In a sense, chess pieces can already perceived as geometric attack directions. After too much chess I feel frightened by the salt shaker.
I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
71–80 of 269 posts
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#72I 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 t…
>an accidental misplacement turns a rook into a bishop or vice versa
This was my first thought too. If the "feet" of all of the pieces were "flat", or parallel to the rows of the board, you could more easily tell their proper orientation.
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#73I 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 t…
I also realized that if you defined the pieces like their moves, the knight's shape would be.... Interesting
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#74That 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. =/
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?".
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#75It 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…
> has already internalized the mapping from piece shape to movement
Magnus Carlson, considered one of - if not the - best chess players of all time has a famous video of him playing three chess matches simultaneously, blindfolded, and winning all three.
Once you get to a certain point not only the movements but also entire gameplay strategies become internalized.
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#76For 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
This is why in some rare endgames you might want to promote to a knight instead of a queen to avoid a stalemate!
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#77[deleted]
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#78This 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
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#79For 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
In Chinese chess, the horse behaves like the knight in western chess except that (a) it cannot jump over pieces, and (b) the definition of jumping over is that it first move horizontally/vertically 1 step and then diagonally 1 step. It cannot first move diagonally.
This also leads to situations where two knights can be positioned amongst other pieces such that one knight is able to capture the other but not vice versa.
Re: I realized chess pieces can be redesigned to be geometric attack directions
#80I 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 f…
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/t... Not all of the moves were the clearest, but it was still handy while trying to learn.
That's the exact set I had. Worked pretty great for learning the game.