Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

(I know these words are somewhat strong, however I feel strongly that this
variant with some changes has far more potential than it currently has. I
mean all this in a constructive manner. I understand the urge to stick
close to the original, but by straying a bit farther from the source, the
game will standout much more against other games in this niche)

[I meant to add the above remark to my original post, but edit didn't
have the option of maintaining the same rating.]

I looked over Dragon Chess and it is clearly not as imaginative as 95% or
more of the games I've seen at CV.  But I think the intent of the game is
to stay very close to chess, and at the same time wipe out all the
Openings.  So, it has done that. (( But then so does FRC... and so would
switching Knights and Bishops, etc. ))  In regard to making Dragon Chess
stray further from chess I think adding a few more piece types would have
made the game more desireable to a variants player.  For a typical chess
player wanting something marginally different, Dragon Chess might be good.


On a somewhat related note: Navia Dratp varied from chess quite a bit with
lots of different piece combos and options.  On an interesting note, I've
been informed that BANDAI (that game's producer) is abandoning it.

Gary you make some good points, I'll address them below, as well as my two
cents.

I don't think Dragon chess as currently formulated, wipes out openings,
it forestalls them. Since there is only one openning setup, in time,
opennings will be developed. Variants such as FRC and Sittuyin can be
truly said to have wiped out opennings.There are so many openning setups,
and one knows not the opponent's openning setup before the game, there is
truly no way to prepare a openning.

I think Dragon Chess should engage its players in creating new ways to use
the components it offers with the game, and publish more rule sets (It
already publish two sets of rules, standard chess and Dragon Chess). This
does not substantially raise the price, but allows it access to a larger
market, for some small value of large.

On Navia Dratp, if it does get abandoned by Bandai, that would be a shame,
it certainly was innovative. Though I'm not entirely sure Bandai did
enough to promote its product. And I am not sure it entirely solved the
piece valuations problem. (though I might be wrong on that, do tell if
that is the case)

On a tangential note, I should note that chessvariants.com is listed in
the prior art (reference) section of the patent for Dragon Chess. This is
a testament to Hans and all those in the community that built this website
into what it is today. Making it a resource for those that want to see the
state of chessvariants today.

When I looked at this game, I was very pleased by the appearance of the
pieces, and, although I, like Fergus, find Staunton pieces easier to use,
on account of their familiarity, I think I will purchase a Dragon Chess
set anyway, just to have the pieces at my disposal to facilitate making
physical representations of other Chess variants that I do enjoy.

I was not particularly impressed by the game itself, however.  Unlike
Jianying, however, I do not think it needs to be a radical deviation to be
good or to be successful.  Gothic Chess is no radical deviation and yet it
seems plenty popular, as CVs go.  And I'm not sure that throwing out the
opening book, while that is of concern to more experienced players like
us, even entered into their thinking.  My criticism of the game is more
related to the specific implementation.  The main 10x10 board... ok, good,
clearly that board has been tested in many successful games such as Grand
Chess.  But why add the extra battlefields on the side?  It is not as
though the setup or rules encourages any pieces to move there; I see them
remaining largely unused.  And a pawn would not want to go there (only
possible by capture) as it would then have to capture again to get out of
there, which it would have to do in order to promote.  But, conversely,
the fact that a pawn would not want to go there is not enough incentive
for other pieces to go there.  You would still move a pawn into such an
area in order to capture a piece, even if it means giving up on promoting
that pawn.  The board doesn't seem to be well thought-out.

It also looks like the text of the rules wasn't thought out at all.  For
example, they list material values for the pieces, but they left the
values of the Chess pieces as-is, and added the Dragon in at a value of 4
pawns.  For starters, on such a large board, the Bishop and Knight are
obviously not of the same value any more.  Beyond that, all the standard
chess pieces are valued incorrectly.  Should be more like: pawn=1,
knight=2.5, bishop=4, dragon=5, rook=6, queen=10-12.

But I'll probably still buy a set just for the pieces.  I wish I had
acquired an Omega Chess set before they all ran out.  Anyone have an Omega
set they want to sell?!?

Greg, I noticed that too. I certainly think the game needs to find a better
use of its field.

Gary, quite true about the Openning Book not being existent at the present
time for Dragon Chess.

Greg, a quick and dirty calculation of how much the Dragon is worth on an 8x8 board, counting it as W + F + nD + nA + nH + nG (really abusing Betza notation here) we end up with a value of roughly two Knights (2 half-Knights + four lame half-Knights (worth half for being lame)), which is interestingly the same ratio you got for the larger board.

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.

James, this game is put out by a very small family business in ontario, so
I think it is more lack of experience rather than motivation that made the
game subpar. I think with more insight they may put out more rule sets with
more innovation. At least I hope so.

Peter, I'm not sure if you have control over the classification, but I
hope you can help. This game is wrongly classified. it should be 16x10
Cells:124. Thank you very much.

In regard to Greg's excellent question: 'But why add the extra
battlefields on the side?  It is not as though the setup or rules
encourages any pieces to move there' --
My response: I think if I were to play this game and I had a flank attack
against the enemy King, then I could possibly have a Queen, Dragon,
Bishop, and/or Knight on the side battle field to join in the forray.   So
it could end up adding another angle of attack.  I'd need to look at the
board again to see if this actually makes sense, but from what I recall it
does. 

On a different note, regarding pieces.  I own two of the old Renaisance
(SP?) sets by Lowe.  Are the pieces for Dragon Chess (excluding the
Dragon), made from the same mold?  That is what I gathered from Fergus's
earlier comment about the pieces.

Um, I think that was Greg's question; since I get an Active-X Alert, to
accommodate which I won't trouble myself one keystroke, I can't see
their site, have never seen the game, and it doesn't look like I will
unless they authorize a (maybe temporary?) preset here from which to
derive some qualified suggestions for improvement, I'll never know enough
to even ask any questions about it.

Jianying, you might be right, about the inexperience part; we don't know
how much we don't know, do we?  But when you put dollars and deadlines
into creativity equations, they don't balance any more.

It might be a really good game; the box looks very nice.

The Dragon piece is patented (in Canada), which is ... interesting. It is not like short Queens are anything particularly new. They also hold the trademark (at least in Canada), but that is often a matter of whoever asks for it first.

There is a patent in the US too. it is US Patent No. 6,799,763, granted in
2001. A close reading of the patent gives one the impression that in the
path to trying to patenting the game in the broadest language possible, it
made the board more central to the patent, then the pieces. I am not a
patent attorney so I don't know how much weight each section gets.

One more thing about the patent: chessvariants.com is in the prior art
(reference) section of the patent. So PTO is aware of this page's
existence and is viewed as an archive for prior art info. So as these
pages grow, we will actually help improve the quality of patents going
forward.

just a couple of questions, are there any games with a similar board set up
as this game, and are there any games with this 'dragon' piece that
anyone knows of?

oh by board set up in mean the shape of the board

Hi Christine, in regard to your second question '... and are there any
games with this 'dragon' piece that anyone knows of?'

My Medusa piece (from Pillars of Medusa and Mini-POM) moves 3 spaces any
direction (as does the Dragon); However, the Medusa turns adjacent enemy
pieces to stone (freezes them) and can still capture them by displacement
on another turn.

Also, I recall someone else had commented that the 'mini-Queen' was a
fairly well known piece.  But I do not know where it is used.

Peter Aronson wrote:

Actually, Fergus, it was the artist Jeff Easley who is the ex-TSR employee.

I know that, Peter. That is why I said 'the designer of the Dragons' rather than 'the inventor of Dragon Chess.' I was referring to the artist who designed the pieces, not to the game's inventor.

Gary Gifford wrote:

On a different note, regarding pieces. I own two of the old Renaisance (SP?) sets by Lowe. Are the pieces for Dragon Chess (excluding the Dragon), made from the same mold? That is what I gathered from Fergus's earlier comment about the pieces.

All I know comes from comparing photos of the Dragon Chess pieces with photos on ebay of Renaissance sets. They looked identical as far as I could tell.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote:

are there any games with this 'dragon' piece that anyone knows of?

Knightmare Chess uses this piece. One card that lets you introduce a new piece to the board calls it a Princess. Another card that lets you curse your opponent's Queen calls it a Cursed Queen.

Peter Aronson wrote:

Upon closer examination of their press releases, it looks like Dragon Chess was developed by four interior designers: Lex Parker, Susan Parker, Ed Thalmann and Tove Thalmann.

The patent names only Brian Grady as the inventor. He comes from Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The press release says, 'Created by Niagara locals including, Lex and Susan Parker, owners of Lex Parker Design Consultants Ltd., and Edwin and Tove Thalmann of Amber Forge Restoration Consultants.' As far as I can tell from the press releases, Lex Parker is responsible mainly for graphic design, Susan Parker for the business plan, and Edwin Thalman (not Jeff Easley) for the design of the Dragon pieces. Jeff Easley is responsible only for drawing the cover. I expect that Brian Grady is the original inventor of the game. The press release says that someone, left unnamed, proposed the game to Lex Parker. This was probably Brian Grady. It seems that he recruited the Parkers and Thalmans to turn his game into a marketable product.