The 81-Square Universe

Recently, I can't help thinking that we need a better online playing website for non-Japanese, if we want to popularize shogi more.
PlayOK's user interface is awful, especially the piece stands.
ShogiClub24 is a great website, but its graphical interface looks too cheap, and also we often have problems with registering to ShogiClub24.

I think I remember hirohiigo mentioned that 81SU wants to have its own online playing website sometime in the future.

Actually, I even thought about studying java and program it myself. But I think it's too hard work for me.
I wish we could recruit someone who is good at web programing and is interested in shogi popularization.

Anyway, I've just made a rough idea of how a new program should be. Hope you get interested.

Wow that's a nice interface, I think it's a really good idea to make one for 81su.

I totally agree with Hidetchi.
We should include a ranking system and maybe a good way of creating tournaments.
I think it's not imposible to make a good online playing website by ourselfes.

This year at my school we started to learn java, but we are still at the basics: currently at creating classes and methods.
So I will help as much as I can, even if it's not much I can offer .

If we could find someone who knows java, I would love to see this put into action. I would also need to buy more space for The 81-Square Universe. Right now we have 600 MB of disk space usage and 25 GB of monthly bandwidth, which I certainly don't think is enough to run an online playing site. I'll have to expand it when we are able to get someone to help design this.

Here are my comments on the diagram:

• I think we should have the following types of pieces: Kanji, Hidetchi Internationalized, and Hodges Internationalized.
• If possible, I would like the board to be able to be resized, like on PlayOK, but if this isn't possible, then three board sizes (small, medium, large) would be good.
• In regards to time, I think ranked games should have the same limitations as SC24, but non-ranked games should have optional timing, including unlimited time. (Since it would be unranked, abandoning an unlimited-timed game would not affect your rank.)
• Voices would be interesting, but I think it would just make the possibility of the computer running slower more likely.
• Players shouldn't be able to hear what the watchers are saying, unless they are playing an unranked game.

I don't like to say too many things, before the "main programmer" is found, because this would be "dreaming" in my eyes, but one important thing I like to say, now:

the board design (feeling) is the most important thing to feel well (but still I have to say, if I'm playing real tournaments, I also have to play at boards with which I don't feel so well - I'm familar with one-Kanji-Computer-Boards).
So don't think about which design, which pieces, which size, ...
Better make it CONFIGURABLE (like BCMShogi does ): LOAD the pieces as bitmaps (everyone can modify) and allow DIFFERENT SIZES!
Resizeable (like at PlayOK) I don't like so much, because you will loose quality (at least if you are using more nice looking pieces and not so simple ones as at playok).

There should be different ways (which you can find at other servers, like chess-server, go-server, ...): telling, whisper, kibitz, ... (doesn't matter how to name):
one for ALL players at the board, also the playing persons
one which should NOT hear by the players
one which should hear ALL people

Making a resizable board is not a problem for programming, takes about 5 extra lines of code maybe However, I suggest having a website without an interface. It will send the moves to the preferred USI interface that you allready have on the computer. This saves alot of bandwidth , I think, while also allowing people to customize the interface at will.

There was a discussion on Shogi-L several months ago about the pros and cons of various types of play formats. You can find it here:

http://groups.google.com/group/shogi-l/ ... 22?lnk=gst

I think the idea way to have a server set up is using a local program that can connect remotely to the server and also a java client that can connect via the browser. But I don't know how these could connect to the same server and play together. I know KGS gets around this by letting you download a java applet for CGoban, but that doesn't have the kind of customization that a more developed client would have.

That's great to hear! I'd love to help out. I'm a Shogi fan and would love for this game to become widespread. I've used PlayOK and I definitely thought the interface could use quite a bit more work. While teaching my brothers about Shogi on playok, I really wished it supported handicap
games, for example.

As a die-hard programmer, I've always wanted to make a Shogi game server, but haven't had the time to work on it seriously until fairly recently. The good news is that starting on February, I'll be working on this project full-time. Let's see what happens then!

I've considered three possible client interfaces:

(1) Simple turn-based website like DragonGoServer.net or BrainKing.com
(2) A Flash client like ChessCube.com
(3) A Java client like the Kiseido Go Server (KGS) at GoKGS.com

So far, my turn-based site is running on Google App Engine (not ready yet!), but I'll be turning my attention to real-time play once I begin this effort in earnest.

Help is on the way

I am playing on the KGS Go server regularly.
In my opinion it is well thought out and extremely usable. You can even go through the game post mortem or give lessons etc.
If somebody would be progamming a shogi server I would like it to be similar to KGS.
After all thousands of player gave their opinion on KGS to finetune it to their uses.

Thomas

This is good news, I'm a Mass Communications Student here in the Philippines and perhaps I could help a bit in promoting the game. As far as programming is concerned...I can't remember a single lesson I had in prog before so...I'll just stick to promotion. ^^

I do agree that KGS is nice graphic-wise and is easy to understand. Anything similar or better than that would serve as a promo material itself, like an eye-candy.

If it is possible:

1. Download-able kifu
2. Game-save? (At least for tournaments, it may make the game slower though)
3. Skin selection on the interface? (IDK, themes?)
4. I'll think of some more.

Yes. We need to replicate KGS functionality as much as possible. It will be my main model for designing the shogi server/client.

I like the teaching game format that lets both sides explore and comment on variations after the game has ended. We also need the ability to replay the moves in these Kifu in the exact order that they are played (which something that annoys me about the variations in the SGF files that KGS gives me).

Also, it would be great to have something analogous to the live lectures, where one party can show variations on the board and is able to broadcast sound to everyone who has joined the room. Moreover, I believe those lectures are also archived and are available at any time through KGS-Plus.

We need more of that. It would be great for shogi advocacy.