15 ms·

I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions

774 points by aa_is_op 3y ago

DaveSchmindel 3y ago
Now do 3d chess!
ponderings 3y ago
Someone told me chess players should design their own pieces and make them look just alien enough for the superior opponent to accept the match.
ikedeno 3y ago
I've wanted to see something like those scope beams, another idea is each square on the board could change colour by how many pieces can "see" it.
- russellbeattie 3y ago
  I've been wanting the same exact thing! I think for beginners (and mediocre players like myself) it would help a lot to prevent blunders. Being able to visualize the squares attacked by the knight would be especially useful. I've thought about having the squares show light shades of primary colors so you could see which side is attacking a square, and the composite colors would highlight contested ones, darker shades would mean more attackers. Like red/blue/purple or yellow/red/orange.
  - topaz0 3y ago
    As a fellow mediocre player, my sense is that the best way to prevent blunders is to slow down and enumerate the possibilities. Sure, tools will help, just like having the computer suggest the three best lines will help, but it kind of defeats the purpose of trying to be good at the game. If you're frustrated by missing something that you feel you should have seen, slow down and see it next time.
heads 3y ago
Cool idea! Something about this makes me think about chaining moves, like function calls. Is there a version of chess where you get to keep moving if you take a piece?
dudeinjapan 3y ago
You can also design the pieces like humans that fight each other in long unskippable animations each time a piece is captured. (Does anyone remember Battle Chess?)
keiferski 3y ago
It’s interesting how people react to these designs. For me, I actually find them more confusing than the actual piece shapes, probably because I have the symbols of knight, rook, etc. burned into my mind from playing chess for thousands of hours as a kid. But it could also be because the geometric shapes are too abstract and lack character, which makes them harder to distinguish from each other. It brings to mind the idea that everything is ultimately a representation, even the things designed to be as straightforward as possible.
timetraveller26 3y ago
I first saw something like this on lishogi (lichess for shogi)
hartator 3y ago
Gave up on the knights i see.
2-718-281-828 3y ago
isn't this idea about as trivial as it is useless? i can maybe see the appeal as a special edition for elderly homes or hospitals where people with brain injuries are treated but for a healthy person? learning a few rules? how about a simple cheat sheet squiggled on a piece of paper next to the board?
V-2 3y ago
Fun as it may be as a thought/UX experiment, I don't think it's a good design, because half-truth is usually the worst compromise. This design doesn't account for many special qualities and behaviors pieces exhibit. It doesn't indicate that * while pawns do capture diagonally (forward), they are pushed forward in straight line * they can capture en passant * they can move by 2 squares from their initial file, and only from the initial file * they can be promoted to another piece * Knight moves are not inhibited by the presence of other pieces (unlike any other piece, a Knight can "jump over" pieces) * castling * special status of the King (unless it's conveyed by that circle in the middle, but it's not nearly as readable a symbol as a crown) So this design kind of works if you already have complete information from elsewhere, but isn't that great if it were your first source of info. It also loses the poetic aesthetics of the traditional pieces, with queens and kings and bishops etc.
- V-2 3y ago
  > * they can move by 2 squares from their initial file, and only from the initial file Obviously I meant a rank (horizontal), not a file (vertical), sorry. Cannot edit the comment anymore
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  I have a fair amount of experience teaching children and adults how to play chess. I've almost never seen a beginner mess up the basics of how the pieces move(what this piece set displays). Probably 95% of confusion about rules in new players is about the things you mention. Especially en passant and castling rules. The rule on castling through check is especially confusing, and I've seen even master strength players believe that you can't castle long if b1 or b8 is attacked. Another common mistake is forgetting the rook or king has previously moved. En passant is also very confusing for beginners because there's no indication of it being possible in the current board state. It depends on the previous ply. Repetition is also a major footgun in tournament play. It's often referred to as repetition of moves, but it's actually repetition of the position(which is typically reached via repetition of moves, but doesn't have to). And there's a very specific procedure in tournament chess for claiming a repetition. You have to write down your move, stop the clock and call the arbiter without making the move. If you make the move and hit the clock, now your opponent has every right to make another move, creating a new position. The repetition no longer counts when that happens(so you can't claim e.g oh the position repeated a 3rd time 15 moves ago, gimme a draw). I actually lost a game this way when I had a repetition in a losing position.
globular-toast 3y ago
Ok, but the attack direction is the easiest part of chess to learn. I learnt the rules of chess as a child and despite having played less than 20 games in my life I remember them entirely, including things like en passant.
bmacho 3y ago
A piece-set like this would be great for starting chess, and variants. Especially when there are a lot of pieces and different promotions.
deleted 3y ago
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x905 3y ago
Knight could be a cross of L
spacebacon 3y ago
The Knight would work better as a cross with perpendicular line segments at the end of both sides of each axis.
MistyMister 3y ago
Much like this chess set from 1975 [1]. We picked it up from an auction house about 6years ago, but didnt pay anywhere near the price it reached at bonhams. It is really well designed is "travel ready" put on lid and all pieces stay in place. With only 12 supposedly made it was a great find. edit:forgot to mention who made it Ove Arup (who founded the Arup group) [1]https://www.bonhams.com/auction/19097/lot/49/a-prototype-archeso-gemini-chess-set-by-sir-ove-nyquist-arup-the-arup-chess-company-london-1975/ https://www.bonhams.com/auction/19097/lot/49/a-prototype-arc...
bongripper 3y ago
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RockofStrength 3y ago
This is already incorporated to some extent. Keeping in mind sets vary, Knight's profile is the L-shape. Rook has four parapets (and four gaps). Bishop has a diagonal slit. King has 8 stubby protrusions in his crown. Queen has 8 pointy protrusions in her crown. Pawns are most basic (ironic considering their qualities are most byzantine). I guess it's nice to have a baseline piece for aesthetics.
codeulike 3y ago
This illustration of two knights playing chess from a book written 741 years ago really made me stop and think how old Chess is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#/media/File:KnightsTemplarPlayingChess1283.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#/media/File:KnightsTempl... (To be clear, its much older than 741 years, but the way the board is crystal clear and instantly recognisable in that illustration is really striking)
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bronzy-buckle 3y ago
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takipkasmamedia 3y ago
Why can't I post a link?. please help!!
lutzh 3y ago
100 years ago Josef Hartwig designed a chess set for Bauhaus with the same principle: "the shape of each piece reflects how it moves: pawns and rooks move in straight lines and are represented as rectangular prisms, the bishops feature diagonal lines, the king has both straight and diagonal elements, and the knights are L-shaped" See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets
SimplGy 3y ago
Reminds me of "The Duke", a great board game that exposed the piece movements by necessity. https://www.nonsensicalgamers.com/the-duke-review/ https://www.nonsensicalgamers.com/the-duke-review/
hiccuphippo 3y ago
I thought this would be about redesigning their movement to make a new kind of game. But it's only the shape of the pieces. That said, I'd use a square for the rooks so they don't get confused with the bishops as they get moved and maybe an L shape for the knights. It would definitely make it easy for beginners to learn how each piece moves.
- Raphael 3y ago
  If each movement is broken into a piecemeal function, then a non-standard piece could be assembled, such as a piece that moves like a knight in 3 directions and a bishop northwest and southwest.
- floren 3y ago
  > It would definitely make it easy for beginners to learn how each piece moves. Which is more or less the easiest part of the game to learn, and one which pretty much anybody will have down after one or maybe two games. It's a clever little idea to share on Twitter but in practice I think it would make the board slower to read for advanced players, because so many pieces look similar.
  - trgn 3y ago
    Exactly, this will reduce readability of a board. It's like highlighting the black key notes on sheet music. You think you're making it easier, but end up just adding too much redundant info and it clutters the page. Or like adding a ton of crufty comments to code ("// this is a loop that ... "). Or like adding a "fill these. with water" post-it notes on an icecube tray. Clever. But worse.
Dig1t 3y ago
This is fantastic, I would love to try playing a game with these pieces. I think this could improve accessibility and also make the game less intimidating for newcomers.
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lemmsjid 3y ago
It would be interesting to do an experiment on people playing one another (online) with these pieces vs regular pieces (e.g. one player with a regular set and one player with this set). Because I do feel like I can visualize the state of the board more easily with this approach--but would that translate across people into better play, or is there some point where a more expert player (I don't play very often, though I enjoy playing and have played for years) has already internalized the mapping from piece shape to movement. But that said, it does feel like the difference between font styles in programming, which for me have a very meaningful impact over time. Edit: Though good point to the parallel commenters, the knight shape is harder to differentiate and kind of throws me off. But maybe tweaks there.
- sleeplessworld 3y ago
  The knight shape does seem off. But it avoids the piece being a sun symbol / fascist tribute piece :-)
  - donkeybeer 3y ago
    It shouldn't look like that, its two I's at 90 degrees: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEqoWAFXQAAPRXm?format=jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEqoWAFXQAAPRXm?format=jpg&name=...
    - LudwigNagasena 3y ago
      That knight looks like it's 12th century and he's heading to Jerusalem.
    - Zanni 3y ago
      That's nice. Plus it solves the manufacturing issue if you try to turn this into a physical set (the current knight design is very thinly connected).
- nescioquid 3y ago
  If you're ever going to get the point where you recognize tactics (or anything, for that matter) on the board, how the pieces move must already be internalized and not require any thought. People even especially practice visualizing knight journeys between arbitrary squares to make this more automatic. If you ask an experienced player to use a weird piece set, you will only be introducing error and cognitive overhead. If you ask someone naive to the game to use the piece set, do they internalize how the pieces move more quickly and get over the impedance when they start to use a normal set? Going at a tangent to your idea, maybe it is possible to construct a set that aids the performance of a naive player, but which degrades the performance of a more experienced opponent. Could that handicap be as great as a club player offering pawn odds against a naive opponent?
Waterluvian 3y ago
Curious about the second tweet: are they typically called “liberties” in chess or is that borrowed from Go?
- mellosouls 3y ago
  Its not a chess term.
catapart 3y ago
That is very clever! But I hate the way the pawns face. Makes sense! But it still reads, to me, like one of those "color, but the text is in a different color" things. Feels like the pawns should be facing the opposite direction. =/
- phkahler 3y ago
  It's attack direction not movement direction. Pawns are the one piece where there is a difference and I'm not sure which is better ;-)
  - e12e 3y ago
    Also, there's rochade/castling.
  - Nition 3y ago
    Catapart is aware, they're just saying it's unfortunate how it ends up looking.
- da_chicken 3y ago
  It is very clever, except accidental rotation can easily turn rooks into bishops and vice-versa.
  - Raphael 3y ago
    You could put each piece on a square base that must remain aligned with the board.
  - e12e 3y ago
    Sounds like a fun variant, allowing that as a move... (Remicent of shogi).
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  Same. I understand why they're like that but I can't see it any other way than: "Why are pawns going to move in the wrong direction?".
mxwsn 3y ago
What I enjoy about this design is it exploits the correlation between piece value with the number of ways it can move, resulting in a visual intuition that more visually complex pieces are worth more on average. The knight is perhaps the frustrating exceptions to this.
- neilk 3y ago
  Piece value is determined by how many squares it can threaten. This is why rooks are worth 5 and bishops are worth 3, despite both having apparently equal freedom of movement (just rotated 45 degrees). The bishop will be able to access strictly fewer squares than the rook even in the best case, and usually much fewer. And the bishop is stuck on one color.
  - V-2 3y ago
    "This is why rooks are worth 5 and bishops are worth 3" Such evaluations are only a rule of thumb intended for beginners. It's all context dependent. There are positions where a Bishop is more powerful than a Rook. Other things being equal, Bishops tend to be preferred over Knights in serious play (especially when you've got a Bishop pair, which is synergically more powerful than one Bishop times two), even though both are theoretically "worth" 3 pawns. Two minor pieces are usually worth more than a Rook and a pawn, and more often than not it isn't a good idea to exchange the former for the latter, even though the total value appears the same (3+3 = 5+1). And so on.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    Actually the numbers 5 and 3 are not derived from the number of squares attacked. They denote the power of pieces in relation to eachother, as a general rule with lots of exceptions, and reflects many material imbalances that are often comparable in strength(usually in the endgame). The unit of measurement here is the material value of a single pawn. 3(3x1) pawns are often enough compensation for for a knight(3) or a bishop(3 + ε). 3 minor pieces(3×3) are often sufficient compensation for a queen(9). One minor piece and 2 pawns(3+2) are often sufficient for a rook(5). Two rooks(2x5) are typically slightly stronger than a queen(9). Two minor pieces(2x3) are typically slightly stronger than a rook(5). There are different systems that are derived from number of squares attacked. One thing to note about these systems is that pawns are not created equal. Rook pawns attack one squares less than other pawns, for instance.
freyfogle 3y ago
I suspect Josef Hartwig would like a word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus-Schachspiel https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus-Schachspiel
- lijf 3y ago
  I've built one with Lego. <https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF1392.jpeg https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF1392.jpeg> <https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF2887.jpeg https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF2887.jpeg>
- tdiff 3y ago
  And it looks so much more reasonable, I would say
  - SamBam 3y ago
    Except that this set describes the attack directions, not the motion directions. The difference is in the shape of the pawns. I think this one is quite interesting, as showing lines of threat.
    - EdwardDiego 3y ago
      The pawns felt like they were going backwards. Maybe if they had wee arrow heads.
  - deleted 3y ago
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- tdiff 3y ago
  Those peaces remain unreasonably expensive on Amazon, btw.
  - Raphael 3y ago
    Good whittling project then.
binrec 3y ago
cf. Bernard Parham's "Matrix Notation", which uses the same shapes for pawns, bishops, rooks, and (almost) queens: https://www.thechessdrum.net/talkingdrum/TheMatrix/index.html https://www.thechessdrum.net/talkingdrum/TheMatrix/index.htm...
drojas 3y ago
Interesting, it seems like we can "dissect" each piece into independent properties like possible directions and possible distances. Then one could generate chess set spaces randomly and have a lot of fun.
- jerf 3y ago
  https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-variants/all-30-pieces-in-variants-and-how-they-work https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-variants/all-30-piece... Not that that's an exclusive list either,
morepork 3y ago
If made into a physical set, I could see the bishops and rooks getting confused
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Maybe it's just the top down view, but the white king and queen are practically indistinguishable to me.
PopAlongKid 3y ago
I still have a set which was sold as "Visual Chess", and you can still find it on eBay for example. The pieces were mostly like traditional design (but kind of "modernized" in 1960s style) but when viewed from the top (i.e. as you play), there was an indication of the allowed move. You can see some examples in the image link below. Even the pawns had a nice design which clearly indicated that movement of one square forward (normally), or attacking on the diagonal, were both allowed. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Yx4AAOSwTY9i7XeC/s-l960.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Yx4AAOSwTY9i7XeC/s-l960.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AZUAAOSwuABi7XeE/s-l960.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AZUAAOSwuABi7XeE/s-l960.jpg
- schiffern 3y ago
  Fantastic. Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205710/https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Yx4AAOSwTY9i7XeC/s-l960.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205710/https://i.ebayimg... https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205730/https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AZUAAOSwuABi7XeE/s-l960.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205730/https://i.ebayimg...
- angry_moose 3y ago
  I had an updated version of this set (probably from the 90s?). Mine had a better board and I think the tops of the pieces were different, but the text/diagrams were identical: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c1ri78/this_chess_set_from_1972_has_the_valid_moves_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c1ri78/t... Not all of the moves were the clearest, but it was still handy while trying to learn.
  - giis 3y ago
    Great! This will be excellent for beginners. I'm considering teaching chess to my kids. Can I still find it online? My searches on Amazon and Google haven't yielded the results I need.
    - angry_moose 3y ago
      I'm pretty sure this was the set I had from 1992: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134677808785?hash=item1f5b6c4691:g:KtAAAOSwDTJky~Vu https://www.ebay.com/itm/134677808785?hash=item1f5b6c4691:g:... There's a lot of other versions sold under "chess teacher", this seems to be the most modern: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266236564204?hash=item3dfcef92ec:g:4x0AAOSwWS5kSkmr https://www.ebay.com/itm/266236564204?hash=item3dfcef92ec:g:... It appears that it was originally sold as "The Educator": https://www.ebay.com/itm/325899664936?hash=item4be1223e28:g:gQQAAOSwOBRlYOTy https://www.ebay.com/itm/325899664936?hash=item4be1223e28:g:... Not affiliated with any of those and they probably aren't the best prices (just the first ones I found), but should give you enough to track one down.
punyearthling 3y ago
the rook and bishop are the same shapes tho
LeegleechN 3y ago
This idea is common in Shogi piece designs for those who can't read the traditional Kanji designs.
- boredhedgehog 3y ago
  And the idea is misguided there as well. Kanji are problematic because people who can't read them can't differentiate their shapes. Any unique silhouette -- even a Latin letter -- is preferable to arrow diagrams, which end up unnecessarily similar to one another.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    Yeah I had no issue learning Shogi with no knowledge of kanji.
- afterburner 3y ago
  Indeed! Googling "shogi learning set" finds these sets.
notfed 3y ago
This would be awesome for teaching beginners. I'd probably go with circle for the king, and maybe an L or a sideways H for the knight, even though they break the original design rule. Otherwise K/Q/N just look too similar.
- Raphael 3y ago
  I have an overgrown dice pip renderer, so I made the rook "+", knight "L", bishop 4-gram, queen 8-gram, king octagon, and pawn a trapezoid (just to suggest movement direction). https://vezquex.github.io/clock/chess/ https://vezquex.github.io/clock/chess/
- excalibur 3y ago
  +1 for making the knights an L. The way it is, the pawns sort of look like knights
- pwenzel 3y ago
  Agreed. Love the concept, but the knights definitely need clarity.
- infogulch 3y ago
  The L is an orthogonalist conspiracy theory. There's no right angles in the knight's movement, wake up sheeple! https://twitter.com/graycrawford/status/1750248031784763639 https://twitter.com/graycrawford/status/1750248031784763639
  - emporas 3y ago
    Knight's movement is a "Γ" "Gamma" not an L. Some day a brilliant game may pop up, which has several letters and try to match em together, like an L, a Γ, an I and so on.
- javier123454321 3y ago
  Learning the movement is by far the easiest part of teaching beginners. It's fine as a design exercise, but its effect in making it easier to learn is close to null.
2024throwaway 3y ago
Off topic, but does anyone know a browser extension that lets you block certain domains from the HN list? I've blocked twitter/x from my DNS, and don't want links to it cluttering the feed.
- nick_g 3y ago
  I'm not aware of one, but if you can insert custom css rules it should be simple with something like tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href*="twitter.com"]), tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href*="twitter.com"]) + tr, tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href\*="twitter.com"]) + tr + tr { display: none; } This selects for any `tr` which has an anchor to a url with twitter.com somewhere in it (with some layers in between) and the two `tr` which follow. Note that this is pretty naive and could have some false positives with links such as https://example.com/blog/a-post-about-twitter.com https://example.com/blog/a-post-about-twitter.com and such, you could be more careful with the attribute selector if you'd like This will leave "holes" in the numbering of the list of items as the numbers are not calculated based on the structure of the document but are rather hardcoded. You could definitely fix this with some more funky css rules if needed.
  - 2024throwaway 3y ago
    Perfect thank you.
  - sixstringtheory 3y ago
    I would think you could automatically load the first match's "hide" URL until no more matches appear in the page, but it might trip some kind of rate limiter.
- timeon 3y ago
  Pay/login-walled sites are common here.
  - deleted 3y ago
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autocorr 3y ago
Lichess also includes a piece set similar to this, although with the notable difference that the Knight is shaped like a greater-than symbol and the pawn is a small square.
29athrowaway 3y ago
This is not a new idea.
klysm 3y ago
Pawns are awkward though because movement doesn't align with attack
- trgn 3y ago
  Yup, the visually dominating pieces end up _feeling_ wrong. It'd really bother me tbh.
addisaden 3y ago
a theme for chess.com would be nice !! Lovely communicative design
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
I like it, but the knights still aren't quite right. And I'd probably give all of them square bases, so that the bishop and rooks weren't so easily mistakable with just a 45° turn.
mattigames 3y ago
It's a good idea but looks a bit too bland for my taste, I think a bit more spiky would be better, so based on this I made such a concept: https://i.imgur.com/mXd0L3P.png https://i.imgur.com/mXd0L3P.png (also blue-vs-red, to give it a bit of color) Non-colored version: https://i.imgur.com/A1Vofpz.png https://i.imgur.com/A1Vofpz.png
ortusdux 3y ago
It would be fun to make up a physical version with lasers and a fog machine.
- loceng 3y ago
  Do you need fog if lasers aiming at the board?
- thih9 3y ago
  In the meantime there is Khet board game: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khet_(game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khet_(game) - fog machine not included.
crdrost 3y ago
I think this is fun, but (a) knights' threats are disconnected and this "flower" approach while good is maybe not ideal. You might as well use a hollow circle at that point. (b) when we say "chess pieces can be redesigned to be..." then I think about actual physical pieces, it would not do to make these as actual physical pieces because an accidental misplacement turns a rook into a bishop or vice versa. Gotta make the bishop look like it is "sniping" along the diagonals while the rook looks more "sweeping" maybe? (c) don't make the king a little-queen. Make the king a little square to emphasize "it can only threaten the neighboring square," then it looks more visually distinctive. The pawns are fun though.
- fastball 3y ago
  I don't think (b) is really fair. You still call them "pieces" even if you are playing chess on a device/screen.
- Raphael 3y ago
  Yes, the knight is up to 8 squares in a 5x5 grid. https://github.com/vezquex/chess/blob/master/src/game/piece/knightFn.js https://github.com/vezquex/chess/blob/master/src/game/piece/...
- cruano 3y ago
  Unrelated, but I just realized the horse is not in fact called "horse" like it is in Italian/Spanish.
  - tauchunfall 3y ago
    It is called "Springer" (translates to: jumper) in German. Sometimes "Pferd" or "Ross" is also used (translates to: horse and steed, resp.). That's why "Knight's tour" is called "Springerproblem" or "Rösselsprung" (from "Ross") in German.
    - NeoTar 3y ago
      Hence the German academic publisher, Springer, which uses a knight as it's logo. (Not to be confused with the much larger Axel-Springer publishers, nor the American academic Springer publisher.)
bradley13 3y ago
Why? By the time you have understood the game, you know the pieces. There are only six of them, after all.
russellbeattie 3y ago
This is cool! The major online chess sites should add this as an option. The lines don't need to be so thick I think, which would allow little arrow heads to make it even more obvious. And while we're at it, they don't even need to look like actual physical pieces, so the knight could be designed to show how it hops over squares by having blank spots in its icon.
infogulch 3y ago
For me the most surprising observation from this thread is this tweet [1] showing that the knight's moves are exactly the squares that the queen can't get to within a 2 square manhattan distance. I.e. the knight is an anti-queen. [1]: https://twitter.com/skidbladnirr_/status/1750285122769957129 https://twitter.com/skidbladnirr_/status/1750285122769957129
- fasteo 3y ago
  >>> I.e. the knight is an anti-queen. The complement-queen I would say
- sicariusnoctis 3y ago
  A very interesting property: Knights have odd-even parity, i.e., they attack only opposite colored squares. Pop quiz: How many knights can you place on a board so that they don't attack each other?
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Well, since a knight on a white square can only attack knights on black squares, and half of the 64 squares are white...
- aurelwu 3y ago
  Some non-orthodox chess variants have a piece which combines Queen+Knight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess) very old variants often had such compound pieces like for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Acedrex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Acedrex
  - porphyra 3y ago
    There's also the knook that combines the Knight and the Rook, which was hilariously invented as a meme on /r/anarchychess: https://anarchychess.fandom.com/wiki/Knook https://anarchychess.fandom.com/wiki/Knook
scottlilly 3y ago
Several years ago, I wrote a chess-like game where the shape of the pieces showed their potential moves (https://github.com/scottlilly/mogrichess https://github.com/scottlilly/mogrichess). This was needed because the a capturing piece gained the movement abilities of the piece it could capture, so pieces' movement abilities were always changing. Unfortunately, I never got around to writing a good AI so you could play against the computer. At some point, I'd like to get back to that project.
d-lisp 3y ago
In a sense, chess pieces can already perceived as geometric attack directions. After too much chess I feel frightened by the salt shaker.
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beefman 3y ago
This idea has been around a long time. Recognizing the pieces is the easiest part of chess. And distinct symbolic forms are actually easier than representational forms like these. Similarly, iconic phonetic notation not a good replacement for the Latin alphabet https://www.omniglot.com/writing/visiblespeech.htm https://www.omniglot.com/writing/visiblespeech.htm
purplejacket 3y ago
Nice :-) I might make the King round though. Set it apart more.
beAbU 3y ago
Learning all the possible moves and attacks in chess is the least difficult part of learning chess.
navane 3y ago
I had a similar idea: https://imgur.com/a/MccC29V https://imgur.com/a/MccC29V
Andrex 3y ago
I don't know what it was but within 0.5 seconds of looking at the first image my brain had a weird feeling of calmed peace. Very odd.
lulznews 3y ago
Yea this is the basic premise of chess …
squigglydonut 3y ago
They already look like this. Stop tweeting and go start a business!
- Terretta 3y ago
  Already as in yes, the moves are baked in to the standard design -- you just look down at them from the top. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/75/8a/79758a3355c2bed372aa5225f8b9dd84.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/75/8a/79758a3355c2bed372aa... Yes, queen already had 8 point hat wide because whole board, king eight point cross, small for one step. Bishop has a diagonal cut in its cap. Knight as a horse, the long nose and ears are the knight move. Castle with a plus cut in the ramparts. Pawn is a dot for its usual move, with the ring collar for the optional second step.
  - squigglydonut 3y ago
    Yea
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advael 3y ago
I kind of wish the knight was more of a tetris L, but I like the idea overall
- Raphael 3y ago
  8 squares or 8 Ls to show all liberties. One L symbolically.
jlv2 3y ago
Looks like the peices from the game Ploy. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1591/ploy https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1591/ploy
FpUser 3y ago
It sure got knight wrong. But then again if done right it would look like swastika ;)
- batch12 3y ago
  If you take half of its possible moves away then yes
psudmant 3y ago
As someone who has played a lot of chess I don't find this useful. I'm surprised how many people have positive responses to this.
- nrb 3y ago
  Consider for a moment the billions of people who have not played a lot of chess. Seems like a cool teaching aid for youngsters especially.
  - slily 3y ago
    Does it take anyone longer than a game or two to remember the rules of chess? I even taught chess to adults as a child and they caught on within a few moves. Which I guess explains why it remains more popular than FOTM overcomplicated board game #5000. It's not difficult to memorize. IMO this is a solution to a nonexistent problem.
    - mmclar 3y ago
      Knowing the rules and 'seeing' the ways that pieces can move are different things. I could see this being helpful to someone who has a working knowledge of the ways pieces can move, but hasn't yet built their skill of visualization thereof.
      - wruza 3y ago
        So we should delay the development of their visualization skill, because otherwise visualization is useless in chess? This works literally against what chess is about and materializes the least complex aspect of the game into a visual noise all over the board.
      - polytropos2 3y ago
        Except this doesn't help you visualize it either. I can understand this argument for online boards that, when you click on a piece, highlight all the legal moves. This set doesn't do that, it basically just reminds you how the pieces move. I don't think anyone that actually plays or teaches chess thinks this is a good set design. Honestly amazed by how many people called this clever. I also find it weird that OP claims it makes the board "easier to probe", when it does the exact opposite. This is a textbook example of making up a problem, rather than a solution.
theonemind 3y ago
I hardly even play chess, but I do know the rules and how the pieces move, but this wrecks my intuitive sense of how the pieces move entirely, so I think it’d be a hard transition to regular pieces, which kind of kills any supposed benefit.
tetrisgm 3y ago
Pawns are missing a rear view mirror for en passant
jacknews 3y ago
I prefer this: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/4746 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/4746 The pieces resemble the movements in most cases, but also pack together into a rectangle.
- Tepix 3y ago
  > The pieces resemble the movements in most cases I don't see it. Do they really?
  - Izkata 3y ago
    The ones with square tops only move horizontally/vertically and the bigger ones move further, the ones with an L-shaped top move in an L shape, the ones with a diagonal top move diagonally. I don't see the King and Queen movements though.
    - jacknews 3y ago
      Right, the king and Queen could maybe have 4 or 8 pointy corners instead of just a V, but the other pieces 'mimic' their movement in a sense.
dev1ycan 3y ago
What I find funny about chess it's such an elegantly designed game... except castling. Always seemed like a random thing to me to be in the game, and then I found out that it was added centuries after in medieval europe to the game, makes sense why it feels so out of place. Wish we had a league without castling for that sole purpose.
- V-2 3y ago
  No-castling variant is a thing. It generally makes taking the King to safety more difficult, encouraging a more aggressive style (in the spirit of "I'll get to yours before you get to mine"). Kramnik revived the idea during his collaboration with DeepMind (where he tested several chess variants, revolving around only minor, albeit impactful adjustments to the ruleset). One potential problem with no castling is that players may end up castling "manually", which takes several moves and becomes a mundane "housekeeping" task, actually sucking some dynamics out of the game. That was probably the reason why it was invented in the first place, to sort of automate the obvious thing away. By the way, European chess added much more to the original version beyond just castling. The Queen would originally move in the same manner as the King (only by one square), the "mad Queen" thing is a European invention. So is the pawns' ability to move forward by 2 squares from their initial position. (And I'm guessing the incentive for that was of similar nature as above - to speed the game up).
- isolli 3y ago
  It's indeed a relatively recent addition, but the idea that the king would get a special move is a bit older [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling#History

774 points by aa_is_op 3y ago

Now do 3d chess!

Someone told me chess players should design their own pieces and make them look just alien enough for the superior opponent to accept the match.

ikedeno 3y ago

I've wanted to see something like those scope beams, another idea is each square on the board could change colour by how many pieces can "see" it.

russellbeattie 3y ago
I've been wanting the same exact thing! I think for beginners (and mediocre players like myself) it would help a lot to prevent blunders. Being able to visualize the squares attacked by the knight would be especially useful. I've thought about having the squares show light shades of primary colors so you could see which side is attacking a square, and the composite colors would highlight contested ones, darker shades would mean more attackers. Like red/blue/purple or yellow/red/orange.
- topaz0 3y ago
  As a fellow mediocre player, my sense is that the best way to prevent blunders is to slow down and enumerate the possibilities. Sure, tools will help, just like having the computer suggest the three best lines will help, but it kind of defeats the purpose of trying to be good at the game. If you're frustrated by missing something that you feel you should have seen, slow down and see it next time.

heads 3y ago

Cool idea! Something about this makes me think about chaining moves, like function calls. Is there a version of chess where you get to keep moving if you take a piece?

dudeinjapan 3y ago

You can also design the pieces like humans that fight each other in long unskippable animations each time a piece is captured. (Does anyone remember Battle Chess?)

keiferski 3y ago

It’s interesting how people react to these designs. For me, I actually find them more confusing than the actual piece shapes, probably because I have the symbols of knight, rook, etc. burned into my mind from playing chess for thousands of hours as a kid. But it could also be because the geometric shapes are too abstract and lack character, which makes them harder to distinguish from each other. It brings to mind the idea that everything is ultimately a representation, even the things designed to be as straightforward as possible.

timetraveller26 3y ago

I first saw something like this on lishogi (lichess for shogi)

hartator 3y ago

Gave up on the knights i see.

2-718-281-828 3y ago

isn't this idea about as trivial as it is useless? i can maybe see the appeal as a special edition for elderly homes or hospitals where people with brain injuries are treated but for a healthy person? learning a few rules? how about a simple cheat sheet squiggled on a piece of paper next to the board?

V-2 3y ago

Fun as it may be as a thought/UX experiment, I don't think it's a good design, because half-truth is usually the worst compromise. This design doesn't account for many special qualities and behaviors pieces exhibit. It doesn't indicate that * while pawns do capture diagonally (forward), they are pushed forward in straight line * they can capture en passant * they can move by 2 squares from their initial file, and only from the initial file * they can be promoted to another piece * Knight moves are not inhibited by the presence of other pieces (unlike any other piece, a Knight can "jump over" pieces) * castling * special status of the King (unless it's conveyed by that circle in the middle, but it's not nearly as readable a symbol as a crown) So this design kind of works if you already have complete information from elsewhere, but isn't that great if it were your first source of info. It also loses the poetic aesthetics of the traditional pieces, with queens and kings and bishops etc.

V-2 3y ago
> * they can move by 2 squares from their initial file, and only from the initial file Obviously I meant a rank (horizontal), not a file (vertical), sorry. Cannot edit the comment anymore
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
I have a fair amount of experience teaching children and adults how to play chess. I've almost never seen a beginner mess up the basics of how the pieces move(what this piece set displays). Probably 95% of confusion about rules in new players is about the things you mention. Especially en passant and castling rules. The rule on castling through check is especially confusing, and I've seen even master strength players believe that you can't castle long if b1 or b8 is attacked. Another common mistake is forgetting the rook or king has previously moved. En passant is also very confusing for beginners because there's no indication of it being possible in the current board state. It depends on the previous ply. Repetition is also a major footgun in tournament play. It's often referred to as repetition of moves, but it's actually repetition of the position(which is typically reached via repetition of moves, but doesn't have to). And there's a very specific procedure in tournament chess for claiming a repetition. You have to write down your move, stop the clock and call the arbiter without making the move. If you make the move and hit the clock, now your opponent has every right to make another move, creating a new position. The repetition no longer counts when that happens(so you can't claim e.g oh the position repeated a 3rd time 15 moves ago, gimme a draw). I actually lost a game this way when I had a repetition in a losing position.

globular-toast 3y ago

Ok, but the attack direction is the easiest part of chess to learn. I learnt the rules of chess as a child and despite having played less than 20 games in my life I remember them entirely, including things like en passant.

bmacho 3y ago

A piece-set like this would be great for starting chess, and variants. Especially when there are a lot of pieces and different promotions.

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x905 3y ago

Knight could be a cross of L

spacebacon 3y ago

The Knight would work better as a cross with perpendicular line segments at the end of both sides of each axis.

MistyMister 3y ago

Much like this chess set from 1975 [1]. We picked it up from an auction house about 6years ago, but didnt pay anywhere near the price it reached at bonhams. It is really well designed is "travel ready" put on lid and all pieces stay in place. With only 12 supposedly made it was a great find. edit:forgot to mention who made it Ove Arup (who founded the Arup group) [1]https://www.bonhams.com/auction/19097/lot/49/a-prototype-archeso-gemini-chess-set-by-sir-ove-nyquist-arup-the-arup-chess-company-london-1975/ https://www.bonhams.com/auction/19097/lot/49/a-prototype-arc...

bongripper 3y ago

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RockofStrength 3y ago

This is already incorporated to some extent. Keeping in mind sets vary, Knight's profile is the L-shape. Rook has four parapets (and four gaps). Bishop has a diagonal slit. King has 8 stubby protrusions in his crown. Queen has 8 pointy protrusions in her crown. Pawns are most basic (ironic considering their qualities are most byzantine). I guess it's nice to have a baseline piece for aesthetics.

codeulike 3y ago

This illustration of two knights playing chess from a book written 741 years ago really made me stop and think how old Chess is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#/media/File:KnightsTemplarPlayingChess1283.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#/media/File:KnightsTempl... (To be clear, its much older than 741 years, but the way the board is crystal clear and instantly recognisable in that illustration is really striking)

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bronzy-buckle 3y ago

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takipkasmamedia 3y ago

Why can't I post a link?. please help!!

lutzh 3y ago

100 years ago Josef Hartwig designed a chess set for Bauhaus with the same principle: "the shape of each piece reflects how it moves: pawns and rooks move in straight lines and are represented as rectangular prisms, the bishops feature diagonal lines, the king has both straight and diagonal elements, and the knights are L-shaped" See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets

SimplGy 3y ago

Reminds me of "The Duke", a great board game that exposed the piece movements by necessity. https://www.nonsensicalgamers.com/the-duke-review/ https://www.nonsensicalgamers.com/the-duke-review/

hiccuphippo 3y ago

I thought this would be about redesigning their movement to make a new kind of game. But it's only the shape of the pieces. That said, I'd use a square for the rooks so they don't get confused with the bishops as they get moved and maybe an L shape for the knights. It would definitely make it easy for beginners to learn how each piece moves.

Raphael 3y ago
If each movement is broken into a piecemeal function, then a non-standard piece could be assembled, such as a piece that moves like a knight in 3 directions and a bishop northwest and southwest.
floren 3y ago
> It would definitely make it easy for beginners to learn how each piece moves. Which is more or less the easiest part of the game to learn, and one which pretty much anybody will have down after one or maybe two games. It's a clever little idea to share on Twitter but in practice I think it would make the board slower to read for advanced players, because so many pieces look similar.
- trgn 3y ago
  Exactly, this will reduce readability of a board. It's like highlighting the black key notes on sheet music. You think you're making it easier, but end up just adding too much redundant info and it clutters the page. Or like adding a ton of crufty comments to code ("// this is a loop that ... "). Or like adding a "fill these. with water" post-it notes on an icecube tray. Clever. But worse.

Dig1t 3y ago

This is fantastic, I would love to try playing a game with these pieces. I think this could improve accessibility and also make the game less intimidating for newcomers.

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lemmsjid 3y ago

It would be interesting to do an experiment on people playing one another (online) with these pieces vs regular pieces (e.g. one player with a regular set and one player with this set). Because I do feel like I can visualize the state of the board more easily with this approach--but would that translate across people into better play, or is there some point where a more expert player (I don't play very often, though I enjoy playing and have played for years) has already internalized the mapping from piece shape to movement. But that said, it does feel like the difference between font styles in programming, which for me have a very meaningful impact over time. Edit: Though good point to the parallel commenters, the knight shape is harder to differentiate and kind of throws me off. But maybe tweaks there.

sleeplessworld 3y ago
The knight shape does seem off. But it avoids the piece being a sun symbol / fascist tribute piece :-)
- donkeybeer 3y ago
  It shouldn't look like that, its two I's at 90 degrees: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEqoWAFXQAAPRXm?format=jpg&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEqoWAFXQAAPRXm?format=jpg&name=...
  - LudwigNagasena 3y ago
    That knight looks like it's 12th century and he's heading to Jerusalem.
  - Zanni 3y ago
    That's nice. Plus it solves the manufacturing issue if you try to turn this into a physical set (the current knight design is very thinly connected).
nescioquid 3y ago
If you're ever going to get the point where you recognize tactics (or anything, for that matter) on the board, how the pieces move must already be internalized and not require any thought. People even especially practice visualizing knight journeys between arbitrary squares to make this more automatic. If you ask an experienced player to use a weird piece set, you will only be introducing error and cognitive overhead. If you ask someone naive to the game to use the piece set, do they internalize how the pieces move more quickly and get over the impedance when they start to use a normal set? Going at a tangent to your idea, maybe it is possible to construct a set that aids the performance of a naive player, but which degrades the performance of a more experienced opponent. Could that handicap be as great as a club player offering pawn odds against a naive opponent?

Waterluvian 3y ago

Curious about the second tweet: are they typically called “liberties” in chess or is that borrowed from Go?

mellosouls 3y ago
Its not a chess term.

catapart 3y ago

That is very clever! But I hate the way the pawns face. Makes sense! But it still reads, to me, like one of those "color, but the text is in a different color" things. Feels like the pawns should be facing the opposite direction. =/

phkahler 3y ago
It's attack direction not movement direction. Pawns are the one piece where there is a difference and I'm not sure which is better ;-)
- e12e 3y ago
  Also, there's rochade/castling.
- Nition 3y ago
  Catapart is aware, they're just saying it's unfortunate how it ends up looking.
da_chicken 3y ago
It is very clever, except accidental rotation can easily turn rooks into bishops and vice-versa.
- Raphael 3y ago
  You could put each piece on a square base that must remain aligned with the board.
- e12e 3y ago
  Sounds like a fun variant, allowing that as a move... (Remicent of shogi).
TacticalCoder 3y ago
Same. I understand why they're like that but I can't see it any other way than: "Why are pawns going to move in the wrong direction?".

mxwsn 3y ago

What I enjoy about this design is it exploits the correlation between piece value with the number of ways it can move, resulting in a visual intuition that more visually complex pieces are worth more on average. The knight is perhaps the frustrating exceptions to this.

neilk 3y ago
Piece value is determined by how many squares it can threaten. This is why rooks are worth 5 and bishops are worth 3, despite both having apparently equal freedom of movement (just rotated 45 degrees). The bishop will be able to access strictly fewer squares than the rook even in the best case, and usually much fewer. And the bishop is stuck on one color.
- V-2 3y ago
  "This is why rooks are worth 5 and bishops are worth 3" Such evaluations are only a rule of thumb intended for beginners. It's all context dependent. There are positions where a Bishop is more powerful than a Rook. Other things being equal, Bishops tend to be preferred over Knights in serious play (especially when you've got a Bishop pair, which is synergically more powerful than one Bishop times two), even though both are theoretically "worth" 3 pawns. Two minor pieces are usually worth more than a Rook and a pawn, and more often than not it isn't a good idea to exchange the former for the latter, even though the total value appears the same (3+3 = 5+1). And so on.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Actually the numbers 5 and 3 are not derived from the number of squares attacked. They denote the power of pieces in relation to eachother, as a general rule with lots of exceptions, and reflects many material imbalances that are often comparable in strength(usually in the endgame). The unit of measurement here is the material value of a single pawn. 3(3x1) pawns are often enough compensation for for a knight(3) or a bishop(3 + ε). 3 minor pieces(3×3) are often sufficient compensation for a queen(9). One minor piece and 2 pawns(3+2) are often sufficient for a rook(5). Two rooks(2x5) are typically slightly stronger than a queen(9). Two minor pieces(2x3) are typically slightly stronger than a rook(5). There are different systems that are derived from number of squares attacked. One thing to note about these systems is that pawns are not created equal. Rook pawns attack one squares less than other pawns, for instance.

freyfogle 3y ago

I suspect Josef Hartwig would like a word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hartwig#Chess_sets https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus-Schachspiel https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus-Schachspiel

lijf 3y ago
I've built one with Lego. <https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF1392.jpeg https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF1392.jpeg> <https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF2887.jpeg https://www.lijf.org/chess/DSCF2887.jpeg>
tdiff 3y ago
And it looks so much more reasonable, I would say
- SamBam 3y ago
  Except that this set describes the attack directions, not the motion directions. The difference is in the shape of the pawns. I think this one is quite interesting, as showing lines of threat.
  - EdwardDiego 3y ago
    The pawns felt like they were going backwards. Maybe if they had wee arrow heads.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tdiff 3y ago
Those peaces remain unreasonably expensive on Amazon, btw.
- Raphael 3y ago
  Good whittling project then.

binrec 3y ago

cf. Bernard Parham's "Matrix Notation", which uses the same shapes for pawns, bishops, rooks, and (almost) queens: https://www.thechessdrum.net/talkingdrum/TheMatrix/index.html https://www.thechessdrum.net/talkingdrum/TheMatrix/index.htm...

drojas 3y ago

Interesting, it seems like we can "dissect" each piece into independent properties like possible directions and possible distances. Then one could generate chess set spaces randomly and have a lot of fun.

jerf 3y ago
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-variants/all-30-pieces-in-variants-and-how-they-work https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-variants/all-30-piece... Not that that's an exclusive list either,

morepork 3y ago

If made into a physical set, I could see the bishops and rooks getting confused

zdragnar 3y ago
Maybe it's just the top down view, but the white king and queen are practically indistinguishable to me.

PopAlongKid 3y ago

I still have a set which was sold as "Visual Chess", and you can still find it on eBay for example. The pieces were mostly like traditional design (but kind of "modernized" in 1960s style) but when viewed from the top (i.e. as you play), there was an indication of the allowed move. You can see some examples in the image link below. Even the pawns had a nice design which clearly indicated that movement of one square forward (normally), or attacking on the diagonal, were both allowed. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Yx4AAOSwTY9i7XeC/s-l960.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Yx4AAOSwTY9i7XeC/s-l960.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AZUAAOSwuABi7XeE/s-l960.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AZUAAOSwuABi7XeE/s-l960.jpg

schiffern 3y ago
Fantastic. Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205710/https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Yx4AAOSwTY9i7XeC/s-l960.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205710/https://i.ebayimg... https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205730/https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AZUAAOSwuABi7XeE/s-l960.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20240125205730/https://i.ebayimg...
angry_moose 3y ago
I had an updated version of this set (probably from the 90s?). Mine had a better board and I think the tops of the pieces were different, but the text/diagrams were identical: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c1ri78/this_chess_set_from_1972_has_the_valid_moves_for/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c1ri78/t... Not all of the moves were the clearest, but it was still handy while trying to learn.
- giis 3y ago
  Great! This will be excellent for beginners. I'm considering teaching chess to my kids. Can I still find it online? My searches on Amazon and Google haven't yielded the results I need.
  - angry_moose 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure this was the set I had from 1992: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134677808785?hash=item1f5b6c4691:g:KtAAAOSwDTJky~Vu https://www.ebay.com/itm/134677808785?hash=item1f5b6c4691:g:... There's a lot of other versions sold under "chess teacher", this seems to be the most modern: https://www.ebay.com/itm/266236564204?hash=item3dfcef92ec:g:4x0AAOSwWS5kSkmr https://www.ebay.com/itm/266236564204?hash=item3dfcef92ec:g:... It appears that it was originally sold as "The Educator": https://www.ebay.com/itm/325899664936?hash=item4be1223e28:g:gQQAAOSwOBRlYOTy https://www.ebay.com/itm/325899664936?hash=item4be1223e28:g:... Not affiliated with any of those and they probably aren't the best prices (just the first ones I found), but should give you enough to track one down.

punyearthling 3y ago

the rook and bishop are the same shapes tho

LeegleechN 3y ago

This idea is common in Shogi piece designs for those who can't read the traditional Kanji designs.

boredhedgehog 3y ago
And the idea is misguided there as well. Kanji are problematic because people who can't read them can't differentiate their shapes. Any unique silhouette -- even a Latin letter -- is preferable to arrow diagrams, which end up unnecessarily similar to one another.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Yeah I had no issue learning Shogi with no knowledge of kanji.
afterburner 3y ago
Indeed! Googling "shogi learning set" finds these sets.

notfed 3y ago

This would be awesome for teaching beginners. I'd probably go with circle for the king, and maybe an L or a sideways H for the knight, even though they break the original design rule. Otherwise K/Q/N just look too similar.

Raphael 3y ago
I have an overgrown dice pip renderer, so I made the rook "+", knight "L", bishop 4-gram, queen 8-gram, king octagon, and pawn a trapezoid (just to suggest movement direction). https://vezquex.github.io/clock/chess/ https://vezquex.github.io/clock/chess/
excalibur 3y ago
+1 for making the knights an L. The way it is, the pawns sort of look like knights
pwenzel 3y ago
Agreed. Love the concept, but the knights definitely need clarity.
infogulch 3y ago
The L is an orthogonalist conspiracy theory. There's no right angles in the knight's movement, wake up sheeple! https://twitter.com/graycrawford/status/1750248031784763639 https://twitter.com/graycrawford/status/1750248031784763639
- emporas 3y ago
  Knight's movement is a "Γ" "Gamma" not an L. Some day a brilliant game may pop up, which has several letters and try to match em together, like an L, a Γ, an I and so on.
javier123454321 3y ago
Learning the movement is by far the easiest part of teaching beginners. It's fine as a design exercise, but its effect in making it easier to learn is close to null.

2024throwaway 3y ago

Off topic, but does anyone know a browser extension that lets you block certain domains from the HN list? I've blocked twitter/x from my DNS, and don't want links to it cluttering the feed.

nick_g 3y ago
I'm not aware of one, but if you can insert custom css rules it should be simple with something like tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href*="twitter.com"]), tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href*="twitter.com"]) + tr, tbody tr.athing:has(.title .titleline a[href\*="twitter.com"]) + tr + tr { display: none; } This selects for any `tr` which has an anchor to a url with twitter.com somewhere in it (with some layers in between) and the two `tr` which follow. Note that this is pretty naive and could have some false positives with links such as https://example.com/blog/a-post-about-twitter.com https://example.com/blog/a-post-about-twitter.com and such, you could be more careful with the attribute selector if you'd like This will leave "holes" in the numbering of the list of items as the numbers are not calculated based on the structure of the document but are rather hardcoded. You could definitely fix this with some more funky css rules if needed.
- 2024throwaway 3y ago
  Perfect thank you.
- sixstringtheory 3y ago
  I would think you could automatically load the first match's "hide" URL until no more matches appear in the page, but it might trip some kind of rate limiter.
timeon 3y ago
Pay/login-walled sites are common here.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

autocorr 3y ago

Lichess also includes a piece set similar to this, although with the notable difference that the Knight is shaped like a greater-than symbol and the pawn is a small square.

29athrowaway 3y ago

This is not a new idea.

klysm 3y ago

Pawns are awkward though because movement doesn't align with attack

trgn 3y ago
Yup, the visually dominating pieces end up _feeling_ wrong. It'd really bother me tbh.

addisaden 3y ago

a theme for chess.com would be nice !! Lovely communicative design

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

I like it, but the knights still aren't quite right. And I'd probably give all of them square bases, so that the bishop and rooks weren't so easily mistakable with just a 45° turn.

mattigames 3y ago

It's a good idea but looks a bit too bland for my taste, I think a bit more spiky would be better, so based on this I made such a concept: https://i.imgur.com/mXd0L3P.png https://i.imgur.com/mXd0L3P.png (also blue-vs-red, to give it a bit of color) Non-colored version: https://i.imgur.com/A1Vofpz.png https://i.imgur.com/A1Vofpz.png

ortusdux 3y ago

It would be fun to make up a physical version with lasers and a fog machine.

loceng 3y ago
Do you need fog if lasers aiming at the board?
thih9 3y ago
In the meantime there is Khet board game: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khet_(game) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khet_(game) - fog machine not included.

crdrost 3y ago

I think this is fun, but (a) knights' threats are disconnected and this "flower" approach while good is maybe not ideal. You might as well use a hollow circle at that point. (b) when we say "chess pieces can be redesigned to be..." then I think about actual physical pieces, it would not do to make these as actual physical pieces because an accidental misplacement turns a rook into a bishop or vice versa. Gotta make the bishop look like it is "sniping" along the diagonals while the rook looks more "sweeping" maybe? (c) don't make the king a little-queen. Make the king a little square to emphasize "it can only threaten the neighboring square," then it looks more visually distinctive. The pawns are fun though.

fastball 3y ago
I don't think (b) is really fair. You still call them "pieces" even if you are playing chess on a device/screen.
Raphael 3y ago
Yes, the knight is up to 8 squares in a 5x5 grid. https://github.com/vezquex/chess/blob/master/src/game/piece/knightFn.js https://github.com/vezquex/chess/blob/master/src/game/piece/...
cruano 3y ago
Unrelated, but I just realized the horse is not in fact called "horse" like it is in Italian/Spanish.
- tauchunfall 3y ago
  It is called "Springer" (translates to: jumper) in German. Sometimes "Pferd" or "Ross" is also used (translates to: horse and steed, resp.). That's why "Knight's tour" is called "Springerproblem" or "Rösselsprung" (from "Ross") in German.
  - NeoTar 3y ago
    Hence the German academic publisher, Springer, which uses a knight as it's logo. (Not to be confused with the much larger Axel-Springer publishers, nor the American academic Springer publisher.)

bradley13 3y ago

Why? By the time you have understood the game, you know the pieces. There are only six of them, after all.

russellbeattie 3y ago

This is cool! The major online chess sites should add this as an option. The lines don't need to be so thick I think, which would allow little arrow heads to make it even more obvious. And while we're at it, they don't even need to look like actual physical pieces, so the knight could be designed to show how it hops over squares by having blank spots in its icon.

infogulch 3y ago

For me the most surprising observation from this thread is this tweet [1] showing that the knight's moves are exactly the squares that the queen can't get to within a 2 square manhattan distance. I.e. the knight is an anti-queen. [1]: https://twitter.com/skidbladnirr_/status/1750285122769957129 https://twitter.com/skidbladnirr_/status/1750285122769957129

fasteo 3y ago
>>> I.e. the knight is an anti-queen. The complement-queen I would say
sicariusnoctis 3y ago
A very interesting property: Knights have odd-even parity, i.e., they attack only opposite colored squares. Pop quiz: How many knights can you place on a board so that they don't attack each other?
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Well, since a knight on a white square can only attack knights on black squares, and half of the 64 squares are white...
aurelwu 3y ago
Some non-orthodox chess variants have a piece which combines Queen+Knight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(chess) very old variants often had such compound pieces like for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Acedrex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Acedrex
- porphyra 3y ago
  There's also the knook that combines the Knight and the Rook, which was hilariously invented as a meme on /r/anarchychess: https://anarchychess.fandom.com/wiki/Knook https://anarchychess.fandom.com/wiki/Knook

scottlilly 3y ago

Several years ago, I wrote a chess-like game where the shape of the pieces showed their potential moves (https://github.com/scottlilly/mogrichess https://github.com/scottlilly/mogrichess). This was needed because the a capturing piece gained the movement abilities of the piece it could capture, so pieces' movement abilities were always changing. Unfortunately, I never got around to writing a good AI so you could play against the computer. At some point, I'd like to get back to that project.

d-lisp 3y ago

In a sense, chess pieces can already perceived as geometric attack directions. After too much chess I feel frightened by the salt shaker.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

beefman 3y ago

This idea has been around a long time. Recognizing the pieces is the easiest part of chess. And distinct symbolic forms are actually easier than representational forms like these. Similarly, iconic phonetic notation not a good replacement for the Latin alphabet https://www.omniglot.com/writing/visiblespeech.htm https://www.omniglot.com/writing/visiblespeech.htm

purplejacket 3y ago

Nice :-) I might make the King round though. Set it apart more.

beAbU 3y ago

Learning all the possible moves and attacks in chess is the least difficult part of learning chess.

navane 3y ago

I had a similar idea: https://imgur.com/a/MccC29V https://imgur.com/a/MccC29V

Andrex 3y ago

I don't know what it was but within 0.5 seconds of looking at the first image my brain had a weird feeling of calmed peace. Very odd.

lulznews 3y ago

Yea this is the basic premise of chess …

squigglydonut 3y ago

They already look like this. Stop tweeting and go start a business!

Terretta 3y ago
Already as in yes, the moves are baked in to the standard design -- you just look down at them from the top. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/75/8a/79758a3355c2bed372aa5225f8b9dd84.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/79/75/8a/79758a3355c2bed372aa... Yes, queen already had 8 point hat wide because whole board, king eight point cross, small for one step. Bishop has a diagonal cut in its cap. Knight as a horse, the long nose and ears are the knight move. Castle with a plus cut in the ramparts. Pawn is a dot for its usual move, with the ring collar for the optional second step.
- squigglydonut 3y ago
  Yea

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

advael 3y ago

I kind of wish the knight was more of a tetris L, but I like the idea overall

Raphael 3y ago
8 squares or 8 Ls to show all liberties. One L symbolically.

jlv2 3y ago

Looks like the peices from the game Ploy. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1591/ploy https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1591/ploy

FpUser 3y ago

It sure got knight wrong. But then again if done right it would look like swastika ;)

batch12 3y ago
If you take half of its possible moves away then yes

psudmant 3y ago

As someone who has played a lot of chess I don't find this useful. I'm surprised how many people have positive responses to this.

nrb 3y ago
Consider for a moment the billions of people who have not played a lot of chess. Seems like a cool teaching aid for youngsters especially.
- slily 3y ago
  Does it take anyone longer than a game or two to remember the rules of chess? I even taught chess to adults as a child and they caught on within a few moves. Which I guess explains why it remains more popular than FOTM overcomplicated board game #5000. It's not difficult to memorize. IMO this is a solution to a nonexistent problem.
  - mmclar 3y ago
    Knowing the rules and 'seeing' the ways that pieces can move are different things. I could see this being helpful to someone who has a working knowledge of the ways pieces can move, but hasn't yet built their skill of visualization thereof.
    - wruza 3y ago
      So we should delay the development of their visualization skill, because otherwise visualization is useless in chess? This works literally against what chess is about and materializes the least complex aspect of the game into a visual noise all over the board.
    - polytropos2 3y ago
      Except this doesn't help you visualize it either. I can understand this argument for online boards that, when you click on a piece, highlight all the legal moves. This set doesn't do that, it basically just reminds you how the pieces move. I don't think anyone that actually plays or teaches chess thinks this is a good set design. Honestly amazed by how many people called this clever. I also find it weird that OP claims it makes the board "easier to probe", when it does the exact opposite. This is a textbook example of making up a problem, rather than a solution.

theonemind 3y ago

I hardly even play chess, but I do know the rules and how the pieces move, but this wrecks my intuitive sense of how the pieces move entirely, so I think it’d be a hard transition to regular pieces, which kind of kills any supposed benefit.

tetrisgm 3y ago

Pawns are missing a rear view mirror for en passant

jacknews 3y ago

I prefer this: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/4746 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/4746 The pieces resemble the movements in most cases, but also pack together into a rectangle.

Tepix 3y ago
> The pieces resemble the movements in most cases I don't see it. Do they really?
- Izkata 3y ago
  The ones with square tops only move horizontally/vertically and the bigger ones move further, the ones with an L-shaped top move in an L shape, the ones with a diagonal top move diagonally. I don't see the King and Queen movements though.
  - jacknews 3y ago
    Right, the king and Queen could maybe have 4 or 8 pointy corners instead of just a V, but the other pieces 'mimic' their movement in a sense.

dev1ycan 3y ago

What I find funny about chess it's such an elegantly designed game... except castling. Always seemed like a random thing to me to be in the game, and then I found out that it was added centuries after in medieval europe to the game, makes sense why it feels so out of place. Wish we had a league without castling for that sole purpose.

V-2 3y ago
No-castling variant is a thing. It generally makes taking the King to safety more difficult, encouraging a more aggressive style (in the spirit of "I'll get to yours before you get to mine"). Kramnik revived the idea during his collaboration with DeepMind (where he tested several chess variants, revolving around only minor, albeit impactful adjustments to the ruleset). One potential problem with no castling is that players may end up castling "manually", which takes several moves and becomes a mundane "housekeeping" task, actually sucking some dynamics out of the game. That was probably the reason why it was invented in the first place, to sort of automate the obvious thing away. By the way, European chess added much more to the original version beyond just castling. The Queen would originally move in the same manner as the King (only by one square), the "mad Queen" thing is a European invention. So is the pawns' ability to move forward by 2 squares from their initial position. (And I'm guessing the incentive for that was of similar nature as above - to speed the game up).
isolli 3y ago
It's indeed a relatively recent addition, but the idea that the king would get a special move is a bit older [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling#History