I have slightly modified the discussion board system to improve the overall site performance. Please do not be alarmed if all board posts are marked as "new", it is a harmless side-effect.
1) BrainKing.com releases three new games - Battleboats, Screen Chess and Crazy Screen Chess.
2) There is also new menu item Game editors to create game positions for later use. Please test everything and report any bugs :-)
3) According to many requests from Pente players, Easy Pente and Easy Keryo Pente have been renamed to Open Pente and Open Keryo Pente.
This is a reminder for all Brain Pawn and Brain Knight players who signed up for $250 Gothic Chess tournament - please make sure that you have at least 5 empty slots for tournament games, otherwise you will be automatically removed from the tournament.
A $250 prize will be awarded to the top finisher of the Gothic Chess tournament that will start on June 5. THIS IS FREE FOR EVERYONE TO JOIN!! The second place finisher will receive a FREE Gothic Chess set. A "brilliancy prize" will be awarded to the game judged to be the best by Gothic Chess inventor Ed Trice. A FREE Gothic Chess mug (stainless steel) will be awarded to the winner of this prize.
NOTE: Ed Trice (GothicChessPro) will NOT be playing in the event.
To join this tournament, click here.
To see more about Gothic Chess strategies and review completed games, go to http://www.geocities.com/bow_of_odysseus/index.html.
1) Congratulations to panda and bumble on the birth of your second set of twins (a girl and boy), with love from cariad and all your many friends here on BrainKing.com :-)
2) BrainKing.info has been updated. More information will follow soon.
3) I've completely forgotten to announce an addition of Easy Pente and Easy Keryo Pente last week ;-)
I would like to thank everybody who responded to the discussion boards moderator request. Because I cannot send a personal response to all of you, here is the current status - several moderator posts are already occupied and if you are still interested, pick any of non-system and "open" (moderated by Fencer) discussion board and send me a message about that. Thanks again :-)
Hello,
since I have no time for reading all posts, I would like to set new moderators for non-system discussion boards (especially General Chat). If anybody is interested, please send me a personal message. Thanks :-)
1) I have created BrainKing.info site to publish all important BrainKing.com information (planned outages etc.). It is located on another server, so it should be available even in cases of BrainKing.com inactivity.
2) Due to analysis of experienced Pente players I have added the first moves restriction to Small Pente and Small Keryo Pente. Otherwise these two games would be virtually impossible to win by the black player.
3) The first simple opinion poll has been created to test this new feature. Please follow the Polls link.
4) Check out the new Winners page as well :-)
1) I have just added Small Pente and Small Keryo Pente (13x13 board and no move restrictions).
2) It is possible to create more game invitations at once, check the last page of New game process.
3) We have exceeded 4000 registered players :-)
BrainKing.com proudly presents (at the first game site in the world) Gothic Chess. This game is protected by U.S. Patent 6,481,716 and BrainKing.com has been granted a licence by Edward A. Trice, the inventor of the game.
Of course, test it as you want :-)
Hello,
I have just added three new games - Pente, Keryo Pente and Janus Chess. Since I have never played any of these games, I would be very glad if somebody could test them according to the correct rules. Thanks :-)
1) After a long discussion I have made the final change at Atomic Chess rules. There is no check or checkmate and the only way to win is to blast off the opponent's king. It should solve all recent problems.
2) Backgammon - the current dice are displayed at the right half of the board which is (at last) correct.
Hello,
please make sure that you have a correct e-mail address at your Profile. There are many players who entered an e-mail address with typos and all attempts to send e-mail to non-existent domain slow down our server. Thank you.
1) Prize Tournaments - any player with Brain Rook or higher membership level can define a tournament with a price for a winner. Such tournaments are highlighted at the tournament list.
2) Internal Fellowship Tournaments - each Big Boss can define a tournament for his/her fellowship. Only members of the fellowship can sign up for this tournament.
3) Several other minor improvements, you will find them :-)
Hello,
the server problems have been fixed. Thanks to everybody who helped me with that. Of course, if some of your games timed out during the problematic days, send me the game IDs and I will restore them.
Hello again,
I would like to inform you that we are still working on fixing the mysterious performance bug. Since we are to run several important tests soon, please do not be alarmed if some of BrainKing.com features are temporarily disabled.
One more important thing - the membership of all paying members will be extended by the corresponding number of problematic days.
Hello,
as you probably already noticed, BrainKing.com is currently facing some speed and performance problems. I have just wanted to let you know that we know about it and we are trying to fix it as soon as possible. Thank you.
Hello,
I have just added Halma in two sizes - 8x8 and 10x10, Gothic Checkers and Turkish Checkers. Rules and discussion boards have been added as well. Go and play :-)
Hello,
we apologize for the temporary shutdown of BrainKing.com. It was caused by a electricity defect of our server-housing provider. Everything is working now.
Hello,
based on many requests the Five in Line board is changed to 15 x 15 fields. It applies to new games only, all started games remain with 20 x 20 board.
And something for Checkers players - BrainKing.com presents four new Checkers games: Czech Checkers, Corner Checkers, One Way Checkers and Parachute Checkers. Play on! :-)
BrainKing.com launches two more chess variations:
1) Dark Chess 2) Atomic Chess Feel free to test them, rules have been added and discussion boards as well :-)
Hello again,
although I prefer "realistic" view of game boards, I have decided to accept the request of most backgammon players immediately and made one more change to this game board - both players can see the bearing-off area at the right side. I hope that you will find it comfortable.
Second, based on Horde Chess players' request there is one important change in the rules of this game - a situation with black pawns unable to make legal moves ends as a stalemate (draw). It means that black player still has some pawns on the board but all these pawns are blocked by white pieces without a chance to capture any of them.
Hello,
I would like to announce these important news:
1) Our server-housing provider wants to make a short power outage on Monday 20th January 2003, 7:00 a.m. GMT. This process should not take more than 30 minutes and BrainKing.com will not be accesible during this time.
2) Tournaments created by users with Brain Rook or better membership level have been launched! If it is applicable to you, you should see a new link Define new tournament at Tournaments page. Feel free to ask me any related questions.
3) Backgammon boards have been fixed and more displaying options (bearing-off area at the same side for both players) will be available soon. Rules have been updated.
Hello,
since there was a little bug in Nackgammon implementation (the starting position was wrong), all started Nackgammon games were deleted and the bug is already fixed. I deeply apologize. Please start your Nackgammon games again, everything should be correct now.
Backgammon (and its variations) rules have been added. A new chess variation Three Checks Chess has been added too and needs to be tested - play it :-)
More about Backgammon - it seems that not all rules are implemented correctly (e.g. who starts a game according to the first dice roll, etc.), so please be patient, I will fix it as soon as possible. However, if you are tolerant to these little bugs, all games are playable.
BrainKing.com presents four new games - Backgammon, Nackgammon, Anti Backgammon and Backgammon Race. Since most players wanted to add these games as soon as possible, I decided to release them before the rules are written. The rules will be updated within several days.
As you can see on Tournaments page, the First official BrainKing.com tournament is prepared to be started. The games will be generated on 7th January 2003 at 10:00 a.m. GMT.
Hello,
we have encountered a little bug while turning to the new year and several games were timeouted by accident. If you think that one or more such games are yours, please write me a message with the game ID and I will restore them. We apologize for inconveniences.
BrainKing.com launches fellowships - virtual game clubs on our site. Any user with Brain Rook or higher level can start his/her own fellowship, any user with Brain Knight or higher level can join an existing fellowship. Fell free to test the current basic features and prepare for advanced features that are in development (team tournaments, team matches, etc.).
I would like to announce three important events:
1) Tournaments have been launched several days ago. Do not forget to sign up, they are open for everyone!
2) Christmas Special! Since BrainKing.com reached the 1000th registered user and the number of players is growing and growing, I have decided to give you this Christmas present: Everybody who subscribes any kind of paid membership till the end of this year (31st December 2002) will get one FREE month of the membership as an addition. It applies to the users who already paid as well.
3) Referral Program has been released. See Brains page.
BrainKing.com presents three new games: Popular board game of 18th century Tablut, modern Polish game Tank Battle and old chess variation from India - Maharajah Chess. All rules and related discussion boards are prepared as well. Enjoy! :-)
BrainKing.com stuff would like to apologize for the three-days server inactivity. The problem was caused by a failure of one backup disk. Everything should be working now and no data are corrupted or lost. Three extra days will be added to memberships of all paying members as a compensation.
If you are using WebTV and the current layout does not look good on your screen (especially Five in Line boards), try to switch to Row Layout. Just click on Settings link and follow the instructions.
BrainKing.com is currently in test mode to check functionality of its basic features, so please be tolerant to occasional server-down status and minor errors that may occur. The "real" server start will be announced here too. Thank you for understanding. And we will be very glad if you send us all errors or suggestions to info@brainking.com :-)
I have slightly modified the discussion board system to improve the overall site performance. Please do not be alarmed if all board posts are marked as "new", it is a harmless side-effect.
