The dual design goals of developing an enjoyable modern Shogi variant and an inspiring selection of ancient Shogi pieces meant that I’d need to break down the essential properties that make for a good Shogi game, and the aspects of the historical variants that could feasibly be transferred into a modern Shogi framework. In Japan these beings are called Divine Beasts, or Shinjuu, and hence Shinjuu Shogi was born. I felt the best way to achieve the second goal would be to capture some of the interesting cultural elements that exist in the old Shogi variants, so I decided to centre the game’s armies on four mythological creatures we find on the board in Tai Shogi: the Blue Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Sparrow and Turtle-Snake. Ideally, the game would serve a dual purpose as both a fun game in its own right, and an enticing preview of the creative and unusual piece types present in the old Shogi variants with luck, perhaps players of this new variant might be inspired to take a look at the games that originally housed these interesting pieces. My goal was to generally increase the power level of the pieces, allowing for sharp tactical play, but to balance the piece array so that the games would also be a bit longer than Wa Shogi. That inspired me to try to make my own take on an 11×11 modern Shogi variant, but this time incorporating a range of pieces from the large historical variants. In perusing the few recorded games of Wa Shogi between strong players, I was also surprised to find that most of them were shorter than a typical game of 9×9 modern Shogi (the average tournament Shogi game lasts about 120 moves). I sometimes felt that tactical fights in Wa Shogi were too localised, and the more powerful pieces could mostly just avoid the masses of much weaker stepping pieces. That means the game works very well with drops as in modern Shogi, but it also gives the game a slower, less intense tactical experience than the other historical variants, which are generally pretty packed with powerful pieces. While there are a few pieces with ranged moves in Wa Shogi, the majority of the pieces have short-range stepping moves only. Wa Shogi is an excellent game in its modern form, in which it’s played with drops, but I felt the game lacks a certain intensity compared to the other historical variants, because the pieces are generally weak: Wa Shogi is an 11×11 game with 27 pieces in each player’s army, and like Tori Shogi it uses a completely different set of pieces from the normal Shogi assortment, including different Pawns and Kings (though with the same moves).
While testing the various historical Shogi variants in Ai Ai, I spent quite a bit of time with Wa Shogi. As this variant has evolved through constant, endless playtesting and experimentation, I feel I’ve learned a lot about what makes the Shogi family work so well, so I decided to share this here to generate discussion and hopefully help others who may be experimenting with Shogi variants of their own. In this article I’ll talk a bit about the process of creating this variant, my design goals for the game, and my own evaluation of what makes a Shogi game feel like a Shogi game.
SHOGI DEMON APP SOFTWARE
As I’ve been working with Stephen Tavener and his Ai Ai software to slowly and laboriously bring Shogi and its modern variants to life as well as the fascinating historical variants, I’ve been inspired to build on what I’ve learned about the historical Shogi variants and create a modern variant that brings the unique flavour of the ancient large Shogi games into the 21st century. If you’ve read this blog in recent years, you’ll be well aware that I consider Shogi one of the finest games ever created, surpassed only by its larger cousin Chu Shogi, which I believe to be the greatest traditional Chess-like game on the planet.
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