Fencer, I'm wondering if it would be possible to incorporate a Printable Version of each Games Rules page on Brain King. Today I have printed the rules to Jungle and Espionage and the rules took three pages each. It would be great if there was a link on each rules page so that the Games Rules could be printed out as middle frame only. This would save ink, paper, and time, and the printed version would be more geared towards just the rules, without the left and right frames of the pages.

It would be great if this were possible.

Regards,

Yvonne

Yes, it's possible. I plan to do similar things for game pages.

Thats a great idea! I'm always trying to jump to those pages and figure what I'm doing (not that it helps me figure what I'm doing!) and most time if I'm in a variation, then I gotta go to another link to get the full rules.........

Anyone interested in Ministers? It's chess on a 9x9 board with an extra queen. I've never played, but it looks most cool. I think it would be a nice addition to Brainking, and shouldn't be too much effort - from a technical standpoint, anyway. I'm not sure about the legal standpoint, as it is proprietary.

(I would hope the company wouldn't hate the publicity of having their game online.)

www.ministerschess.com

Fencer..do you plan to fix so the red (1 new) doesnt show when someone we have on hide has posted?

Yes.

It would be nice to have a poll on new games: ministers, chinese chess, awele, ...

Any chance on the possibility to create more than one?

As a work around, If it's an english only Fellowship, some have added the Czech language, and used the Czech board for other things.

Great idea!!!

Can we have a BrainKing party at next year's European shogi championship? Bunch of t-shirt models escorted by Cave gentlemen, the works.

We used to have Finger Mouse but now we have Mouse Finger, bring back the Clangers.

Fencer could you please take a look at game 501502
not all of the board is visible and there are too many pieces. Thanks

that link doesnt work,Volant

I think he means this game.

Yes, I can look at it. But such things should not be posted to this board. It's just a small bug in one concrete game, not a feature request.

LOL:) that race does seem to be abit crowded! LOL:)

I don't know if this has been suggested before, but how about a variation on battleboats plus. Each ship has various degrees of firepower,eg,

size 2 = 1 shot
size 3&4 = 2 shots
size 5 = 3 shots

This would give you a total of 10 shots at the start of the game and make for a quicker game.

Currently with regular Battleboats plus, white has a good advantage (61% win), so it they were to start out with 10 shots, that would give the first player a VERY big advantage.

How about something like each player starts with 1 shot, but as you sink ships, you gain the power (1, 2, or 3 shots) as you sink ships?

We can talk more about this on the Battleboats Discussion Board if you want.

Looks fine to me - I see 15 pieces for each player.

I already fixed the game.

Fencer thank you very much, it was a bit crowded lol sorry I posted it here :)

an option to search by country would be nice :o)

Is it worth it? Many people pretend to be from another country than they really are.

I think the majority are geniune :o)

I must admit - it would help me when I check for new players to join the "England" fellowship - and it would be interesting to see how many from each country etc etc...

LOL:) we could start our own world war!! ;-)

I don't think so WILD all we have to do is all of us get along.........is that to hard to do?????????????

the reason I say that(in humour) is that there are a lot of different nationalities here,and I think it would be interesting to see just how many there are of each.

call it BK RISK

not to mention it may help players seek out their own countrymen/women to play games.Especially those who dont speak english.

why risk,Vikings?

duh...you meant the game Risk!

yup

Could the list of fellowships we belong to be sorted? I prefer the ones where I am "Big Boss" to be first the a horizontal Rule <hr> then the rest in alphabetical order.

I think it would be a great improvement, if the discussion boards would keep thje threads about a subject together...And fold the thread open when you clik on it. Most db's on websites work like this, and it's much easier to find the messages you're looking for...

Fencer,

Can you change the parentheses around the red numbers so that they are included in the link? Since the numbers are small, including the parentheses as part of the link will give me a bigger target. ;-)

I'd like to try playing Janus Chess with Extinction Chess rules. Seems like it'd be a lot of fun and a fast game too. I suppose it could be programmed anew and have its own category like the other versions of Chess, but I was thinking more of having the whole of Chess type games on this site merged into one page and have the game creator check boxes for the version he'd like to create and play.
Something along these lines.

Board size []8 X 8 []8 X 10 [] 10 X 10 []Other

Pieces) []Traditional []Bird's []Grand []Ultima []Janus []Other []Extra []Players with same pieces [] Or different pieces opposed (As say Ultimamen versus Chessmen)

Set up) []Traditional []Gothic []Player defined []Screen []Random

Rules) []Traditional []Extinction []Dark []Loop []etc

King captures) []Not allowed []Allowed []Other

Pawn promotions) []Allowed []None []Restricted

Wins) []Checkmate []Stalemate []King captured []No Moves available, not stalemated []Other []Players with different objectives to win (This option would be important for opposing sides if selected earlier, though it might be good to handicap one player if so agreed between the two people)

Draws) []Stalemate []Agreed []Insufficient forces []Repeated position []No moves available, not stalemated []Other

That should cover just about every version of Chess on this site and quite a few that aren't. If such a deal is workable, I think it'd greatly add to people's experimentation and enjoyment with Chess type games. Not being a programmer, I can't tell if this would be worth the trouble, or if it's just eqasier to add games as is how it's done now. Since Ultima isn't on this site, nor are a lot of other variants, there'd be a lot of programming to do in any case. It'd still be nice just to check a box with an opponent that I've had a long series of games with and easily change the game format to Extinction play without having to have a special category for it on the site. The page could have regular Chess as the default game. If certain combinations are chosen that are the same as a game commonly played it could be announced to the game creator that these choices will make the game Screen Chess or whatever it might be. Or a list of the games and the corresponding checkmarks on the selections could be shown. Making it easy for the game creator to decide if he wants change some rule or play the game in the traditional way. This happens in Dark Chess as there is more than way to display the board and captured pieces during the game. IYT's way is slightly different than here at BrainKing and it can make a big difference in the game when it happens.

Hey, just a thought. What do you think?

having more variety can only add to the site, ditto on the proposal. Why not expand the horizons and choices?

I'm not sure this is a good idea.

have a look at http://www.chessvariants.com/ . there are literally THOUSANDS of variants listed. what should Filip do, program them all?

a lot of variants are fairly easy to program, for example those with just different initial positions with figures that already exist in the software. but what's the point? surely, there comes a moment where more means less. to program a variant, even if it's easy to do, where only a couple of games will be played is pointless.

I mean to be able to have it possible to play all variants. It wouldn't matter if a combination of choices was never picked, it would be possible to play it is all. Like I said, I don't know the particulars of computer programming, but I'd like to be able to pick and choose amongst features and rules of a game to make versions to play. My example of Extinction Janus Chess comes to mind. If the options could be checked and the game implimented through my picks, then I have a game to play with a like minded individual. This would be better than programming each and every Chess variant that is or has a following. There'd be nothing pointless about it and it would only need to be programmed once to enable all the combinations to be played instead having to make a program for each version. If something new comes up, you could add the feature to the main page and then all the others would have it automatically.

I'm not a chess player, but how would the ratings on this be kept track of???

I may be completely mis-understanding, but it sounds like you're giving the player the chance to combine different aspects of different games?..

Unrated would work, I suppose..

I probably have it wrong anyways.. :-)

I hadn't thought about the ratings. I play games to play games, not to get ratings. All the same, the ratings have uses and are something to try to get high in or use to find opponents and tournament brackets. If what I proposed was implemented, the mainstrean variants would certainly still have their ratings. I suppose an overall Chess variant rating could be made up, even as it stands now that could be done. As for each individual type of game picked and kept track of, it'd be an obscure type of rating and I'd leave it in the back pages somewhere until the game created crossed a certain threshold of enough players and games played to make listing a rating meaningful. Kind of like how the provisional rating becomes established for a person, it could be done for each variant selected. As a popular variant got played more, they would join the list of mainstream variants.
Unrated works as you've said. Just being able to try a game out or play an obscure variant would be neat in itself.

I am not a friend of intermixtures of chessvariants.I think it is much better to let the variants as original as possible as a way to improve the game.Instead there could be added other interesting chessvariants.
Btw if I look at the tournementsite and in the "Waiting room" my impression is that the chessplayers become more and more a minority at BK.

that's my objection. each variant will necessarily have it's own management of ratings, tournaments, fellowships...

It'd easy enough to not have ratings for lessor played variants, or lump them together with simular games. As for fellowships and tournaments, how would that matter or be an objection? You couldn't have either if no one joined your game, so it'd not be a problem.
I'm just saying that it'd be nice to play any game that could be played without having to have a seperate program and category for it.

Or if it's necessary for each variant to have its own management of ratings, tournaments, and fellowships, so? Don't join them unless you want to. I'm not a member of any fellowship, and I only join a tournament that I have an interest in. Same thing for individual games in public waiting area. If you don't like a version, you don't play. Just as it is now. How does that take away from your game playing experience?

It was just an idea off the top of my head. I suppose it'd be too much the hassle to make such a change, even if everything worked the same for the existing games. Even something as simple as having a check box for changing Chess, Janus, or Gothic into Dark, Extinction, Loop, or regular play would be kind of neat. It wouldn't have to be that big chart that I tried to make it into.

Fencer....
Please list all the aliases(sp?) (Previous names) people have used on this site, on our profile page.

I get so confused when some new name shows up on my friends list and I dont know (remember) who they were.
It would be helpful to refer to their profile to find out who they used to be.

I think it would be an interesting idea if it could be programmed.

For example, Dark Janus Chess would be cool, but not popular enough to be a game in itself..... but if could be done with the intermixture idea would be cool.

For ratings, I would either make no ratings for the "intermix" games - or just make an "intermix" chess rating to cover them all - but that might not be good since I'm sure some mixes will make the game very one sided.

Tournaments should not be a problem - if someone wants to make a tournament of it, the mixture rules would be there for them to choose to sign up or not.

If it is not too hard to program, I would vote for it - but my guess is that it would take programming each possible version making it too much problem to program.

A major feature request I have is:

Please offer an new - additional - option to select colours dependend on (BKR) ratings.

I'm rather annoyed, that it currently required, to check out, whether it is "fair" to challenge a yet unknown opponent either with Black or White.

Thus I ask you to introduce a new option "colour choice depends on (BKR) rating" for new game invitations, which should be based upon my and my oppentents rating as well as upon then stats for the already finished games that particular game.

Kind regards,
Frank (frs)