{"id":2032,"date":"2012-02-26T21:49:18","date_gmt":"2012-02-26T21:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2026-10-10T21:51:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T20:51:30","slug":"storm-on-a-chessboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/2012\/02\/26\/storm-on-a-chessboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Storm on a chessboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago I was interested in David Pritchard’s account of an original
\nFrench game (Temp\u00eate sur l’\u00e9chiquier<\/em>) in his book of chess variants. I found
\nthe artwork a delight, and was curious recently to try and discover what had
\nbeen made of it since – in particular, if there is now an English version.
\nIndeed there is, released by Steve Jackson games:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Knightmare_Chess<\/a><\/p>\n

And it has a fan page:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/knightmarechess.tripod.com\/thegame_r.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The team at Chess Variants led by the indefatigable Hans Bodlaender give
\nit a bit of space, but they hated the new artwork:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.chessvariants.org\/cards.dir\/knightmare.html<\/a><\/p>\n

I think the fan is not reading right the reaction of the CV team<\/p>\n

Hans said he finds the artwork ‘disturbing’ (a word he may have used),
\nbut the Knightmare fan doesn’t take this at face value, and suggests that
\nHans is a chess purist who takes exception to the deviation offered by
\nKnightmare – perhaps because you have to throw away conventional chess
\nstrategy.<\/p>\n

Of course, I can imagine a chess ‘purist’, by definition, not liking any
\nvariation on chess, but most chess players know and enjoy several
\nvariations of the orthodox game. That’s certainly true for me, and I use
\na lot of chess variants with my junior chess club. Some of these
\nvariants do require you to re-think strategy from scratch, so I don’t
\nthink that is going to be a problem for most people and certainly not
\nfor Hans, or whoever wrote the review for Chess Variants, who devote
\na lot of time and energy celebrating the diversity of such variants.<\/p>\n

The description of the original French game on the chessvariants.org
\nsite is actually sympathetic (‘hilarious’) and elsewhere describes it as
\n‘lots of fun’.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.chessvariants.org\/cards.dir\/tempete.html<\/a><\/p>\n

So if Hans says he finds the new Knightmare artwork ‘disturbing’, I
\nwould take his comment at face value.<\/p>\n

I found the original French artwork to be very engaging – so much so, I
\nresolved to track down a pack. Naturally, I wondered what beef Hans had
\nwith the Knightmare version. It took me precisely four clicks from the
\nKnightmare fan website to find I had exactly the same reaction as Hans
\nto the new SJ artwork:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.sjgames.com\/knightmare\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.sjgames.com\/knightmare\/gallery\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.sjgames.com\/knightmare\/gallery\/01.html<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.sjgames.com\/knightmare\/img\/kc_003.gif<\/a><\/p>\n

That combination of over-the-top sexuality and realistic violence really
\nisn’t anything I want to put under the noses of anyone at my club, young
\nor old, male or female. So I think my best hope to wait for a re-release
\nof the European version.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.faidutti.com\/index.php?Module=mesjeux&id=338<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/fr.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Temp%C3%AAte_sur_l%27%C3%A9chiquier<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago I was interested in David Pritchard’s account of an original French game (Temp\u00eate sur l’\u00e9chiquier) in his book of chess variants. I found the artwork a delight, and was curious recently to try and discover what … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2035,"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions\/2035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonjuniorchess.co.uk\/wp\/drdaveexeter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}