When most independent game designers say that they "make" games, what they really mean about their process is the following: First they design a game, then they prototype and play-test it to work out the various kinks in playability, fun factor, and the like.
After that -- if they don't just stick it it a box or a drawer somewhere, and if they feel that it's really a game worth pursuing -- then they'll usually act upon one of the three options below:
1) Submit their game to an established game company themselves for publication; or,
2) Contract their game to a broker acting as their agent, who submits it to game companies: or,
3) Raise the money to self-publish their game, have it manufactured and shipped to them from China or elsewhere overseas (rarely from the US because of the cost, and without concern for the negative effects of outsourcing on our economy), and then they will try to sell it to as many distributors, stores, and retail customers as possible.
Well, when it comes to option number 3 those standard, time-tested methods might be okay for the other guys, but personally I like to add a critical step that -- although it makes the game-designing experience problematic, laborious, and extremely unprofitable -- keeps production in the USA at all costs; namely:
I build the games myself.
Here you might ask: "deMarcus, what do you mean, you build the games yourself? You certainly don't expect us to believe that you yourself actually sit down and physically make the games, do you?"
Well since you asked, yes, that's precisely what I mean.
Though to be fair, please allow me to now qualify that statement by describing to you exactly how I currently produce my newest game ZoxSo here in the good old "US of A," from scratch:
The first "boxed" production-run of 2,300 ZoxSo games, although small by mass-market standards, is a fairly reasonably-sized production-run in the hobby-game industry.
And by 2,300 games, I mean the separate components to put all of those 2,300 game sets together, namely: 2,300 printed set-up boxes, 2,300 folding game boards, 2,300 rules pamphlets, 46,000 high-quality plastic game pieces, and 2,300 sets of ZoxSo printed and die-punched piece-labels (or 92,000 labels at a breakdown of 40 labels per game, which is two labels per game-piece; one on the front and one on the back).
To undertake the publication of ZoxSo here in the United States, I first needed to contract the boxes to be produced and shipped from Portland, OR; the rules pamphlets locally from Mukilteo, WA; the game-piece labels locally from Lynnwood, WA; the folding game-boards from across the country in the eastern United States; and all of the plastic game pieces were acquired here locally from an established game company in Seattle, WA.
So now, all of the components are being stored separately; then assembled, boxed, and shrink-wrapped so as to be ready for shipment to game industry distributors, stores, and customers.
Oh yes, there is one other little thing I forgot to tell you:
Those 46,000 high-quality plastic game pieces that I mentioned? Well, even though they are brand new, boxed, and sealed in cello-wrap... they came into my possession ... wait for it ... already labeled -- on both sides -- with the label-art from a completely different game!
I am not making this up: It was a collectible game that's no longer on the market, nor in production, because it simply did not do well enough in the marketplace (I will let you try and guess which game it was; and if you like, you can submit your guesses to me via email at david@mindspanlabs.com). The game company, based in Seattle, was clearing out the entire storage unit of components that it had left for that particular game.
So, on a tip from a good friend of mine -- and with the blessings of the game company -- not only did I obtain the 46,000 pieces I needed to publish ZoxSo; I actually acquired a total of about 150,000 of the little buggers, along with some other cool components, to be used in any way that choose, and for all manner of game-development fun, frivolity, and excitement. Score!
On a side note: I like to think that I'm providing these previously discarded little treasures with a fulfilling second life; namely, the chance to participate in the early developments of ground-breaking ZoxSo game-theory, in addition to other as-yet-unknown projects and adventures. But, I digress...
Anyway, what all of this really means is that, before these great plastic pieces are able to accommodate my custom printed ZoxSo labels, they must first be "de-labeled" by hand; and one-at-a-time.
To that end, I recently fashioned a tool which enables me to remove the labels from those plastic pieces -- safely, cleanly, and without damaging the surface -- at a rate of approximately 200 labels every 10 to 15 minutes. With this in mind I calculate that, if I were to remove labels non-stop -- without taking any breaks (and without accounting for setting aside those cool little collectible labels that should not be thrown out), or for other activities related to set-up and to bringing the boxed pieces out of storage -- that it would take me about 115 hours to remove all 92,000 of the labels from both sides of those 46,000 plastic pieces.
Believe it or not, it is the relabeling process that takes the longest; for even though I've become fairly good at it, I am barely able to complete the labeling of six sets per hour; not allowing for breaks, of course.
In all actuality, I have been removing labels and re-labeling the ZoxSo pieces slowly-but-surely -- a little bit each day -- both at my workshop and at the chess-and-game area that I happen to go to sometimes, called "Crossroads."
Crossroads is a very cool gathering place in the Bellevue, WA area. There's lots of great food, music and people, as-well-as fantastic local ambiance. On any given day I might go there from the office to engage in a "mobile-production session," oftentimes while hanging-out and chatting with friends and fellow game-players.
Sounds like a lot of fun, this production stuff; doesn't it?
Okay, maybe it's not so much fun as it is time-consuming. But it is the only way that I'm able to afford to produce ZoxSo here in the USA right now. And after all, that really is the one of the primary goals I have for ZoxSo, namely: Keeping it a "Made in the USA" product.
I'd like to say that if I had it to do all over again I'd publish the first run of ZoxSo differently; but I'm not sure that's true.
However, if ZoxSo does well by selling out of this first production-run, I will more than likely change my methods a bit; primarily by bringing several well-trained "assembler-type individuals" into my inner-circle.
As a matter of fact, if you'd like to try out for a possible future position on my "manufacturing team," please feel free to swing by Crossroads sometime, to lend a hand by helping me to label a goodly number of the ZoxSo game pieces.
Genuinely competent and enthusiastic help will be appreciated, I assure you...
...until next time,
-- deMarcus
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
ZoxSo: Duality in Motion
Why is it called "ZoxSo?"
This morning I had intended to start writing my second post; this time about the development of ZoxSo from its earliest inception and structure until the final, completed and published form of the game. However, it suddenly occurred to me that there's a bit of confusion about the name itself, and that I should first address why I chose the name ZoxSo and what it means to me.
This topic is a more straightforward one to cover -- and considerably shorter -- than my first post in this blog; a fact you will all no doubt be grateful for.
Anyway, here's the thing about the name ZoxSo:
It's a bit like a Yin-Yang kind of thing, with each of the two words (Zox and So) representing one side of the dual nature of the pieces.
The Zox side:
I like to think of the word "Zox" -- my overall designation for the symbol-side, or rather the glyph side/personality of each piece -- as being the grunt, pawn, or soldier incarnation of that piece (one might even think of it as a kind of checker piece).
There are three different glyphs on the Zox side of the pieces:
1) One glyph representing the Xing (or emperor/monarch);
2) One glyph representing the Ma (or Three-Headed Horse);
3) One glyph representing the Dao (or Dagger);
Each glyph represents the Zox side aspect of the piece it is on, and may only exist, move, and capture on the "Pearls" of the ZoxSo board. Most importantly, each of these three glyphs, though different from each other, are there only to indicate which picture (or rather, colored image) is on the reverse side (or "So" side) of that particular piece. This is so that players may plan which piece to flip and move during the game, otherwise those glyphs might just as well be dots on that side of the pieces, or some other symbol common to all of them.
The So side:
I like to think of the word "So" (which is the name of the picture, or rather the colored-image side/personality of each piece), as being the soul of the piece.
There are three different colored-images on the So side of the pieces:
1) One colored-image displaying the Xing (or emperor/monarch);
2) One colored-image displaying the Ma (or Three-Headed Horse);
3) One colored-image displaying the Dao (or Dagger);
One might think of each So side image as a kind of elevated potential embodied in the duality of that piece. When discussing this duality strictly in the context of the game itself, the So side personalities comprise the patterns of movement possible when a particular piece is existing, moving, and capturing on the "Stones" of the ZoxSo board.
Any single ZoxSo piece has the ability, on its turn, to make a move if it is on a Pearl, or to instead "flip" over onto an adjacent unoccupied Stone displaying the image on its other side, then remain on that Stone or make a move according to the So side movement ability of that piece. It is important to note here that the reverse is also true: Any single piece, on its turn, may make a move if it is on a Stone, or it may instead "flip" over onto an adjacent unoccupied Pearl displaying the glyph on its other side, and remain on that Pearl or make a move according to the Zox side movement patterns.
In ZoxSo, the game-mechanic of flipping is simply the ability to change the environment that the piece exists in, before one makes a move with that piece.
The concept of flipping however, may also be viewed as a kind of at-will promotion and demotion ability that is inherent in the piece.
In my next post(s) about ZoxSo, I will most likely be tracing the development of the game from inception to publication.
In the meantime, thank you for joining me once again.
-- deMarcus
Monday, May 16, 2011
ZoxSo: The Origin of a Game
What does this have to do with that?
I'd like to make one thing clear straight away: I'm deMarcus, and I used to be a genuine "chessaholic."
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy playing the game a great deal -- speed chess mostly, and fairly regularly -- but just casually. I also enjoy the occasional chess analysis session with friends.
And I continue to spend considerable time and energy running my longtime chess business ChessMate.com, which among other things demands my constant attention as to the design and manufacture of my line of ChessMate pocket and travel chess sets.
Those facts alone should no doubt convince you of a certain level of ongoing devotion that I have for the sport to this day.
However, neither Caissa nor the once irresistibly melodious songs of the chess sirens call to me in quite the overwhelming way that they used to. And believe me, they certainly used to!
Frankly the change is a welcome relief these days; and to make a long-story-short: I have "ZoxSo" in large part to thank for it.
For those of you who have never heard of ZoxSo, it's an abstract strategy board game that I published recently. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, so I'll have to backtrack a bit. I guess that means you can forget about that "long-story-short thing" I said a moment ago.
Looks like this might take awhile.
Okay then, here goes: As I've already indicated, I used to be a complete and total chess addict. Although I had sort of learned the rules as a kid, I did not begin playing the game seriously, whatever that means, until quite late in life for a chess player at the ripe old age of sixteen. The year was 1972, and as I'm sure you're aware there was an extravaganza of a world chess championship match going on in Reykjavik, Iceland at the time.
I became hooked immediately: bait, line, sinker, kitchen sink... kit and caboodle, the whole noodle; And by that I mean my noodle, my noggin, my brain -- it only wanted to play chess. Other than girls, the most important thing in the world to me was suddenly chess: I ate it, I slept it, I drank it, I read it, I played it... boy did I play it: obsessively, incessantly, literally constantly.
I remember one morning when my Mom came into my room and woke me up to go to school -- I was in high school at the time; and actually come to think about it, this isn't really something that I myself remember happening, 'cause it was my Mom who told me about it later that day -- when she called my name to wake me I apparently sat up in bed quickly, looked her right in the face and said loudly, "Pawn to King Four!" and laid right back down to sleep again.
Over the years I played a lot of chess... speed chess, tournament chess, casual off-hand games of chess, blindfold chess, simultaneous chess, etc., etc., etc. And, if it was "chessic" in nature then it interested me. I liked books about chess, stories about chess, chess art, chess openings, chess puzzles, chess boards, chess tables, chess sets, chess history, chess movies; chess, chess and more chess!
So, after plodding along in my actual chess improvement (through four years of college, making art and getting my BFA degree in Studio Art; oh, did I forget to mention that I was an artist back then?), I eventually became a chess master, obtained a FIDE rating, played even more chess, but then in 1994 I finally gave up playing in organized chess competitions because I was no longer enjoying that aspect of the game.
But I remained an avid chess enthusiast and continued to play lots and lots of speed chess... I was nothing if not rabid about playing speed chess!
"What the heck," you might ask, "has all of this got to do with ZoxSo, anyway?"
Well, I'm glad you asked that, and I'll tell you... eventually I'll tell you: For all of the years that I've been playing chess -- including way back early-on when I was so intense about it -- I've always had the same exact feeling when sitting down to play a game. Well, it was not so much a feeling as it was a sense that something was missing from this, my very overwhelming obsession.
The only way that I can describe that sense, that feeling of lacking, is like this:
It would usually hit me whenever I would see the chess pieces set up in their starting positions for the umpteenth time at the beginning of a new game; a monotonous thought of "what, this same old position again?" would enter my mind, although only for an instant. Then of course I would be off again playing, and oblivious once more, swept up as usual in the hypnotizing momentum of another "chessperience," as I like to call it.
I must point out that for me, the essential elements of chess that had captured my heart as an artist -- that had hooked me early on -- were the fantastic tactics and checkmates, the interactive dance of the pieces, and myriad other abstract patterns of play with which I could compose "on-the-fly" in my own games in a way that, in a chess context, would be amazingly beautiful and elegant.
Which of course they were, and are; and not just for me, but for anyone who has ever been that deep into the game.
Actually, what does that have to do with this?
As a matter of fact, for a very long time I was possessed of the notion -- and I assure you that I was not alone among chess players in this -- that if I could somehow distill theoretical truth from the often seemingly chaotic conditions on the chessboard, it would actually mean something in the overall scheme of things. For me that goal was akin to pursuing truth in quantum physics, or to divining the true nature of existence.
Perhaps you think I'm joking but I'm absolutely not; and unless you've ever been completely and totally captivated by chess then this will probably make no sense to you whatsoever (it is only a game after all, isn't it?). So if you're some kind of a "normal person," then you're just going to have to take my word for it.
That dynamic among chess players, one of intense immersion combined with an incredibly powerful urge to compete -- along with the obsessively addictive lure of the game, of course -- truly is the secret of the wellspring that die-hard devotees gather around to drink from on a regular basis. It is also the essence of the irresistible force that compels chess players to seek accomplishment in the sport, and to continuously engage in playing the game whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.
If you ever want to test me on this point, you just go and try to drag any two avid chess players away from even a single game, let alone an entire session in which they're "engulfed" at any given moment. Yes, I said engulfed and I certainly do mean engulfed! At any rate, if we suppose that you are somehow remotely successful in getting those players' attention -- and short of any issue as urgent as a fire or an earthquake or a tornado or flood, and even then your odds of dragging them away from the game is going to be no better than 50/50 -- once you have sort of gotten any kind of acknowledgment (probably just an oblivious, uh-huh, what...?), well then, no matter how much you yell and scream and dance around flailing, that game of chess is going to win the moment, I can guarantee you!
In retrospect, I suppose that fleeting feeling I've so often experienced as to the starting formation of the pieces on the board, is anchored in the fact that chess is essentially quite spartan; and that owing to the repetitive minutiae of opening play arising from the initial setup, one can easily fall into playing in "rut-like" fashion at the outset of any given game.
Of course, for serious competitors -- professionals especially -- the almost infinite subtleties of chess opening theory are the "coin-of-the-realm;" their bread and butter as it were.
For mere mortals however -- until that moment when the tactics begin to fly -- starting a game of chess can often be like relating the same story over and over and over again, to an audience that has heard it many times before, and with only the most subtle distinctions noticeable in the telling of it.
Really... the only game in town?
Now, if I could have my say as to how best to start a game of chess, I would much rather be able to begin by placing my King, Queen, Bishops, Rooks, Knights and Pawns in effective positions of my own choosing in alternating fashion one at a time, all the while paying attention to the particular placement of my opponent's pieces as he does the same.
In my humble opinion, such a construct would be vastly preferable to first lining up pieces in rigid order on opposite sides of the sixty-four square battlefield, and then being compelled to venture into the opponent's territory like some crazed maniac scout or risk incursion by the other player's forces. In this scenario, one is forever condemned to making the best of the same illogical formation game after game; a setup I might add, that has clearly been modeled after obsolete methods of warfare.
But chess falls apart as a game when one tinkers with the starting setup, and that's just the way things are, thank you very much!
However in spite of all this, during the long years chess was for me, "the only game in town."
And then late in the year 2000, long after I had stopped playing chess competitively, I somehow got the game creation bug, and began working on designing games; specifically, card games and board games.
My earliest forays into this arena were extremely ambitious: they were variations on a massive, multi-player, collectible card, collectible token, and collectible miniatures battle-game based on a grand mythology that I called, "Parchers: The Struggle Across Time."
That mythology is still being written by the way; so please don't ask me when it will be done, I couldn't tell you. But Parchers, the game itself -- after undergoing many iterations, certain versions of which were not at all practical to play given the average lifespan of most human beings, and all of which remain, to this day, hidden in an archive vault located deep within my vast secret underground fortress -- well, it eventually became "the game that spins-off other games."
My game ChessHeads -- which I published in 2004 -- was one of these spin-off games, and was the first of my original games to make it into the marketplace. That game is based on a small sub-set of the Parchers mythology (another story that is yes, you guessed it, still in the works and far from completion) called: "ChessHeads: The Daggerkey of Katahnah."
The cards themselves have developed somewhat of a cult-following in the Pacific Northwest amongst scholastic chess players, but the ChessHeads brand has not yet proven the potential that I believe it has to be a mass market item. Accomplishing that will require a bit of tweaking.
As it was published, ChessHeads is a trading card game designed to be played along with a regular chess set, or with one of my specially designed ChessHeads play mats. The trading cards allow one to do fantastic things on the board that would never be allowed in a normal game of chess. It literally turns chess into a kind of fantasy miniatures game; but it also has an extremely high learning curve, a fact which makes the game itself a niche product; for the time being anyway.
Now here's the beauty part.
"For god's sake deMarcus, will you please get to the point about ZoxSo already?"
Yes I was getting to that, and here it is: A key element of the ZoxSo game board has its roots in the ChessHeads play mat. On that playing surface the borders of all of the chessboard squares have been widened into canals, with small jewel-like component images placed at all of the intersecting corners of those squares.
In ChessHeads those jewels are called the "intersections," and are used for only two purposes:
1) For placing game stones to mark off quadrant areas for certain card effects; and,
2) For use with a particular card effect whereby a Bishop may leave the normal board grid and enter the grid of "canals," traveling along the edges of the squares and out of harm's way until later entering the normal board again, often with powerful effect.
That idea of overlapping squares and canals suggested to me the idea of pieces simultaneously navigating two separate "universes," each defined by different rules of movement, and with the pieces having the ability to travel across the dimensional boundary at will and behave in each universe according to those rules.
And although that concept was not developed to my satisfaction with ChessHeads, the idea continued to intrigue me during the time I began work on ZoxSo in 2005, and as I published it following several years of intense development and play-testing, and to this day as well.
The New Ancient Game...
To sum up ZoxSo: It is a two-player abstract strategy game in which the decision matrices are almost mind-numbingly deep, the play patterns -- as well as the pace -- are quick and exciting, and there so far appear to be no theoretical draws. In addition, creative and effective decision-making as to where one's pieces begin the game is a key factor for success or failure in ZoxSo.
Although my reasons for beginning this project were many, and aside from endeavoring to make sure the resulting game would be easy to learn as well as fun and exciting for people to play, the primary goals I had in mind during the development of ZoxSo were four-fold:
1) To virtually eliminate non-decisive outcomes, since draws can be quite problematic when it comes to organizing, running, and funding competitive game events;
2) To considerably shorten the length of the playing time as compared with other "abstract passions" such as Chess, Go, Shogi, Xiangqi and others, all the while offering no less options than those games in terms of strategic and tactical richness and depth of play;
3) To make it possible for a player to still win the game even though he might have no other piece than his monarch still remaining on the board;
4) Finally, to offer truly meaningful and creative choices as to where the players' pieces become situated during the beginning of the game.
I am calling ZoxSo, "The New Ancient Game," in part because the board and piece aesthetics have a bit of an "ancient" look and feel to them. Primarily however, this subtitle for the game suggested itself because I originally conceived of ZoxSo as a kind of evolution from a number of other games that have been played throughout the world over many centuries.
In ZoxSo, the game mechanics themselves borrow from a couple of familiar play patterns, while also adding a healthy complement of original and innovative elements into the mix.
And so now, ZoxSo has captured my imagination: However, it has done so in a more satisfyingly cerebral and less obsessive way than chess has for so many years.
On a side note: We are always interested in hearing about players' ideas and experiences related to ZoxSo, as-well-as encouraging and supporting ZoxSo play and events. If you are interested in forming your own ZoxSo game group, club, running your own ZoxSo tournament or event, or simply getting together with other ZoxSo players, please feel free to contact us by emailing us at: Mindspan Labs.
FYI: We here at Mindspan Labs are working towards developing a player-base with an eye on organized play; and a ZoxSo app is in the works too; although that will take a bit of time to complete.
Currently ZoxSo is available online and at a few local game stores in the Pacific Northwest, or rather in the Seattle area, and will hopefully be available from several of the US Hobby Game industry distributors soon for your favorite local game store to acquire.
Please check out "ZoxSo, The New Ancient Game" on ChessMate.com at:
http://www.chessmate.com/zoxso.html
Thank you for joining us.
Until next time...
-- deMarcus
I'd like to make one thing clear straight away: I'm deMarcus, and I used to be a genuine "chessaholic."
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy playing the game a great deal -- speed chess mostly, and fairly regularly -- but just casually. I also enjoy the occasional chess analysis session with friends.
And I continue to spend considerable time and energy running my longtime chess business ChessMate.com, which among other things demands my constant attention as to the design and manufacture of my line of ChessMate pocket and travel chess sets.
Those facts alone should no doubt convince you of a certain level of ongoing devotion that I have for the sport to this day.
However, neither Caissa nor the once irresistibly melodious songs of the chess sirens call to me in quite the overwhelming way that they used to. And believe me, they certainly used to!
Frankly the change is a welcome relief these days; and to make a long-story-short: I have "ZoxSo" in large part to thank for it.
 |
| ZoxSo: The New Ancient Game |
Looks like this might take awhile.
Okay then, here goes: As I've already indicated, I used to be a complete and total chess addict. Although I had sort of learned the rules as a kid, I did not begin playing the game seriously, whatever that means, until quite late in life for a chess player at the ripe old age of sixteen. The year was 1972, and as I'm sure you're aware there was an extravaganza of a world chess championship match going on in Reykjavik, Iceland at the time.
I became hooked immediately: bait, line, sinker, kitchen sink... kit and caboodle, the whole noodle; And by that I mean my noodle, my noggin, my brain -- it only wanted to play chess. Other than girls, the most important thing in the world to me was suddenly chess: I ate it, I slept it, I drank it, I read it, I played it... boy did I play it: obsessively, incessantly, literally constantly.
I remember one morning when my Mom came into my room and woke me up to go to school -- I was in high school at the time; and actually come to think about it, this isn't really something that I myself remember happening, 'cause it was my Mom who told me about it later that day -- when she called my name to wake me I apparently sat up in bed quickly, looked her right in the face and said loudly, "Pawn to King Four!" and laid right back down to sleep again.
Over the years I played a lot of chess... speed chess, tournament chess, casual off-hand games of chess, blindfold chess, simultaneous chess, etc., etc., etc. And, if it was "chessic" in nature then it interested me. I liked books about chess, stories about chess, chess art, chess openings, chess puzzles, chess boards, chess tables, chess sets, chess history, chess movies; chess, chess and more chess!
So, after plodding along in my actual chess improvement (through four years of college, making art and getting my BFA degree in Studio Art; oh, did I forget to mention that I was an artist back then?), I eventually became a chess master, obtained a FIDE rating, played even more chess, but then in 1994 I finally gave up playing in organized chess competitions because I was no longer enjoying that aspect of the game.
But I remained an avid chess enthusiast and continued to play lots and lots of speed chess... I was nothing if not rabid about playing speed chess!
"What the heck," you might ask, "has all of this got to do with ZoxSo, anyway?"
Well, I'm glad you asked that, and I'll tell you... eventually I'll tell you: For all of the years that I've been playing chess -- including way back early-on when I was so intense about it -- I've always had the same exact feeling when sitting down to play a game. Well, it was not so much a feeling as it was a sense that something was missing from this, my very overwhelming obsession.
The only way that I can describe that sense, that feeling of lacking, is like this:
It would usually hit me whenever I would see the chess pieces set up in their starting positions for the umpteenth time at the beginning of a new game; a monotonous thought of "what, this same old position again?" would enter my mind, although only for an instant. Then of course I would be off again playing, and oblivious once more, swept up as usual in the hypnotizing momentum of another "chessperience," as I like to call it.
I must point out that for me, the essential elements of chess that had captured my heart as an artist -- that had hooked me early on -- were the fantastic tactics and checkmates, the interactive dance of the pieces, and myriad other abstract patterns of play with which I could compose "on-the-fly" in my own games in a way that, in a chess context, would be amazingly beautiful and elegant.
Which of course they were, and are; and not just for me, but for anyone who has ever been that deep into the game.
Actually, what does that have to do with this?
As a matter of fact, for a very long time I was possessed of the notion -- and I assure you that I was not alone among chess players in this -- that if I could somehow distill theoretical truth from the often seemingly chaotic conditions on the chessboard, it would actually mean something in the overall scheme of things. For me that goal was akin to pursuing truth in quantum physics, or to divining the true nature of existence.
Perhaps you think I'm joking but I'm absolutely not; and unless you've ever been completely and totally captivated by chess then this will probably make no sense to you whatsoever (it is only a game after all, isn't it?). So if you're some kind of a "normal person," then you're just going to have to take my word for it.
That dynamic among chess players, one of intense immersion combined with an incredibly powerful urge to compete -- along with the obsessively addictive lure of the game, of course -- truly is the secret of the wellspring that die-hard devotees gather around to drink from on a regular basis. It is also the essence of the irresistible force that compels chess players to seek accomplishment in the sport, and to continuously engage in playing the game whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.
If you ever want to test me on this point, you just go and try to drag any two avid chess players away from even a single game, let alone an entire session in which they're "engulfed" at any given moment. Yes, I said engulfed and I certainly do mean engulfed! At any rate, if we suppose that you are somehow remotely successful in getting those players' attention -- and short of any issue as urgent as a fire or an earthquake or a tornado or flood, and even then your odds of dragging them away from the game is going to be no better than 50/50 -- once you have sort of gotten any kind of acknowledgment (probably just an oblivious, uh-huh, what...?), well then, no matter how much you yell and scream and dance around flailing, that game of chess is going to win the moment, I can guarantee you!
In retrospect, I suppose that fleeting feeling I've so often experienced as to the starting formation of the pieces on the board, is anchored in the fact that chess is essentially quite spartan; and that owing to the repetitive minutiae of opening play arising from the initial setup, one can easily fall into playing in "rut-like" fashion at the outset of any given game.
Of course, for serious competitors -- professionals especially -- the almost infinite subtleties of chess opening theory are the "coin-of-the-realm;" their bread and butter as it were.
For mere mortals however -- until that moment when the tactics begin to fly -- starting a game of chess can often be like relating the same story over and over and over again, to an audience that has heard it many times before, and with only the most subtle distinctions noticeable in the telling of it.
Really... the only game in town?
Now, if I could have my say as to how best to start a game of chess, I would much rather be able to begin by placing my King, Queen, Bishops, Rooks, Knights and Pawns in effective positions of my own choosing in alternating fashion one at a time, all the while paying attention to the particular placement of my opponent's pieces as he does the same.
In my humble opinion, such a construct would be vastly preferable to first lining up pieces in rigid order on opposite sides of the sixty-four square battlefield, and then being compelled to venture into the opponent's territory like some crazed maniac scout or risk incursion by the other player's forces. In this scenario, one is forever condemned to making the best of the same illogical formation game after game; a setup I might add, that has clearly been modeled after obsolete methods of warfare.
But chess falls apart as a game when one tinkers with the starting setup, and that's just the way things are, thank you very much!
However in spite of all this, during the long years chess was for me, "the only game in town."
And then late in the year 2000, long after I had stopped playing chess competitively, I somehow got the game creation bug, and began working on designing games; specifically, card games and board games.
My earliest forays into this arena were extremely ambitious: they were variations on a massive, multi-player, collectible card, collectible token, and collectible miniatures battle-game based on a grand mythology that I called, "Parchers: The Struggle Across Time."
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| PARCHERS |
My game ChessHeads -- which I published in 2004 -- was one of these spin-off games, and was the first of my original games to make it into the marketplace. That game is based on a small sub-set of the Parchers mythology (another story that is yes, you guessed it, still in the works and far from completion) called: "ChessHeads: The Daggerkey of Katahnah."
The cards themselves have developed somewhat of a cult-following in the Pacific Northwest amongst scholastic chess players, but the ChessHeads brand has not yet proven the potential that I believe it has to be a mass market item. Accomplishing that will require a bit of tweaking.
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| The ChessHeads TCG |
Now here's the beauty part.
"For god's sake deMarcus, will you please get to the point about ZoxSo already?"
Yes I was getting to that, and here it is: A key element of the ZoxSo game board has its roots in the ChessHeads play mat. On that playing surface the borders of all of the chessboard squares have been widened into canals, with small jewel-like component images placed at all of the intersecting corners of those squares.
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| The ChessHeads play mat |
1) For placing game stones to mark off quadrant areas for certain card effects; and,
2) For use with a particular card effect whereby a Bishop may leave the normal board grid and enter the grid of "canals," traveling along the edges of the squares and out of harm's way until later entering the normal board again, often with powerful effect.
That idea of overlapping squares and canals suggested to me the idea of pieces simultaneously navigating two separate "universes," each defined by different rules of movement, and with the pieces having the ability to travel across the dimensional boundary at will and behave in each universe according to those rules.
And although that concept was not developed to my satisfaction with ChessHeads, the idea continued to intrigue me during the time I began work on ZoxSo in 2005, and as I published it following several years of intense development and play-testing, and to this day as well.
The New Ancient Game...
To sum up ZoxSo: It is a two-player abstract strategy game in which the decision matrices are almost mind-numbingly deep, the play patterns -- as well as the pace -- are quick and exciting, and there so far appear to be no theoretical draws. In addition, creative and effective decision-making as to where one's pieces begin the game is a key factor for success or failure in ZoxSo.
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| ZoxSo pieces and partial board view |
Here's a free ZoxSo rules PDF from my site.
Although my reasons for beginning this project were many, and aside from endeavoring to make sure the resulting game would be easy to learn as well as fun and exciting for people to play, the primary goals I had in mind during the development of ZoxSo were four-fold:
1) To virtually eliminate non-decisive outcomes, since draws can be quite problematic when it comes to organizing, running, and funding competitive game events;
2) To considerably shorten the length of the playing time as compared with other "abstract passions" such as Chess, Go, Shogi, Xiangqi and others, all the while offering no less options than those games in terms of strategic and tactical richness and depth of play;
3) To make it possible for a player to still win the game even though he might have no other piece than his monarch still remaining on the board;
4) Finally, to offer truly meaningful and creative choices as to where the players' pieces become situated during the beginning of the game.
I am calling ZoxSo, "The New Ancient Game," in part because the board and piece aesthetics have a bit of an "ancient" look and feel to them. Primarily however, this subtitle for the game suggested itself because I originally conceived of ZoxSo as a kind of evolution from a number of other games that have been played throughout the world over many centuries.
In ZoxSo, the game mechanics themselves borrow from a couple of familiar play patterns, while also adding a healthy complement of original and innovative elements into the mix.
And so now, ZoxSo has captured my imagination: However, it has done so in a more satisfyingly cerebral and less obsessive way than chess has for so many years.
On a side note: We are always interested in hearing about players' ideas and experiences related to ZoxSo, as-well-as encouraging and supporting ZoxSo play and events. If you are interested in forming your own ZoxSo game group, club, running your own ZoxSo tournament or event, or simply getting together with other ZoxSo players, please feel free to contact us by emailing us at: Mindspan Labs.
FYI: We here at Mindspan Labs are working towards developing a player-base with an eye on organized play; and a ZoxSo app is in the works too; although that will take a bit of time to complete.
Currently ZoxSo is available online and at a few local game stores in the Pacific Northwest, or rather in the Seattle area, and will hopefully be available from several of the US Hobby Game industry distributors soon for your favorite local game store to acquire.
Please check out "ZoxSo, The New Ancient Game" on ChessMate.com at:
http://www.chessmate.com/zoxso.html
Thank you for joining us.
Until next time...
-- deMarcus
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