Comments by JamesSpratt

Hi, Gary, Hi, Jeremy:  Agreed, it's much better if commentors, or people
putting in ratings, especially, say something intelligent and constructive
or critical about whichever game they're commenting on, but maybe a lot of
them aren't articulate enough in the variant patois to be confident enough
to expound a bit, or care that much. If what you're against is the idea
that some stranger could zip in from nowhere, anonymously condemn a game
with a bad rating, and disappear, I can see how that would be
irritating--to let people get away with cheap shots like that--it doesn't
sit just right with me, either. (Case in point--what if, in our
governmental elections, voters were asked 'why?' they voted for
whomever, as they voted?  Now think about why they aren't asked 'why?')

Postal Chess?  Piece icons, no problemo; board, no problemo.  Drawing I can
do, presets I can't.  I'd advance on my end of it if someone'll
volunteer the other parts so it could be posted and played.
We're working on how to convert (many) piece icons to CVP format to fill
out some of the collections that players like but that are missing a lot
of the funner pieces.  Like the Pepperoni for Pizza Chess that we all know
and love so well, and the Pied-bill Snaihu for--uh, what was that for
again, Jeremy? *cackle!*

Nothing made for profit is made as well as it can be made--the profit could
have been applied to making the product better.
Employers (of creatives) in the US hold copyright by default, unless
otherwise agreed in writing, which is rare, which further compromises
product quality; the (hired) creative, not having a long-term interest in
the product, need only please the boss between paychecks.
'Front-line' control is when the sales staff direct product development
based on previously-observed market interest in similar products, i.e.
'copycatting' or 'knocking-off'; 'back-line' control is when the
creative staff comes up with something really original, which is rarer. 
The boss is usually interested in sales, not originality or even, really,
product quality.
This may account for some of your complaints.

Hey, Joe (where you goin' wit' dat guninyourhand?
Da-dum-da-dum-dum..nyuk-nyuk!)  Sounds like it's gonna need a pretty big
board, with all those details.  I like it well enough to fiddle with it a
bit, maybe it'll go somewhere.  Email me, and we'll show it off if we
get somewhere, howzat?

Very nice, very logical and easy to learn. Though I'm no expert, the
collection seems pretty comprehensive, too.  Just a thought--you could
take piece icons to further abstractions, using mere line combinations to
indicate moves, such as Pawn | Rook +  Queen * (needs 8 points) Bishop X,
etc. You could even call them the Bar, the Plus, the Asterisk, the Eks,
etc.

Abstract sets, in my thinking, are all that's needed for play, yet we
remain childlike and earth- and history-bound enough to still love our
little Kings and Queens and all their little helpers.

I think these graphics need more work; they don't look like much effort
went into them.  One must remember, when doing artwork, that there are 100
ways to portray anything, 3 good ways, and ONE best way, which very few
artists are able to achieve on the first effort.  I'd suggest drawing
several versions, walking away for a few days between efforts, then coming
back to appraise them with a fresh eye, at which point improvements will be
obvious.  There's no point in hurrying something that might be around
forever.
A player's connection to a game is via the icons; a good game deserves
good icons.

While we're on the subject of graphic icons for chess variant pieces, and
I have volunteered to draw up some new ones for various games, it seems
like a good time to solicit some input from users regarding features that
might make the pieces more enjoyable.  This might be hard to do, to
describe theoretical pictograms, but some aspects that could be
universally applied, such as representationalism, abstraction, coloration,
and--what else?--might be definable enough to serve as guidelines prior to
taking pen in hand to draw.  Thoughts, anyone?

Fergus, Christine, thanks for your ameliorative efforts; I can get too
close to things sometimes.

After several days of prompted pondering, I now realize I was holding these
icons to a standard of representational accuracy, which only applies here
in small measure, but which has ever been a critical concern with my own
artwork.  Without going into human recognition patterns and windows of art
imprinting, I'm content with the fact that others like them well enough to
so pointedly reject my critique and provoke my further education in what
makes a piece-set good. 
Magritte, thanks for the lesson.  Jean-Louis, maybe the Editors will let
me make it up to you with a better rating, which maybe I ought to do twice
to get the average up.

I don't know if drawing a piece in a way which describes its move, or
including some kind of graphic move indicator, like the Drapt pieces, is
practical, mainly because the icons may be adopted for another variant
later and its move altered.  I tried marking the bases of my Jetan variant
sculpted pieces at first with graphic indicators, but that locks you in to
one type of move for that piece, which isn't always desirable if you want
to use the same piece differently in another variant.

A few things I realized while studying Jean-Louis Cazaux' set:

Icons can be either instantly recognizable by most people, such as most
animals are, or they must be memorized, such as abstract or heraldic
images must be.  While abstract or heraldic icons can lend dignity to the
look of a board, they can steepen the learning curve of a new game a
little due to the fact that a new player must first labor to remember what
the pieces are, in addition to how they move. That's okay if you like the
game to look more mysterious to newcomers, or make them work a little
harder; the experienced player will have a stronger advantage over a
newcomer at first, also. 

All the icons in a set should look like they were drawn by the same hand.
Consistency of size, color, or line quality and execution tend to unify
any single piece with its brothers.  Although realistic draftsmanship can
be a nice feature, it is not a necessary feature, except for easy piece
identification at first; consistency of 'look' across a piece-set is
more important, and there are an infinite number of ways to stylize icons
homogeneously.

I am partial to realism, or possibly a cartoony but recognizable type of
whimsy, as the best look for icons, based on my experience with art, which
has always shown me that more people like realism than abstraction, mostly
because they can tell if you got it right or not. I've always had to keep
an eye out for the new customer because I believe that to expand the
client-base I have to make it easy for them to recognize the subject, then
show them something new about it (content) and feel that the same thing is
true with any form of art, such as chess icons.

Thank you, Magritte; yes, a very stimulating and productive exchange. 
C'est bon.