This is a modification of the Zillions of Games implementation of Janggi, or Korean Chess. The original Zillions version simply had different set-ups as variants. In this version, players drop their Horse and Elephant pieces in the formation of their choosing prior to play. I have tried to make this easier for players by having Zillions automatically dropping Elephants besides their Horses, so that you only have to drop two pieces (Horses) instead of four (both horses and both Elephants). This version of Janggi includes a script for running one of four different Janggi scripts, namely: - Small board and pieces , in color
- Large board and pieces
- Black & White Set, intended mostly copying games from Korean books, should you have any. To this end, there are 3 boards showing rank and file labes. One shows an Algebraic grid, one shows digits and [Chinese] numerals often found in Korean Janggi books and the last is an all-digit grid system, as used by the Korean Janggi Association.
- Bakbo (mating problem) editor, to create and view your own mating problems, or games you played and wanted to record a satisfying position, but did not record the moves prior to this point.
Janggi pieces are octagons, unlike the circular Chinese Chess pieces. There are also 3 sizes of pieces, related to their value: Generals are largest, Rooks, Cannons, Horses and Elephants are mid-sized and Soldiers (pawns) and Ministers are the smallest. The grid of Janggi boards, unlike Chinese Chess boards, are not formed with sqares, but oblong boxes wider than they are tall. This version includes the "Bigjang" rule of Janggi. It is similar to the "No Bare Kings" rule of Chinese chess, except that if both players' generals face each other across the board without intervening pieces, it is a forced draw and not a win or loss. Also included are [semi-official] handicap games, as variants. One further change in this version is that the Red Player (Han) sets up first and moves second. This gives slightly more advantage to the Blue Player (Cho). This is something I had overlooked in my previous Janggi ZRF modules. I have included numerous example games (ZSG files) for this script. There are several readme files for a full explanation of these game files. These example games are sorted into folders: - Korea vs China (Korean Janggi masters vs Chinese Xiangqi masters)
- Openings (example openings in Janggi)
- Bakbo (some simple mating problems)
- Malcolm Horne (games from Malcolm Horne of the UK)
KyoJin Kim of Korea generously supplied these Example games to me, as well as some graphics I used and a good deal of clarification on the rules of Janggi. Mr. Kim is a long time Janggi enthusiast, rated as an amateur 3-dan Janggi player. He is also the author of "Janggi Dosa," a very strong Janggi program for Korean Windows, but can still be used on an English Windows machine, even though the menus would be unreadable to an English speaker. Mr. Kim can be reached at janggidosa@yahoo.co.kr if you wish to contact him about Janggi Dosa and perhaps try to encourage him to create an English version of this fine program, which he has not done to date due to a lack of interest of this fine program outside of Korea (to date). For more information on Janggi, please visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Janggi (or send a subscription request to Janggi-subscribe@yahoogroups.com) |