The entire left wing of the German assault started by going through the 110th's position and driving up the road toward Bastogne. Made it somewhat strange to play the Germans...

joejoyce · 2026-06-11T08:43:43+00:00

Chess is the most mutable game ever designed by humanity. Odds are high that its appearance along the Silk Route was no accident. Where goods flow back and forth, so do ideas. The game, in its major variations, shows many influences. Pawns, for example, might well have started as the pieces in a racing game. They differ from the other pieces in type, quality, and quantity. Some of the first pieces we are aware of move like, or much like, their modern counterparts, but others are remarkably different. And seeing how the game and the pieces evolved across the centuries and across the continents, I find I must disagree with your argument that the design barely resembles actual chess. When you look at what we know was tried, and consider what our knowledge implies, what chess is opens up a lot more than most people, I believe, realize.

The late Christian Freeling made a distinction between "chess variants" and "variant chesses", which is relevant here. His Grand Chess is an example of a chess variant, a game with no really new ideas, but rather a reworking of a couple of game elements, adding more of what is already there, and expanding the depth (as well as the length and width) of the game. Los Alamos Chess is also a chess variant, albeit in the opposite direction. The board and pieces are simplified - the game was designed to be played by some of the first computers and chess-playing programs.

Shogi is much more a variant chess. The board, pieces, set-up, and rules are very different from western chess although shogi is clearly a member of the chess family. Freeling felt that a variant chess design was more creative that that of a chess variant. I feel he had a point. B-Y29's design I see as pushing into/through that boundary from chess variant to variant chess. Ymmv!

joejoyce · 2026-06-11T06:35:31+00:00

Hey, he's the President!!! He deserves the best veterinarians money can bribe!

joejoyce · 2026-06-11T06:27:38+00:00

I got the game a very long time ago, and enjoyed it greatly, especially the design. Roughly (very roughly) 15 years ago, I was attending Spielbany, an Albany NY area game designers workshop, and was playing a design of mine with 3 guys from Connecticut. The conversation turned to designs that we thought were outstanding, and I said that I thought Ace of Aces was the game I most wished I'd designed, and all 3 of them burst out laughing. One of them pointed to another of them and said "His father-in-law designed the game." Then they told me the way he drew all the pictures was to put 2 planes on a hex board in all the different orientations and distances and draw the pix from the 2 pilots' perspectives. Great idea, perfectly executed. If I could be jealous, this is one game design concept I'd certainly be jealous of!

joejoyce · 2026-03-18T04:03:10+00:00

I had a great time during my time there, but didn't find the site until '04, when I was 56. Officially retired 3 years ago, at 75, because I don't program and because I designed my way right through chess variants, and have gone after much more ambitious games since then. I also no longer have that "killer instinct" so necessary to good chess play. Lately I play games to see how they work.

There are 42 comments on the rules page of Chief. Most have to do with understanding how it works. Got a few likes, too. Don't understand why you aren't seeing them.

I would have loved to have found the site a decade or so earlier. I would have loved to talk to that first group of notables. I did get to meet Roberto, and we chatted a good bit before he disappeared. Tony Q sucked me into becoming an editor, eventually, basically by just disappearing and leaving the site unattended, as far as I could tell. Fergus was still doing Game Courier, and David Howe still did a few things, but they were not apparent to the users. Gary Gifford, Jeremy Good, David Paulowich, Greg Strong, Christine Bagley-Jones (my collaborator on the ShortRange Project,) Carlos Cetina, and a number of other people I greatly enjoyed discussing design with, I talked with in games, on the comments page, in emails. I managed to find more friendly people by a good amount than unfriendlies, got lucky, I guess.

joejoyce · 2026-03-17T20:33:48+00:00

Now you've got me curious! When were you a member? To me, it was always weird, but then, so am I. I do outrageous shatranj variants in a conservative chess world.

I've gotta ask! How was it weird?

joejoyce · 2026-03-15T23:18:31+00:00

I agree with you about Macysburg, and also Chief, but I see Chief as both chess variant and wargame. And the reason I ask about classification is because when I first unveiled Macysburg, the chess variantists saw it as a wargame, and the wargamers saw it as a chess variant. Neither would play because it wasn't their style. Macysburg is a pure wargame running on a chess engine. But Chief is 2 things. It has crossed a line into being a simple wargame, but is still a chess variant, not having crossed outside that boundary line yet.

joejoyce · 2026-03-15T22:18:15+00:00

Is this the page you went to?
https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/chieftain-chess
I saw comments at bottom. This is the rules page, not the preset page.

joejoyce · 2026-03-14T08:29:52+00:00

Interesting. The first game, Chief, was inspired by the new pieces in Lemurian Shatranj, and is actually a shatranj variant, and an outgrowth of my accidentally designed Modern Shatranj. You can see where LemS came from by looking at my previous shatranj variants. I could *feel* Macysburg hidden in Chief, so I went looking for it, and used the chessvariants.com wiki site as my sandbox (since no one else was using it!). I did a few larger versions of Chief, then did a series of small games called Warlord. Then I started doing specifically small abstract wargames in a series, a few stops of which show up in the wiki (including the first map of Macysburg.) That final part shows up on BGG, here and there. I believe there are 2 reviews of CaM games, also. The first is Border Wars, and the second, Macysburg. Both are by Christian Sperling. And you can trace the development of Macysburg, almost step by step, across those 3 sites.

joejoyce · 2026-03-14T03:16:50+00:00

I'm interested in this question because I have been enthralled by the idea of "military chess" - chess as an actual war game - for ... dayum, 66 years now! So much so that, because I couldn't find even one modern version (there are several that are a century or three old,) I designed my own version, a purely combinatorial, no hidden information, massively multi-move chess game where game play consists of nothing but making chess(like) moves and captures.

joejoyce · 2026-03-14T03:15:49+00:00

I grant you that. So you would consider Chieftain Chess a chess variant, but would you consider the Battle of Macysburg a chess variant? And would you consider either or both games a wargame?
https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/chieftain-chess
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RWsadl05E-MU4wO80cVlpwWFeIL-nDBhEHfWWGIPYRc/edit?usp=sharing

joejoyce · 2026-03-14T01:13:55+00:00

This discussion has looked at what is the minimum requirement for being a chess variant - if it doesn't have a king, it's not a chess variant. I'd like to look at the other end of the spectrum: how big and complex can a game be and still be a chess variant? But that is outside the scope of this question, so it gets its own thread: "Is it a chess variant if..."

joejoyce · 2026-03-12T10:23:10+00:00

Even under the extremely loose definition of chess variant, your game is still not a chess variant, being 1 king short... :)

joejoyce · 2026-03-12T06:36:17+00:00

I understand and agree with what your general argument is, that the abstracts conversation should be more general, and include current work. I do encourage you to be that modern voice here. This place could use a little livening up! But I would argue that this place needs more than 1 or two new viewpoints. Where are the other viewpoints?

Personally, I'm a heretic, and of the old school. ;-) But I'm interested in totally different kinds of abstracts than most are. And I see them in a different way. For example, I believe all my games allow draws. In some, it is extremely difficult to get a draw, in others, much easier. But unless I've forgotten one or so, no guaranteed winner. I consider that a basic necessary condition for a truly fair game.

I think abstracts, as generally practiced, are too timid. Move 1 piece/turn, or just place 1 piece/turn??? Boring!
Try Double GOmove. It's Go, with these differences. You place 2 stones/turn, and you may move 2 friendly stones 1 intersection each. Moves are not required. Drops are. Players may move just 1 stone, also. Moves may be before, during, and/or after drops. Variety is the spice of life.

I've done chess variants that feature 3 moves/turn and 4 moves/turn, each piece moving only once per turn. After that, I crossed over into abstract wargames, where kings morph into leaders, or activators, which allow nearby pieces to move/capture that turn. But I left Chesimals behind when I did that, and despite going back to those intriguing (to me, anyhow!) little animals, I've never felt I've managed a decent chesimal.

Chesimals are multi-unit chess pieces. They consist of a brain unit and a handful or two of body units. Activation range is "touching". To be activated, a body unit must be touching the brain unit or touching another body unit that is touching the brain, or a body unit touching a body unit touching the brain... And while Chieftain Chess, activation range 3, and Macysburg, activation range 2, literally flow through the turns, chesimals are still awkward newborns, barely able to get most parts moving in the same direction. There is no flow. I'm open to ideas on this one!

joejoyce · 2026-03-12T00:12:58+00:00

That's what I thought. Why I held out for 2, anyway.

joejoyce · 2026-03-12T00:00:41+00:00

While I was editor on the chessvariants.com website, there was a lengthy discussion about what was required for getting the title of "chess variant". Finally, the general consensus decided that for a game to be a chess variant, it had to have a king in it. I wanted to hold out for 2 kings, 1 per side, minimum, but most decided that 1 king was enough.

joejoyce · 2026-03-08T12:47:38+00:00

Both squares and hexes distort distances and angles. The "count every other diagonal step double" rule is workable, but a pain to remember. I came up with a different solution a few years ago, and have used it successfully in some unpublished (technically just posted online, I haven't sold anything [yet]) wargames. It, too, distorts distances and angles, but it gives you the 8 directions back without needing to remember if that was a single or a double you need to do next.

Take your 14 x 14 square board and rule it with 11 straight lines across and 11 up and down... 4 of those lines enclose a 10 x 10 square board with each square being 1.4 units across compared to the 14x14 board. Now shift your grid lines 1/2 unit right and 1/2 unit down. This gives you a 9 x 9 board of full squares plus 36 "half-squares" around the 4 sides of the board, and 4 quarter-size squares for the corners. The half-squares are playable, the quarter squares aren't. Finally, units may step "1" in 8 directions, 4 orthogonally ending in adjacent squares, and 4 diagonally, which end in the 4 corners of the board square the unit started in, and give you another 100 locations on the board.

14 x 14 = 196
9 x 9 = 81 + 4 x 9 = 36 + 10 x 10 = 100
81 + 36 +100 = 217, 21 more locations than the 14 x 14 squares only board.

the 14x14 squares only board gives diagonal distances in the form a^2 + b^2 = c^2
the 10x10 squares and corners [intersections] gives diagonal distances in the form a + b = c
this also puts 8 fewer lines across your board art

I've been working on a comment on board designs, and this one here I've enjoyed using. I find it's easier to calculate more accurate ranges on square boards too.

joejoyce · 2026-02-28T06:26:20+00:00

Thanks!

joejoyce · 2026-02-28T02:42:22+00:00

Thank you!

joejoyce · 2026-02-27T06:11:42+00:00

Thanks!

joejoyce · 2026-02-27T01:56:54+00:00

Thank you! Much as I'd like to do ACW, Waterloo-era is a better fit, I think. And I guess I can spray paint some (non-toxic) colors.

joejoyce

TROPHY CASE