BrainKing.info - the BrainKing game site knowledge base

I have just added a static version of the BrainKing Chat Box. Static means that it contains no JavaScript and does not refresh itself automatically. It is mostly a redundant feature but I have decided to make it anyway, because:

• Some web browsers can have problems with JavaScript code or JavaScript is disabled in them for security reasons.


• Some people want to chat without displaying the chat box at the top of all BrainKing pages.

However, if the standard BrainKing Chat Box is working for you, I do not recommend to use the static one, because:

• As I have already said, there is no automatic refresh (unlike the JavaScript version which is automatically refreshed every 2 seconds), so if you want to see new messages, you must refresh the page manually or click the Submit button.


• Neither special codes (/a, /m, /r etc.) nor smart "click-and-fill" features work in the static version.


• Any new features will be added to the JavaScript version at first. They might be reflected at the static one later, but it is not guaranteed.

Oh, I have almost forgotten - the mentioned page can be found at the left menu column, Statiscics section, and is called Chat room. It is also the only page (except BrainKing home page) where the JavaScript chat box is not displayed.

This game has been suggested by Mark Steere who is the creator of many interesting board games and offers all of them for a free implementation on game sites (you can find more games at MarkSteereGames.com page).

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INTRODUCTION Rush is a territory game which is played with a Go set. Any size board with an odd number of rows and an odd number of columns can be substituted for the Go board. Play begins on an empty board, as shown in Figure 1. Each player takes possession of all of the stones of one color. Draws and ties cannot occur in Rush. Mark Steere designed Rush in May, 2007.

STONE PLACEMENT Players take turns placing their own stones on unoccupied points. A “connection” in Rush is formed when a stone is placed horizontally or vertically adjacent to an on-board stone. If a player adds a stone which forms either no connections or only one connection (to either color stone), that player’s turn is concluded.

A player may place a stone on the board which forms two or more connections only if at least one of those connections is made with an enemy stone.

A player may never, under any circumstances, place a stone which forms two or more connections with his own stones and no connections with any enemy stones. Figure 2 shows all of the legal placements available to White, marked with W’s.

If a player forms two or more connections with his newly added stone, he is required to add another stone to the board while it is still his turn. He must continue to add stones during his turn until his most recently placed stone forms less than two connections, or until there are no more placements available to him, at which time his turn is concluded.

Each player will always have at least one placement available at the outset of his turn, and must make at least one placement on his turn.

A player is never required to make a placement which forms two or more connections unless his only available placements each form two or more connections.

Figures 3a through 3c show a series of stones added by White during one of White’s turns. Each placement is marked with a W.

OBJECT OF THE GAME When the board is completely filled with stones, the player with the majority of stones on the board wins.

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Comments please. From my point of view, I like all game ideas which don't require any absurd license fees, and I like to support all authors who like this idea as well. Our experiences from the past confirm that this is the best approach.

I remember that I had been strongly against spending my time on developing something like a chat system, because it always seemed to be a useless functionality with no added value. Well, the truth is different and it is a great change from making board games, at least for a while (and I have to say it again - 123 is a nice number).
Let me record the latest changes:

• BrainKing Chat Box now supports a message history. It means that it remembers all message you have sent since the particular page was loaded at your web browser, and it is possible to recall previous messages by up and down arrow keys. Another way to do the same is to click on small blue arrows which appear at the right edge of the message text field after the first message is sent.
  
  And, of course, the message history is cleared if you click to load another BrainKing page. It is just a single-page client-side solution, especially useful when your message is sent but does not appear at the message list, which usually happens when it does not reach the server for any reason.


• The settings box contains a new option - to set a minimum and maximum chat box height. If the enlarged window is too small for you, the standard one is too big etc., you can set your preferred sizes.


• Since the number of chat box options is growing, I have decided to separate them from the JavaScript settings page and created a new Settings / Chat box section. It makes everything better organized and is prepared for any further expansion.

I guess that the first version of a user manual will be created next time. Most likely invoked by a help button at the chat box itself.

Is there a reason to spend days, week, months or even years developing a complex and sophisticated web site of BrainKing type, when the internet offers an unlimited number of much easier opportunities to live on?

For example, maybe I could try to sleep instead. Just like this Dutch guy. It is a crazy idea but if it is a really genuine story, it just confirms that anything can be turned to a source of money with minimal effort (live cam).

Of course, there is always a good reason to make good and longstanding products instead of single-purpose pages which are meant to shock or fool accidental visitors. Or at least a smart combination of different approaches.

BrainKing Chat Box improvements of the day:

• New enlarge/shrink button, displayed as a blue arrow next to the settings button. It replaces the former chat box size change function triggered by clicking the message area which caused certain problems when someone wanted to copy and paste a selected text.
• The action command - /a - has been added. It can be used to express an emotion without any smileys, e.g. "/a yawns" would actually show "Fencer yawns", if I type it as a new message.
• The settings box contains a new option called Enable listing public messages from other language rooms - very useful when you want to monitor public messages in other rooms without switching the language.
• User names at the message list area are clickable and both usages (click and shift-click) work exactly the same like user list clicks.

Enough for today, I am about to sleep. For free.

Publishing a changelog to a public page seems to be a good thing because 1) people are aware of all news and 2) it can be a good source of information when I decide to write a user manual for the BrainKing Chat Box.
The list of more recent changes:

• BrainKing Chat Box supports private messages now - messages from you to other user only, not visible for anybody else. There are two ways how to write them:
  • Type /m UserName followed by a space, or /m and one or more first letters and TAB key.
  • Hold down the SHIFT key and click on the target user name at the connected user list.
  The message line should turn to red background with a name of the target user in brackets.


• When a private message is received, it is possible to respond in private very easily, using the smart reply function - simply type /r and space. The most recent sender of a private message will be automatically selected.


• The chat box provides a new Settings button, next to the smiley one. Right now it contains two options to set:
  • Turn on/off smiley popup window.
  • Enable/disable a sound which is played when a new private message is received (it seems to work in Firefox only).

I like it.

Yes, I know that "some" game rules are still missing at the Game Rules section of BrainKing game site. Everything will be completed tomorrow, regarding this subject (and since it is officially written, it cannot be postponed again).
Meanwhilst and for the record, I want to list the most recent changes to BrainKing Chat Box:

• All messages are now prefixed by the particular message time which should be always recalculated to the user's time zone (as it is set at the Settings page). It is a good thing to find out when exactly the messages were posted.


• The list of chatting users (at the right column of the box) is now showing everyone who is observing the chat box, not only the active chatters. And the list is separated to two sections - active users (above the line) and inactive users (below the line).


• Another usage of the user list is to add the selected user name to the message compose line, when the user name is clicked.


• Who likes to use a keyboard only, without looking for a mouse to access more functions, can take advantage of a smart autofill function - try to type one or more first letters of a user name (who is currently included in the connected user list) and hit Tab key. The full name will be filled in.


• Since many people like to chat in their native language without being disturbed by other conversations in languages they don't understand, the chat box is now separated to several public rooms, one for each supported language. The currently selected language room is indicated by the small flag at the top-left corner and can be easily changed by a mouse click. The default language is determined by the particular user's BrainKing language version.


• I have also tested the chat box with Flock and Safari for Windows. It works fine with both (not a big surprise for the Flock since it is running on Gecko engine just like Firefox).

And one question at the close - should the chat box be enabled to non-paying members of BrainKing as well? Right now, it is a paying members only feature.

Although BrainKing already supports 123 different games and one would think that it could be enough for everyone, every good proposal of a new game (which can be implemented later) is always welcome. And this is another game suggestion by Andy Lewicki.

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Name of the game: Num Bears

1. 100 tiles arranged in 10x10 square


2. Numbers from 0-9 are distributed randomly on these tiles.


3. Two players, one at the South side, the other on the North.


4. 4. South (S) starts first and can take two tiles from the first row on his south site OR one tile from his site and one from the North's first row according to the rule explained below ... taking two tiles from the opponent's site is NOT permitted.


5. tiles can be taken if: two tiles taken add up to 10 (9+1, 8+2, etc) OR have the same face value (6+6, 2+2, etc).


6. There are two SPECIAL pairs of tiles:
1. (5+5) belongs to the group that add up to 10 AND to the group of the same face value and counts for 20 points.
2. 0 (zero) counts as 10 points and can be taken individually OR as a pair and counts 20 points.


7. At every moment of the game, available tiles to be taken by either player are those completely open at the bottom of their site and at the top of opponent's site.


8. If a player has no available tiles to play, he has to pause, and the other player makes a move.


9. If the second player has no available move, the game ends and the player with more collected points wins.

The whole idea in this game is to be careful when taking tiles, every taken tile exposes another tile which can be used by the opponent to his advantage. Two major ways of taking tiles coupled with 20 open tiles create the whole range of possible plays and strategy that can be utilized.

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Well, it seems to be another nice member of the Knight Fight family. When I have some free time, I want to try it out.

A formerly small subproject, mostly designed for testing purposes, has turned out to be a quite popular BrainKing functionality, regarding the opinions I could observe so far. It is about the BrainKing Chat Box, which was added yesterday and eminently improved today. Well, even the simplest looking thing can be a source of good fun, which is the reason why I have spent some more time to make it more comfortable.

This is the list of changes:

• The chat box is now available for all BrainKing styles, not just the Castle one.
• The message system has been rewritten to support all HTML tags which are allowed to use at standard BrainKing discussion boards. It means that it is possible to post, for example, clickable links, bold text and even BrainKing smileys.
• Regarding smileys, there is a new option Settings / JavaScript / Enable interactive smiley window for the chat box. If it is set, a smiley button appears at the chat box (next to the Submit button) and when it is clicked, the well-known smiley popup window emerges and smileys can be inserted by mouse clicks. Since the popup window attached to the chat box can cause small client-side performance issues with some browsers, it is done as a standalone option, so it can be easily turned on/off.
• The chat box can be activated/deactivated by a single mouse click, using the new Show/Hide chat box link at every page top (next to the style switcher).
• The Opera autoscroll bug should be fixed as well - the most recent message will always appear at the bottom of the message list area.
• If you want to see the recent message history without scrolling the small box, try to click the message list area - the chat box should be enlarged to display much more messages at once. Another click will reset the size to its initial value.

Just a note about a chatting policy - until an official document is published, the chat box follows the same as already exist for public discussion boards. Shortly said, be nice.

I have created a simple chat box because I wanted to fill the empty space between towers.

That was a short confusing introduction. And this is the more descriptive overview:

• It is a new feature of BrainKing game site, although it has nothing to do with games.


• The chat window can be activated using the Settings / JavaScript / Enable chat box option. If you don't see it at your Settings page, most likely you are not a paying member.


• At this moment it works with the Castle style only (because the box is nicely wedged between the castle towers). Other styles will be supported later.


• This is a beta version only, mostly to test some technologies and their interoperability with BrainKing server (AJAX etc.). More features will be added later.


• The chat feature has been tested with Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7 and Opera 9. It works fine on all these platforms, except a known bug of Opera which causes that the message list area is not automatically scrolled down to the most recent message. A workaround will be applied later.


• Please don't forget that this is a public feature and any other BrainKing member with at least Brain Bishop membership level can see all messages. Private rooms can be added in the future.

The chat box works only if BrainKing is up and running too. If the site is down for a while (e.g. when it is restarted occasionally for upgrade reasons), the window can look inactive but it usually comes back to life automatically after a while.
And if not, a page reload usually helps.

In the past, BrainKing had been critized for its lack of interest in Checkers games. It is a good feeling to say that it is not true any longer. Although our main focus is still Chess (and variants), now we support 18 different Checkers games and at least 10 of them can be called "national versions" (at the moment of writing this article, BrainKing has Anglo-American, Czech, Turkish, Hawaiian, Russian, Canadian, Thai, Brazilian, Portuguese and Italian Checkers).

Very well. Now, I would like to be sure that my work was not a waste of time.

It is very likely that many BrainKing players do not know all currently implemented Checkers variants and since rules of some of them are very similar to other ones, it can be difficult to find the favorite one, especially when the particular user knows nothing about the selected variant strategy, historical background, interesting contemporary events etc. And trying out all variants at once could be a really time consuming job.

I am sure that many real enthusiasts, who are familiar with their national game of Checkers in all details, can be found among BrainKing users (or at least the ones who spent a great effort to convince me to add "their" Checkers to BrainKing ). If you are one of them, please do not keep your knowledge for yourself only and make a little promotion.

Let other players know interesting things about your national Checkers variant. Write a good article about it (but something more original than just a copy and paste of rules), I will be glad to post it to BrainRook.com site. And there is a small motivation - all published articles will be awarded with 100-800 Brains, so it is a good opportunity to get a Brain Rook membership for free.

I prefer to receive all contributions to my BrainKing message box but sending them to fencer@brainking.com is fine too. Or it is possible to create a free author account at the BrainRook site and prepare a draft of the article directly.

All right, let's see what Checkers players are capable of.

Today's short article comments the newest attempt to solve the problem of many people who want to leave comments at the BrainKing.info site but cannot pass the user registration process. Although the easiest way could be to allow anybody to post comments here, it would definitely provoke an open invitation to hundreds of spamming robots which is, unfortunately, an attribute of the contemporary time. On the other hand, if too many restrictions and precautions are applied, it usually discourages possible authors of interesting comments, who want to make a contribution as easily and quickly as possible.

The solution is, as we like it, a mixture of different approaches, which gives people a choice to select the more convenient one (I wrote about some spam fighting methods in the past). The result is:

• Registered BrainKing.info users can post comments in the usual way, as they were doing so far. There is no change to this and since it works for many people, it would be a bad idea to get rid of it.


• If a non-registered user wants to leave a comment, a reCAPTCHA element appears at the comment submit form. When the correct words are written to the particular field, the comment can be submitted without any registration or login.

The advantage of this solution is obvious - who does not want to be bothered by reading and rewriting distorted letters, registers a free BrainKing.info account, because the reCAPTCHA validator is not displayed when a user logs in. And who prefers to post as soon as possible, can prove the reCAPTCHA system that he is a human, not a robot.

And, in order to test whether this technology is spam-proof enough or not, I have added a comment form and a guestbook to this site. Feel free to try them out.

Three more Checkers variants have been added to BrainKing game site today and I hope that the current list of supported Checkers games covers all important games of Checkers family of the world (if not, please fill me in). Except Anti Russian Checkers (Poddavki) which is, as I was told, the most important anti Checkers variant for some players, so it's planned to be added as well.

The short description of the mentioned additions:

• Portuguese Checkers - Portuguese Checkers (also known as Spanish Checkers with rotated board) variant is played on 8x8 board with 12 pieces of each player. Pawns can capture only diagonally forward, promoted pieces (queens) move and capture any number squares diagonally forward or backward, jumped pieces are removed from the board after the full move is performed and and it is mandatory to capture as many pieces (as one multi-jump) as possible. If a position allows 2 or more longest captures, it is compulsory to choose the one which captures the maximum amount of queens.


• Italian Checkers - Italian Checkers variant is played on 8x8 board with 12 pieces of each player and black starts a game. Pawns and kings move and capture like in American Checkers with these important differences: 1) Pawns cannot capture kings. 2) It is mandatory to capture as many pieces (as one multi-jump) as possible. 3) If a position allows 2 or more longest captures, the one made with a king is preferred. If this condition does not produce an unique result, it is compulsory to choose the one which captures the maximum amount of kings. 4) If the previous still allows different jumps, the one which captures a king first has a preference.


• Dameo - This game (created by Christian Freeling) is one of the most modern Checkers variants. Pawns move forward or diagonally forward, either one space to a vacant square or jumping over a solid line of friendly pawns to a vacant space (linear movement). Promoted pieces (queens) move any number of spaces horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Capture moves are allowed only vertically and horizontally, and the capture rules are the same as in International Checkers.
  
  Please visit the Dameo page for all rules and more interesting information about this great game.

The total number of 123 games should be enough for a while, I guess.

This is a proposal of the third (and final) "knight game" created by Andy Lewicki. Since the original Knight Fight has become a really popular game (currently the 19th most played game out of 120 total), there is a good change that people will like its variants as well.

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This game, named Knights 64, is full of fierce exchanges of blows, however, during the game there are quiet waters suddenly intertwined with rapid falls. I think in this game I achieved a good balance and elegance ... this is a game with equal chances for both side:

1. Board 8x8 is used.


2. Two Knights of different color.


3. 8 sets of numbers from 1 to 8 (which give sum of 64) are distributed randomly across the board before the game starts (so we will have 8 8s, 8 7s ... and 8 1s).


4. Play starts by white player as usually at the bottom of the board and black respond in the same manner.


5. Knights collect points as they jump and they are not allowed to jump to an empty square or within a reach of opponent's jump (everything looks familiar so far).


6. Goal is to reach 64 points or more as the first player with following clarification:
   • When black player reaches 64 (or more) game ends immediately.
   • When white player reaches 64 (or more), white has to "hold his horses" and wait, black has one more move! And only after this last move winner is the one who got more points, the game also ends when either of the players has no more moves available, just like in Knight Fight, and the one with more points wins the game.


7. Now, about some excitements:
   • Every digit appears 8 times on the board.
   • The first 4 of each of them are collected without any consequences.
   • When either of the players collect 5th of any digit, he collects automatically 6th,
     same is with 7th in each category and the 8th belongs to the owner of the 7th (both numbers, 5h and 6th as well as 7th and 8th disappear from the board).

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Comments?

Good news: Since the last game of Checkers family was added a long time ago and some of popular Checkers variants were not supported on BrainKing game site, five new games have been added today and all of them belong to this category: International Checkers, Russian Checkers, Canadian Checkers, Thai Checkers and Brazilian Checkers. I hope that checkers lovers will be occupied for a while before the rest of planned variations (Portuguese Checkers, Italian Checkers and maybe more) is completed and released a well.

Even better news: The BrainKing's Checkers model has been completely rewritten to support all possible requirements of national version extras (maximum capture rule, pawns cannot capture kings, etc.) and is currently being tested on all newly added variants. If no serious bugs are discovered, this model will be applied to all previously implemented variants too (Czech Checkers, Turkish Checkers, ...), which would solve any incorrectnesses that still remain in some game models.

And, as usual, no rules have been officially posted yet. This is a quick reference:

• International Checkers - This is one of the most widespread checkers variants in the world. The game is played on 10x10 board and each player has 20 pieces. Pawns can capture diagonally forward or backward, jumped pieces are removed from the board after the full move and it is mandatory to capture as many pieces (as one multi-jump) as possible. When a pawn reaches the last row while jumping and can jump more pieces backwards, it does not promote.


• Russian Checkers - Russian Checkers (Shashki) variant is very similar to International Checkers. It is played on 8x8 board with 12 pieces of each player, pawns can capture diagonally forward or backward and jumped pieces are removed from the board after the full move is performed. Unlike International Checkers, it is not mandatory to make the longest possible jump and if a pawn reaches the last row while jumping, it promotes to a queen and continues jumping immediately.


• Canadian Checkers - Canadian Checkers variant is identical to the International Checkers. The only difference is that the game is played on a bigger board (12x12) with 30 pieces of each player.


• Thai Checkers - This checkers variant is played on 8x8 board with only 8 pieces of each player. The rules are similar to Czech Checkers with these differences: 1) A queen can make long jumps (over more empty squares) but must land just on the next square after the captured piece. 2) A queen does not have a jumping preference (if a jump can be done with a queen and a pawn at the same time, any of these pieces can be chosen).


• Brazilian Checkers - Brazilian Checkers variant is identical to the International Checkers. The only difference is that the game is played on a smaller board (8x8) with 12 pieces of each player.

Good news: All missing game rules (Cheshire Cat Chess, Parachute Lines of Action, Cheshire Cat Lines of Action) have been added to BrainKing game site, so it's no longer necessary to search the web to get a clue how to play them. It's true that short versions of all rules can be found at the New Game page but not everyone is aware of that.

Bad news: A new game has been introduced a while ago and its rules are not provided yet.

Never mind, we have this info site, so why not to use it for this purpose as a temporary solution. The game is called Knightmate Chess and it is, as the name suggests, another Chess variant. The differences between classic Chess and Knightmate Chess are listed below:

• Knights and kings are switched. It means that each player has one knight (at the standard king position) and two kings (at the standard knight positions).


• The goal is to checkmate the knight, not the kings. Kings can be captured like any other pieces.


• Since the knight plays the king role, it cannot be exposed to a check and it cannot move to a square which is under direct attack of an opponent's piece.


• A castling move can be done with the knight and a rook, following standard castling rules (neither king nor rook may move prior to castling, no other piece may block the castling move path, the knight must not be attacked by an opponent's piece, no square between the knight and the rook may be attacked by an opponent's piece).


• A pawn can promote to a king and cannot promote to a knight.

And if someone knows a good strategy for this variant, please drop a note.