Re: Congames (was Re: Names of chess pieces in (con)langs)

On 3/24/06, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...> wrote:
> Jim wrote:
> <<
> When we were working together on our conworld the Caligoi,
> I started and he contributed to a chess-like game called "Tokwomau"
> (which means "name-giving" in Thauliralau).
>
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/caligo/toa.htm#p553
>
> In theory it may be the most complex chess variant anywhere,
> since the number and kinds of pieces is open-ended; but in practice
> I don't think we ever had more than a dozen pieces in play at
> any given time, when we were playtesting it.
>  >>
>
> Hey, that game is cool!  Do you happen any rundowns of when
> you playtested it, and/or any pictures of the pieces you came up
> with?
No game logs or photos, no.  This was a long time ago (1995 or 1996?).
We've played occasionally since then, but not often.

We used a mixed bag of small toys as a source for pieces -- e.g.
Lego and Fischer-Price people, Muscle Things, etc.   One piece
was a snail shell, and I think there was a small seashell too.

> So, this leads to the question regarding the change in the title:
> Any other congames out there?  If so, are there rules up somewhere?
> When me, my girlfriend, and her siblings (three of them) get together,
> we pretty much do nothing but play games.  We're always looking
> for new ones.  :)
This isn't associated with a conworld (yet), but a few years ago
when I was in the hospital, my parents and I were trying
to play standard dominoes on a tiny hospital room table
and constantly running out of room.  I devised a new
game played with dominoes that is more compact and
suitable for playing on small tables; they (and other family
members we taught it to later) liked it so well that we now
play it by preference even when there are no space constraints.
I need to get some graphics together as illustrations
for a document on the game's rules.  It's called Egleston,
after the hospital I was staying in at the time.

Basically, you start with any random domino face-up
in the middle, and players take turns playing at least
one domino anywhere so that it matches on at least
one side with a domino already on the table.  They're
laid down in a grid pattern, with the half-tiles aligned,
never diagonally or offset as in some domino games.
If you manage to match both sides of the domino
you're playing with dominoes already on the table,
you get to play another one.  And you can make
such double plays vertically, stacking them on
top of other dominoes, as well.  (Occasionally
we've had dominoes stacked five high in spots.)
The object is to run out of dominoes first; there's no
point-counting.

On 3/24/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

> I have tried many times to create playable chess variants, mostly 3-d
> ones, and have yet to come up with a satisfactory result.  Also
> circular chess, tripartite chess on a hex grid (3 colors, 3 bishops
> per side)... chess with time travel allowed, including limited
> backwards travel which might mean having to go back to an earlier
> position and replay from that point...
My brother and I played Moebius strip chess for a while.
It was the same as regular chess except for the rule
about the initial layout of the pieces, and of course the way
the squares at either side of the board map to those on
the opposite side.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang.htm