The very first move

So far, I was trying to build game engine library which can do all variants and all pieces from the book right out-of-the-box. Recently, it occurred to me that might be a bite too big to chew. So, I decided I'll focus on simple and randomized variants, and support only classical pieces (+ Pegasus) at first. That way, I'll build complete stack, something useful for users, even if it's just a console application. Let me know if you'd prefer GUI application; depending on feedback, I might also do it. Of course, that would  mean more advanced variants won't be supported for quite some time. Currently, I plan to add them one by one, in order of appearance in the book.

Oki-doki, so I added support for all randomized variants, and simple pieces without special movement are all supported; that is Bishop, Knight, Rook, Queen, Pegasus. King can move, but currently castling is not supported. Pawns are also not supported at all, including en passant and promotion. So, only one side-effect is supported, that is capturing. Before I can publish first public version, I'll also have to add test if King is in check, and if a field is under attack (to test for legality of castling). Saving and loading current chessboard is also not planned for the very first release; simple (and randomized) variants can be played in one sitting. The same applies to in-game chess clock, I presume no one will play new variants in tournaments from the get-go.

How does it look like? Well, I took screen-full of texts from console application:

> new cc14u
   a b c d e f g h i j k l m n
   ---------------------------
14|r r n r n n r k b q b b n b|14
13|p p p p p p p p p p p p p p|13
12|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,|12
11|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .|11
10|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,|10
 9|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .| 9
 8|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,| 8
 7|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .| 7
 6|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,| 6
 5|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .| 5
 4|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,| 4
 3|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .| 3
 2|P P P P P P P P P P P P P P| 2
 1|N R N B B N R B B K R Q N R| 1
   ---------------------------
   a b c d e f g h i j k l m n

this creates new chessboard for Classical Chess 14 unbalanced variant. As is custom across console chess applications; dark pieces are lowercase, while light ones are uppercase; in notation all pieces are written uppercase, regardless of color. Since Pawns can't be moved, today there won't be much of a game-play, but Knights can jump over them:

> move Nd3
   a b c d e f g h i j k l m n
   ---------------------------
14|r r n r n n r k b q b b n b|14
13|p p p p p p p p p p p p p p|13
12|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,|12
11|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .|11
10|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,|10
 9|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .| 9
 8|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,| 8
 7|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .| 7
 6|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,| 6
 5|, . , . , . , . , . , . , .| 5
 4|. , . , . , . , . , . , . ,| 4
 3|, . , N , . , . , . , . , .| 3
 2|P P P P P P P P P P P P P P| 2
 1|N R , B B N R B B K R Q N R| 1
   ---------------------------
   a b c d e f g h i j k l m n

and, there it is!

In short, there is still a long way to first release, this is just a peek into progress made so far.