Diagrammatic Pieces define the pieces moves on the item itself. This removes the need to memorize the moveset to the symbol needed in many forms of chess

Western Chess - Maple Landmark

Wooden Pieces with the moves written on the bottom (so you have to lift them up to see)

Maple Landmark Image

Japanese Chess - Dobutsu Shogi (in the greenwood)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōbutsu_shōgi

Cute animals with the moves indicated by dots around the edge of the piece, probably the best diagrammatic set I’ve seen

Dobutsu shogi image

Japanese Chess - Kumon Study Shogi set

Very similiar to dobutsu shogi, but with the original character written in the middle instead of a cute animal. The wood feels good in the hand

Study Shogi image

Eastern chess sets will often have “westernized” pieces, that are different non-language characters symbols, but still require people to memorize a symbol lookup table.

I’d love to find diagrammatic options for Chinese Chess (XongQi), but I haven’t seen any - do you know of options?

  • jet@hackertalks.comOP
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    4 days ago

    Oh, I don’t need this to help children! I need this so I don’t forget the moves myself, and to get other adults to enjoy a game or two.

    Having a 30 something learn 15 something symbols to play a game or two to see what it is like is a big ask.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants

    There are many different types of chess out there, and as a game tourist I want to make things easy on myself. Chu Shogi has 21 different symbols for example, it’s going to take a minute to memorize that, and good luck convincing someone else to memorize it to play a few games.

    example:

    chu-shogi without diagrammatic pieces vs with