The following games were produced for The ShortRange Project
Five original variants were provided by Christine Bagley-Jones and Joe Joyce:
HyperModern Shatranj
HyperModern Great Shatranj
LSM Chess
Shatranj 10x8
Alice Shatranj
Additional people then contributed games:
Six Fortresses Short Range - Gary K. Gifford*
Insane Flip Relay Shatranj - Michael Nelson
Hubbub; Cataclysm - Greg Strong
Opulent Lemurian Shatranj - David Paulowich
To be continued
*includes 2 additional variants, Shoranji and Shoranji Maximus, with presets
Claudio Martens Jaguaribe gave a brief description of Naval Base Chess
The ShortRange Project contains 5 zrf's. Below is a short description of each game:
HyperModern Great Shatranj
HyperModern Great Shatranj plays with a mixture of modern and ancient chess. It's modern aspects are the pawns can move like modern FIDE pawns, with their initial 2 square move and en passant, and the King can castle. Ancient aspects of this game are the pieces, which are based on Shatranj. The first 2 variants play with the HighPriestess and Minister, while the last 2 variants have these pieces replaced by their weaker friends, the Priestess and Scribe.
Piece information:
- Queen-2-Slider - moves like queen but only 1 or 2 squares
- HighPriestess - alfil + knight + fers
- Minister - dabbaba + knight + wazir
- Priestess - alfil + knight
- Scribe - dabbaba + knight
- Elephant - moves like alfil + fers
- Knight - standard
- Wazaba - moves like dabbaba + wazir
- Rook - standard
- Pawn - standard
- King - standard
Pawns promote to Wazaba, Knight or Elephant.
King castles 3 squares left or right in variants with rooks in corner, in the variants with rooks not in corner, King moves 2 squares left or right.
Win by checkmate, stalemate or bare king.
For more info, see 'readme' file.
HyperModern Shatranj
HyperModern Shatranj, like Modern Shatranj, was inspired by a conversation between Roberto Lavieri and Joe Joyce (with kibbitzing from David Paulowich) during a game of shatranj played in the ChessVariants.org online Tournament #2. See Modern Shatranj rules at the ChessVariant Pages: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSmodernshatranj
The king, rooks and knights are all standard pieces.
The elephants may move as alfil or ferz, leaping 1 or 2 squares diagonally.
The general moves as a queen that slides only 2 squares.
The guard moves as the king.
The pawns are modern pawns, able to take an initial double step and capture en passant.
Castling is allowed in this game.
Promotion is to Knight, Elephant or Rook
Win by checkmating, stalemating, or baring the opponent's king without your king being bared on the immediately following turn.
For more information, see readme file.
Longrange-Shortrange piece Mix
This game was created to look at the interaction of long and short range pieces. The longrange pieces can cross the board in one turn. The shortrange pieces move only 1 or 2 squares per turn, yet are more powerful than the longrange pieces, except for the only FIDE shortrange piece, the knight, which is reduced in effectiveness by the larger board size.
The King, Rooks, Bishops, Knights and pawns are all the standard FIDE pieces.
The Sliding General moves 1 or 2 squares, and may change direction during the move, reaching up to 24 squares. It is an extremely powerful shortrange piece. The Sliding General may be replaced by a mini-queen (Queen-2-Slider), sliding linearly 1 or 2 squares, reaching up to 16 squares.
The High Priestess may move as knight, ferz or alfil, reaching up to 16 squares.
The Minister moves as knight, wazir or dabbabah, also reaching up to 16 squares.
Variants 3 and 4 play with the Scribe and Priestess, which move like the Minister and HighPriestess, except they don't have the wazir or fers move, and are therefore weaker.
The pawns are able to take an initial double step and capture en passant. Castling is allowed in this game. King moves 3 squares left or right. Promotion is to General (moves like king).
Win by checkmating, stalemating, or baring the opponent's king without your king being bared on the immediately following turn.
For more information, see readme file.
Shatranj 10x8
This game was inspired by Joe Joyce's 'Great Shatranj'. The pieces in this game are not as strong as Joe's game, with the compound pieces Knight-Dabbaba and Knight-Alfil having no Wazir or Fers move. There are 5 sliders, 4 leapers, making the game very positonal. It is like a 'little sister' to that wonderful game.
'Queen-2-Slider' is the strongest piece, moving like a Queen, 1 or 2 squares.
'Scribe' and 'Priestess' are the next most powerful pieces.
'Rookie' and 'XiangStar' are other interesting pieces in this game.
Piece information:
- Priestess - alfil + knight
- Scribe - dabbaba + knight
- Rookie - moves like rook but only 1, 2 or 3 squares
- XiangStar - moves like bishop 1 or 2 squares
- Queen-2-Slider - moves like queen 1 or 2 squares
- Knight - standard
- Pawn - standard shatranj pawn
- King - standard shatranj king
Pawns promote to Rookie, Knight or XiangStar.
Win by checkmate, stalemate or bare king.
Please note King cannot castle, and pawns only move 1 square.
Alice Shatranj
Alice Shatranj is Alice Chess with Shatranj pieces or Shatranj-styled pieces. Variants include Joe Joyce's "Modern Shatranj". Games can be played from different boards on startup, and also in "zero move" mode. For more info, see 'readme' file.
