While waiting for my account to be activated, I took a look at Kurnik. I liked their interface, easy to use, but there was no customization or community that I see here. One thing though, they had regular Japanese pieces. I understand that Japanese chess is not well known, and many won't learn the Chinese characters (plus one Japanese character they use when a pawn is promoted). I would like to see brainking.com give an option to choose a piece set which has Japanese pieces.
If you need help making these these, I would be happy to create a set or 2. A general suggestion would be to have the color of the character on each piece red when promoted. Another set could stay black if people prefer. The background color for each piece should be an off white.
If the board size can be edited (which I assume would be applied to both chess and shogi), the bigger pieces could take on a more wooden look.
As for changing the name to Shogi on the front page, I think people new to Shogi won't be able to relate to it as easily. I think it is good to keep it Japanese Chess. I didn't say "kanji" when I mentioned Chinese characters because people may not know Chinese characters are called "kanji" in Japanese. It's harder to relate to. Same with the word "Shogi". Those that do know can just use it in discussions.
Does the color of the characters change to red when promoted? Is the background of the pieces off white? I suggest making the pieces look more realistic and less star trekky.
jadarite: I think they'd look better that way too. Especially the red for the promoted sides, even if the background color of the pieces didn't get changed.
jadarite: Just make them and I'll be happy to add them to BrainKing. By the way, would you create pieces for >Tori Shogi as well? I would like to add more Shogi variants but I cannot do that without a good graphics.
The promoted pawn in the center has a larger character than the one at f2. Personally, I think f2 looks better. Please compare this with the gold piece on e4. They match in size, but the other pieces seem to have a better look being bigger. I put a matching gold one at f5 for comparison. This would mean the promoted pawns would look a little smaller in size than the rest, but I don't think it will look off. It will be easier to determine if it's up and running.
I put up a light wooden background, but the color could be a default light color. What I was thinking to get the background wooden look with the 4 black circles, was to have an option in settings to choose a background image (people just browse their computer to select it). This could then be set as the background for the table. So, even if you don't like the background I have up (which I would like to tinker with more), you could always add your own. Also, I would like to see the table border color change from grey.
The background color of the pieces match the sides of the site. I have kept the border black look, but if I have time I'll see if I can enhance it a bit.