cinygmato
Hello world!
Learning to play Go, 囲碁, shogi, 将棋, and Stratego®. Like playing Scrabble®, Scrabble© Slam!® too. Games are one of the beautiful works of humanity.
Go interests me, in that it's still winnable by humans over computers. Especially, since Jeopardy!® fell to the AI's. Member of the American Go Association.
Made a Free printable paper and pencil Go and shogi pdf goban, shogiban
Learned of an interesting variation on multiplayer go games, Zengo. Where three people alternate sides in a two player Go game. Everybody tries to make the best move on their turn, each turn one plays a different side. You get to learn in a non-competitive zen way.
Zen games can be played with an odd number of people and even number of sides, like Zenchess. Or, an odd number of sides and even number of people, like Zentrichess. Two or three people can even play Zenscrabble.
Also interested in multiplayer variants of Go and chess. I think they add the metaphorical dimension of life where one has allies and nonallies, and switchable allies. And that there can only be one winner, and many losers.
Since many board games are metaphors for war, in war civilians are an important element or unimportant. I had the idea of adding the non-combatant element to represent that non-combatants take the most casualties in warfare. Use black and white go stones on the board squares not occupied by game pieces to represent civilians. When the opponent moves on to a square with your civilian it is taken from the board.
Alternatively, take the stones whenever a piece moves there opponent or friendly to represent fratricide.
One could add the rule that if all your civilians are dead you lose. In scoring type games loss of your civilians counts against you and/or loss of opponent’s civilians counts against you too. For go, one could add two other colors of stones to represent civilian populations. Or a single color on the points to represent a universal civilian population.
This would make Zen games dark Zen?
Made a 9x9 goban and mini shogiban on reverse side by use a Walnut Hollow© product called Basswood Country Rounds® large size. I used a grid print out from a spreadsheet program to place alignment dots with a pencil. Then lines with a permanent marker, a Sharpie®, and ruler to make grid lines, and cooridinates. Hoshi points were made by using the hole in binder paper and pencil to outline a circle, then used the permanent marke over that. Next, sealed it with polyurethane spray in three coats. The shogi pieces are from Yellow Mountain Imports.