I would like to announce a new system of vacations and weekend days for games. The purpose of this change is that current system seems to be too complicated and there are make many users confused, which leads to unexpected losses by timeouts.
This new feature is already completed and I have programmed BrainKing to activate it automatically on 1st January 2011, 00:00:01 GMT+01:00. The old system will be used for the rest of this year.
Vacation days will be turned to vacation hours. The reason is that BrainKing users live in different time zones and it is not always clear when a day actually starts, according to the server time. Total vacation hours a year will correspond to current numbers of days - for instance, a Brain Rook member would be given 840 hours (35 x 24).
All vacation will be automatic, which also means that the calendar would be removed from Settings page (it should disable all attempts of cheating by periodical setting/unsetting of scheduled vacation days, as we could see in the past). Users of all membership levels will be allowed to activate/deactivate automatic vacation anytime.
How it works: All started games are checked for timeouts every 10 minutes. If a timeout is detected in a game (and the game can use a vacation), 1 hour is added to all games of the particular player (where it's their turn to move) and it is also deducted from their total vacation hours. This system ensures that you don't spend more vacation time than it is really necessary - for instance, if you play a game 7 hours after it would normally timeout, you use only 7 hours of your vacation hours left, not the full day (24 hours) like before.
Weekend days should work without any changes. By default, they are set to Saturday and Sunday, and you can change them once in 30 days. The day start is determined by the server time - GMT+01:00 zone.
Vacation rebuy option will be altered accordingly - instead of 10 and 5 days for the first and second 1 year renewal of your membership, you would get 240 and 120 hours.
In order to make the new system work properly, the automatic vacation will be activated for all users as of 1st January 2011. Everybody can turn it off then if necessary.
If you ever thought of getting a lifetime membership but never had enough money to pay for it, this could be your chance to purchase Black Rook with a great discount. The rules are very easy:
The discount is individual for every user and makes 10% for every year of normal Rook membership purchased in the past, up to 60%. BrainKing uses the shopping cart system history of orders to calculate your discount, which means that only orders placed since September 2005 are counted. Find your discount on the Paid membership page!
Other registered payments can, when added up, qualify for an additional discount if the total amount is equivalent to the current Brain Rook year subscription price. For instance, if you already paid for a year Brain Knight level (24 Euro) and a 6 months Brain Knight membership (14 Euro), it makes 38 Euro in total - greater or equal to 36 Euro - so BrainKing will increase your discount by another 10%.
The payment must be received in 72 hours after the order is placed.
The action will be active for a week (7 days), starting from 1st September 2010, 9:00 a.m. GMT+2. The Paid membership page will inform you about it.
Don't hesitate to reuse money you already spent here and never be bothered with "please renew your membership" message again!
By the way, do you want to receive 10 years of Brain Rook instead of the lifetime one (the price is the same) and use them for your friends or prize tournaments? Just send me a message.
The opinion poll is over and although the "normal" Black Rook action is planned for September, we have decided to make a little test run now, in order to check proper functionality of the automated payment process.
If you ever thought of getting a lifetime membership but never had enough money to pay for it, this could be your chance to purchase Black Rook with a great discount. The rules are very easy:
The discount is individual for every user and makes 10% for every year of normal Rook membership purchased in the past, up to 60%. BrainKing uses the shopping cart system history of orders to calculate your discount, which means that only orders placed since September 2005 are counted. Find your discount on the Paid membership page!
The payment must be received in 72 hours after the order is placed.
The action will be active for a week (7 days), starting from 12th August 2010, 8:00 a.m. GMT+2. The Paid membership page will inform you about it.
Furthermore, if you don't wait for September and take advantage of this test week, you will get even more discount - another 10% (the total discount still cannot exceed 60%). For instance, if you paid for 3 years of Brain Rook in the past, your total discount would be 40%, so the Black Rook would cost you only 216 Euro (instead of 360).
Don't hesitate to reuse money you already spent here and never be bothered with "please renew your membership" message again!
Please remember this is a test run and it is not guaranteed to be bug free. If you think BrainKing calculates your own discount wrong, please contact me.
By the way, do you want to receive 10 years of Brain Rook instead of the lifetime one (the price is the same) and use them for your friends or prize tournaments? Just send me a message.
Easter Egg! As I have already mentioned at BrainKing blog, the number of requests to create the Easter Action this year is quite high, so it is here and this is it. Everybody has a chance to get up to 125% bonus to a Brain Rook membership level order, based on the popular system of color codes. Let me remind the rules of this action:
When you see a small flashing light bulb on the Main Page or next to Paid Membership link at the left column, you know a bonus is active and can be used. But don't hesitate for a long time - some bonuses (especially the one which adds 125% to the subscribed period) can be active only for several minutes. The bonuses can be used only if a purchased membership is for Brain Rook level and 1 year or longer period and it is not a Brains payment.
This action will be active until cancelled. The day when the action ends is not specified but, regarding the Easter nature of the promotion, it should happen in April 2010. Furthermore, you should notice a nice improvement of our shopping cart system - it is no longer necessary to specify a payment method before the order is placed. Instead, all available ways of paying will be displayed at the particular order page after placing it, so if you choose one of them and it does not work for some reason, you can easily select another payment method without creating a new order.
Furthermore, I would like to remind an opportunity to obtain a Black Rook lifetime membership for a fraction of its list price, if you succeed to get the Bonus conqueror achievement. Do not hesitate to take your chance.
Due to previously announced problems with PayPal as payment gateway for BrainKing membership purchases, this payment method have been removed from our site and we do not intend to bring it back until PayPal policy is significantly changed.
According to this important event, we would like to encourage our users to try out AlertPay as a very good alternative to PayPal. And since we need to test BrainKing's automatic system to process AlertPay transactions, the following promotional action has been launched:
Every BrainKing user, who purchases a 1 year (or longer) Brain Rook membership level and uses AlertPay to pay for it, will receive 125% bonus to the subscribed period. This promotion will be active till Sunday 7th June 2009, 23:59:59 GMT+01:00 and the order must be paid to 15th June 2009.
And a nice side effect, this action qualifies for the Easter Egg bonus code, so it can be a good opportunity for those who need this bonus for the Bonus conqueror achievement and get a free Black Rook membership. Do not hesitate, there will be no more Easter bonuses this year!
Due to PayPal's ridiculous policy "you are guilty until proven innocent", I have decided not to fight with these ignorants and their automated email responses any longer. As of 1st June 2009, BrainKing will stop accepting PayPal payments, so if you want to make a membership order with your PayPal account, you still have more than 2 weeks to do it. It is a good time anyway, according to the bonus code action.
Shortly said, nothing important should be changed - there are still other payment options, like AlertPay, MoneyBookers or a wire transfer, and all of them work fine, so everybody can continue to order higher membership levels, Brains or tournament prizes, just like before.
I will write more details about this issue tomorrow (BrainKing.info blog).
As I have already suggested at discussion boards, a small bug has been found in the generator of achievement points. Since this bug caused that every user received much more points than he/she actually should have, the points will be calculated again to reflect the real status. I apologize for this inconvenience. The recalculation will be done later today.
Although the recent Easter Egg action was active long enough, there are still many BrainKing users who were not able to catch the deadline, so we have decided to start a similar action and associate it with new achievements of the membership category. The action, which gives everyone a chance to get up to 100% bonus to an ordered subscription, will be activated later today and should be active until it is cancelled. Please read this short description if you are not familiar with the rules. There are two important modifications - the bonus can be used only if a Brain Rook or higher level is purchased and the order must be paid to the end of May 2009.
First of all, I would like to announce a scheduled downtime of BrainKing game site which is planned to some time during the rest of this week. It should not be longer than 30 minutes and the reason is that our database backup system must be restored due to recent small problems (which are already fixed).
The second information is more important. The Easter Egg action has been started and it will be active to Monday 13th April 2009, 23:59:59 GMT+01:00. Click the Easter Egg image next to the Paid Membership link at the left column for more information. Many new BrainKing users appeared since the last bonus action, so it could be a good opportunity for them to get a 125% bonus to a paid membership. And, of course, everybody can take advantage of this action.
The bonus can be used for Black Brain Rook membership orders as well. Instead of adding 125% to a lifetime membership, you can choose another BrainKing user who would get the same lifetime membership for free.
I would like to thank everyone who helped us with testing our implementation of online poker game (Texas Hold'em). It makes an important milestone in BrainKing's history because it is our first game which belongs to 2 new categories - card games and multiplayer games.
Since all reported bugs are already fixed and no further serious problems were reported, the Online Poker will be officially released on Monday 9th March 2009, 9:00 a.m. GMT+01:00. As of this date and time, the following actions will be performed:
Chips of all players will be reset to the initial value of 1000. The reason is that the system gave some players more chips than they actually had won (due to a bug which is already fixed now), so a fresh start would be only fair to all users.
The Get more chips rule has been improved and the description can be found at the FAQ section.
All tables will be recreated with new parameters, based on the feedback of players. All limit types (limit, pot limit and no limit) are supported, as well as different table sizes (2-10 players).
Along with the release preparation, new features and game variants (poker tournaments, Omaha Hold'em, 7 Card Stud etc.) are being developed. Most of them will be probably completed after the mentioned release date, but the work will be definitely finished as soon as possible.
Since many BrainKing users have been asking for another bonus action, regarding paid membership orders, I have decided to create it once more. The action, which gives everyone a chance to get up to 100% bonus to an ordered subscription, will be activated on 9th November 2008 from 00:00:01 to 23:59:59 GMT+01:00 - yes, it is my birthday. Please read this short description if you are not familiar with the rules. There are 2 small modifications:
Due to the birthday event, bonuses are indicated by instead of .
An order must be paid to the end of November 2008.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Thursday 25th September 2008, 07:00 - 09:00 GMT+01:00 because of moving all BrainKing servers to a new location. When it is done and if the downtime duration exceeds 60 minutes, BrainKing will automatically suspend the game time for 24 hours, in order to avoid timeouts in games with low time control (1 hour and similar). Thank you for understanding. Important! If you experience "server not found" problems after the downtime is over, please read http://BrainKing.info site for further instructions.
Since we didn't release a special action for several months, time has come to do something about it. The popular system of color codes has been used again, but we don't like just to copy the former idea, so there are some changes - please read on:
This time we are giving a nice amount of free Brains to all participants of this action. When you see a small flashing light bulb on the Main Page, you know a bonus is active and can be used. But don't hesitate for a long time - some bonuses (especially the one which adds 1000 free Brains) can be active only for several minutes. The bonuses can be used only if a purchased membership is for 1 year or longer period and it is a real money payment.
There are at least 2 advantages of getting free Brains instead of free months:
You receive a little more than before. For instance, the Red Code bonus is 1000 Brains (if a Brain Rook is purchased) and only 960 Brains are needed for 1 year Brain Rook level - the rest (40 Brains) can saved for a later use. If you never heard about Brains before, please read this page.
It is not mandatory to use the Brains for yourself - it is possible to activate another user's membership with the free Brains.
This action will be active to the end of April 2008.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Sunday 2nd March 2008, 6:00 - 8:00 a.m. GMT+01:00 because of restoring the continuous data backup process which has been damaged by an unexpected power outage, caused by current strong storms in Czech Republic. When it is done and if the downtime duration exceeds 60 minutes, BrainKing will automatically suspend the game time for 24 hours, in order to avoid timeouts in games with low time control (1 hour and similar). Thank you for understanding.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Monday 18th February 2008, 12:00 - 13:00 GMT+01:00 because of applying a new security system to all BrainKing servers. When it is done and if the downtime duration exceeds 60 minutes, BrainKing will automatically suspend the game time for 24 hours, in order to avoid timeouts in games with low time control (1 hour and similar). Thank you for understanding.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Friday 25th January 2008, 6:30 a.m. GMT+01:00 because of the database server upgrade. The estimated duration of this process is about 5 minutes only. Thank you for understanding.
As we have promised, the final bonus code action has been released and it could be a good opportunity for everyone who did not take advantage of the last Christmas action. Let me summarize the rules:
The action is valid for 24 hours. Please move your mouse cursor to the flashing bulb next to the Paid membership link at the left column to see a tooltip with the exact time period.
The bonus to the subscribed period is 100-200%, depending on the number of subscribed years. Please click the bulb or visit this page for details.
After an order is placed, the payment must be received to the end of January 2008.
As of 1st February 2008, a 19% VAT will be added to all membership prices, which makes them a little more expensive. There is still a chance to get a membership for current rates, to the end of January 2008.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Thursday 3rd January 2008, 21:00 - 24:00 GMT+01:00 because of moving data to the archive database. When it is done, BrainKing will automatically suspended the game time for 24 hours, in order to avoid timeouts in games with low time control (1 hour and similar). Thank you for understanding.
Christmas Special! It is almost December and, like every year, we are launching our Christmas action. This time it is not just about an extra month to the subscribed membership, everybody has a chance to get up to 100% bonus, based on the popular system of color codes. Let me remind the rules of this action:
When you see a small flashing light bulb on the Main Page, you know a bonus is active and can be used. But don't hesitate for a long time - some bonuses (especially the one which adds 100% to the subscribed period) can be active only for several minutes. The bonuses can be used only if a purchased membership is for 1 year or longer period and it is not a Brains payment.
This action will be active to the end of this year. Furthermore, we have added a nice improvement - you don't have to send a payment in 72 hours to validate the bonus (like before), it must be received to the end of this year - 31st December 2007, 23:59:59 GMT+01:00. The reason is that we would like to make this opportunity available to all users, including those who use a wire transfer or other slower methods to pay.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Wednesday 28th November 2007, 17:00 - 19:00 GMT+01:00 because of installing and configuring a secondary backup system. When it is done, BrainKing will automatically suspended the game time for 24 hours, in order to avoid timeouts in games with low time control (1 hour and similar). Thank you for understanding.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Friday 16th November 2007, 5:45 - 6:30 GMT+01:00 because of configuring important backup services. Thank you for understanding.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Friday 2nd November 2007, 6:00 - 7:00 GMT+01:00 because of configuring important backup services. Thank you for understanding.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Saturday 20th October 2007, 9:00 - 13:00 GMT+01:00 because we will be moving our servers to a new location. When it is done, BrainKing will automatically suspended the game time for 24 hours, in order to avoid timeouts in games with low time control (1 hour and similar). Thank you for understanding.
A scheduled downtime of BrainKing is planned on Thursday 12th July 2007, 18:00 p.m. GMT+01:00 due to the database server upgrade. The action should not exceed 2 hours. When it is done, BrainKing will automatically suspended the game time for 24 hours, in order to avoid timeouts in games with low time control (1 hour and similar). Thank you for understanding.
The February Action for the first ten subscribers was a nice success but its disadvantage is obvious - the users from different time zones didn't have the same chance to take advantage of it. That's why the current action introduces the system of color codes which are activated randomly and nobody can foretell the time and type of the next bonus activation.
Please read the Bonus List page for more information. When you see a small flashing light bulb on the Main Page, you know a bonus is active and can be used. But don't hesitate for a long time - some bonuses (especially the one which adds 100% to the subscribed period) can be active only for several minutes.
The bonuses can be used only if a purchased membership is for 1 year or longer period and it is not a Brains payment.
For this month, we are experimenting with Action Points again and the winners of this contest will be awarded by a free membership as usual. In order to make the system a little different, there is one new rule: the first two points of the list of options (move points and win points) are valid only for one game type. The game is selected randomly by the server and is automatically changed every 12 hours. Please read all rules here.
1. place: 1 year Brain Rook membership
2. place: 6 months Brain Rook membership
3. place: 3 months Brain Rook membership
?. place (randomly selected from the 4. - 50. positions): 9 months Brain Rook membership
If you want to participate, please make sure (on your Settings page) that you are eligible to receive the Action Points.
Well, we are going to give something for free in February because we think it is a good idea:
The first ten users who purchase at least two years of any kind of a paid membership (or renews the current one by at least two years) will receive one year of the same level for free.
The second ten users who purchase at least two years of any kind of a paid membership (or renews the current one by at least two years) will receive six months of the same level for free.
And everybody (including those who take advantage of the mentioned offers) who purchases at least a year of any kind of a paid membership (or renews the current one by at least another year) will receive a full retail version of ArchMage, a new game by 300AD.com. The game would be available in both PC and Mac versions.
Just a year ago we started the system of regular monthly actions which motivate people to upgrade to a higher membership level because they always get something more as a free bonus. This year is not an exception and I would like to begin with a new product promotion of one of my friends.
Everybody who purchases at least a year of any kind of a paid membership (or renews the current one by at least another year) will receive a full retail version of Phantasia 2, a new game by 300AD.com, which is worth 20 USD. The game is available in both PC and Mac versions.
Christmas Special! Like every year, we launch our Christmas action:
1) Everybody who pays for any kind of membership (or extends their current membership) before the end of this year (2006), will automatically get one FREE month of the same membership as a Christmas present.
2) The last chance to purchase a Black Rook (which never expires) and get the second one for free! It means that you pay for your own Black Rook membership and then you can choose another player who gets the same membership as well. IMPORTANT! This is the last offer of this kind. After 31st December 2006, there will be no more special actions concerning Black Rooks.
You might have noticed that the flag section, which reflects all supported localizations of BrainKing, has changed its layout from 15 images in 3 rows to a nice square of 4x4 flags, increasing the total number of translators to sixteen. The new one is Estonian and our thanks go to the team of translators which can be found here.
BrainKing's November Action has been launched and it is not about Action Points:
1) In order to make the set of chess pieces completed, Brain Bishop is the new level of membership and it has been just released. Its capabilities are equivalent to Brain Knight but it can be purchased as a monthly subscription for 2 EUR. It is a good option who want to try a paid membership for a minimal price.
2) Since we like to introduce new features with something special, the new membership level is not an exception. Everybody who purchases the Brain Bishop membership during November 2006, will get 1 extra month for free as a bonus.
3) Other paying members can take advantage of the action as well. Everybody with Brain Knight or higher level, who purchases a Brain Bishop membership for someone else (during this month), will receive 1 extra month to his own membership level for free. It means that, for example, if you are a Brain Rook, you can get another year of this membership for only 24 Euro (instead of 30) by purchasing a Brain Bishop level for twelve users. If you are not sure how to buy a membership for someone else, please read the detailed instructions on BrainKing.info blog.
The last quarter of this year has just started and BrainKing announces its October Action:
1) Action Points - this popular (and cursed) contest continues, but the prizes are a little modified:
?. place: 2 years Brain Rook membership
The rest of 1. - 10. places: secret prize
What does it mean? This time the first prize will be given to one of the first 10 positions. It is already set which one but it will be revealed when the contest is finished. And the other prizes for the first 10 positions are not known. They might be better, they might be worse.
2) Write interesting articles and get a free membership! - after the last month's great success of this new opportunity to share interesting thoughts and experiences, we have decided to extend the option of Brains awards for original articles. If you are not familiar with it yet, please read all information and rules here.
3) A special prize - is waiting for the clicking maniac who breaks the limit of 10,000 moves a day.
The summer holidays are over (for us who live in the Northern Hemisphere) and BrainKing announces a new monthly action for our users:
1) Action Points improvements - the secret points algorhithm has been modified, in order to become more convenient to all users from all countries. Starting today, you can find them on many more pages than before, even on the blog site BrainKing.info, and their location can be slightly changed every day. Moreover, the earned points won't show up in your stats immediately - the process is delayed due to a new method of their calculation. Please read the Action Points page for details.
1. place: 2 years Brain Rook membership
2. - 3. place: 1 year Brain Rook membership
4. - 5. place: 6 months Brain Rook membership
6. - 10. place: 150 Brains
50 Brains for all users from the top 50 places
One important point - who won a membership at the August action points contest, cannot win it again in September.
2) Write interesting articles and get a free membership! - September is the Month of Articles which I want to collect from you and publish on a brand new site, to be launched later this month. Please read all information and rules here. They are only in English at the moment, but I want to add all possible translations as soon as possible.
4) Free Game Bonus Bonus - when this month is over, we will ballot one user who used the previous 3) point and he will receive one more free game: Jets'n'Guns or Undercroft. The game bonus is the result of our cooperation with 300AD.com and Rake in Grass.
August Action! This is the biggest monthly action so far and it contains four points:
1) More Action Points - we have increased the number of points for new users/members links and added secret points. There is also a new rule - the points can be given only to users who didn't disable the banner ads appearance (in order to test improved features). Read the Action Points page for details.
1. place: 2 years Brain Rook membership
2. - 3. place: 1 year Brain Rook membership
4. - 5. place: 6 months Brain Rook membership
6. - 10. place: 150 Brains
100 Brains for 10 randomly selected users from the top 50 places
One important point - who won a membership at the July action points contest, cannot win it again in August.
2) Black Rook Special - due to a good success of the May Action, it is here again with a small improvement. Everybody who purchases the Black Rook membership (which never expires), can either choose another user who will receive the same membership for free, or ask us for a new BrainKing feature (except auto-pass) which would be implemented with the highest priority. Of course, such a feature request must be reasonable and possible to do.
4) Free Game Bonus Bonus - when this month is over, we will ballot one user who used the previous 2) or 3) point and he will receive one more free game: Styrateg, Jets'n'Guns or Undercroft. The game bonus is the result of our cooperation with 300AD.com and Rake in Grass.
1) Good news! Thanks to Eriisa we could reactivate the PayPal option, so there are no more problems to use PayPal for any payments on BrainKing.
2) July Action! Let us try something different this month. In order to test what our site is capable of (and to give our users another chance to compete), July is the Month of Action Points. If this test period produces good results, the system of points can continue in the following months as well. And let us start with some attractive prizes:
1. place: 3 years Brain Rook membership
2. - 3. place: 2 years Brain Rook membership
4. - 5. place: 1 year Brain Rook membership
6. - 10. place: 200 Brains
Please read the rules and other information here. As you can see, the system works separately for paying members and pawns, which means there will be 20 prizes to award. It is also possible to give the prize to another user if you win and do not want to use it. And, of course, suggestions to improve this system are welcome.
IMPORTANT NEWS: Due to continuous problems with PayPal, this payment method will be cancelled on BrainKing as of 20th June 2006 (it will be the last day to accept PayPal payments here). If you plan to use PayPal to pay for a membership, please do it as soon as possible. All other ways of payment (wire transfer, MoneyBookers, American Express, money order) remain unchanged and a brand new one might appear soon.
June Action Reminder! This month is dedicated to a 2+1 action. Everybody who purchases a new two years membership or extends the current one by two years, can choose another user who will be given one year of the same membership level for free.
June Action! This month is dedicated to a 2+1 action. Everybody who purchases a new two years membership or extends the current one by two years, can choose another user who will be given one year of the same membership level for free. I have also added a new game (two weeks ago ) of Ambiguous Chess which was invented by nabla.
Thanks to Groucho's idea, who has already taken advantage of it, the May Action is about the Black Rook membership (which never expires). Everyone, who purchases this membership (on the Paid Membership page, option "forever"), can choose another user who will receive the same membership for free. And I almost forgot to announce a new game Lines of Action, which was added a week ago.
BrainKing brings, after a long wait (yes, my wife wanted me to add it since December 2002, so it is for her now), one of the oldest and most popular games in the world - Go - and its two smaller variants, Go 9x9 and Go 13x13. Please read the BrainKing rules of this game, even if you know how to play it. And, as a small bonus, the game of Connect6 as an addition to the pieces-in-line family.
Since the current BrainKing system of colours of game pieces (white player always starts a game) is not suitable for all game types and more games will be added soon, I have decided to fix this problem globally for all game types. When the fix is applied, some games would be started by a black player (checkers, pente, shogi, go, etc.) or red player (xiangqi) and this feature would be highlighted in game invitations. It will also affect all other games (running or finished), so don't be alarmed if the colour of your pieces changes from white to black etc. It is just a visual fix, nothing else will be modified. This improvement will be active in a day or two, along with the release of the game of Go.
April Action! This month is dedicated to free advertising on BrainKing. Everybody who purchases a new membership or extends the current one, can place a text advertisement to the right column (see BrainKing April Action box) to promote own site or any other favourite pages for free. The duration of showing this advertisement depends on the length and level of the purchased membership:
2 days for 6 months Brain Rook, 5 days for 1 year Brain Rook, 12 days for 2 years Brain Rook.
1 day for 6 months Brain Knight, 3 days for 1 year Brain Knight, 7 days for 2 years Brain Knight.
Other kinds of membership will be sorted individually.</ul> The promoted sites must be legal, of course - no porn, warez, terrorist etc. pages are allowed. The click statistics page of the advertisement will be provided to the corresponding person as well. The advertisements will be "serialized" - a new one appears after the previous one expires.
March Action! BrainKing offers a very special bonus this month - everybody who purchases a new membership or extends the current one, can create a prize tournament with the same membership as the prize for a winner for free. In order to create a tournament, you must have a Brain Rook level or higher, either before the membership purchase or after.
1) BrainKing introduces Fellowship team matches - a similar system to team tournaments but based on individual challenges from one fellowship to another one. The challenges can be created by team captains on the fellowship pages.
2) A reminder of the February action! Like in every month of this year, February is no exception, speaking of something extra about the paid membership - everybody who purchases a new membership or extends the current one, will have a 50% chance to receive a 50% bonus for free. For example, one year membership can be changed to one and half year (6 free months), a two year membership payment makes a good chance to get the whole year for free, etc. The probability of the success will be determined at the moment of processing the payment by an absolutely independent and fair algorithm and no user will be privileged.
3) Last chance to get a membership for the current price! According to the changing exchange rate of foreign currencies and growing expenses it is necessary to adjust the membership prices accordingly. As of 1st March 2006 the prices will be increased by 2 Euro - Brain Knight would be for 20 (1 year) and 12 (6 months) Euro, Brain Rook for 30 (1 year) and 18 (6 months) Euro. Considering this and the mentioned February action, it might be a good idea to make all planned payments as soon as possible :-)
BrainKing would like to pay its respects to a much loved and valued member of the site who sadly passed away yesterday (February 14th 2006). Bumble was a shining light here and he will be missed by many. Our deepest condolences go to his family.
Thank you everyone for all the messages and support. Please hold any questions about bumble at this time. It is a difficult time. Thank you for your consideration.
BrainKing brings the following news and announcements:
1) Improved tournament system - besides the current system changes and several bugfixes, the support of single elimination and prize with an entry fee tournament types has been added (the first tournament). Moreover, since today it is possible to create internal fellowship ponds and add new game types to the existing Stairs.
2) February action! Like in every month of this year, February is no exception, speaking of something extra about the paid membership - everybody who purchases a new membership or extends the current one, will have a 50% chance to receive a 50% bonus for free. For example, one year membership can be changed to one and half year (6 free months), a two year membership payment makes a good chance to get the whole year for free, etc. The probability of the success will be determined at the moment of processing the payment by an absolutely independent and fair algorithm and no user will be privileged.
3) According to the changing exchange rate of foreign currencies and growing expenses it is necessary to adjust the membership prices accordingly. As of 1st March 2006 the prices will be increased by 2 Euro - Brain Knight would be for 20 (1 year) and 12 (6 months) Euro, Brain Rook for 30 (1 year) and 18 (6 months) Euro. Considering this and the mentioned February action, it might be a good idea to make all planned payments as soon as possible :-)
1) BrainKing is proud to announce its full localization to Chinese, as a result of a great work of redsales and catherineqq. We hope this significant milestone will make our site more user friendly to all board game enthusiasts from the Eastern hemisphere.
2) December is over, let us start another action called January Brains! Everybody who pays for any kind of membership (or extends the current one) and makes it to the end of January 2006, will automatically receive 200 free Brains to be used in the new tournament system, which is planned to be released in February. All details will be posted on the Brains page in advance.
1) The game time will be restarted later today, about 18:00 p.m. GMT+01:00 (10 and half hours after posting this message). Please make sure none of your started games has a negative time left and it is your turn to move.
2) December is over, let us start another action called January Brains! Everybody who pays for any kind of membership (or extends the current one) and makes it to the end of January 2006, will automatically receive 200 free Brains to be used in the new tournament system, which is planned to be released in February. All details will be posted on the Brains page in advance.
Due to a problem with one of our disks, BrainKing was not accessible for about 30 hours. Everything seems to be fixed now, however the game time will remain suspended for at least 24 hours, just to be sure no other problems could occur.
The archive database operations have been successfully finished and BrainKing is working with no problems. The suspended time for games will be started again within a day or two.
1) A planned downtime of BrainKing is scheduled to the 1st January 2006, due to moving data to archive databases. The whole action should not exceed 1 hour. The game time will be turned off, just for a case of unexpected events.
2) There are still several days left for everyone who didn't take advantage of the Christmas Special! Everybody who pays for any kind of membership (or extends the current one) and makes it to the end of this year (2005), will automatically get one FREE month of the same membership as a Christmas present.
(hide) Tired of placing boats or Espionage pieces at the begining of the game? You can go to Game Editors and save some of your favourite positions for future use. (pauloaguia) (show all tips)
I would like to announce a new system of vacations and weekend days for games. The purpose of this change is that current system seems to be too complicated and there are make many users confused, which leads to unexpected losses by timeouts.
The rules are very easy:
instead of 
.
) which would be implemented with the highest priority. Of course, such a feature request must be reasonable and possible to do. 
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