Patriarchs, by Piousoft 2010

Patriarchs is a turn-based, two player game derived from the Patriarchs Chess Gaming System, soon to be released by Piousoft, God willing.

Introduction

Each player controls an army, much like FIDE chess, there is the Blue Army and the Red Army. Each player seeks to capture the opposition Patriarch unit to win.

There are four unit types in total:

Patriarch

The Patriarch is the central unit in the army and each army has only one, it may move one square in any direction, but can never move to a square that is not either the core square, upon which the Patriarch begins the game, or else a square adjacent to it.

Cardinal

The Cardinal is the most dangerous unit in an army and each army begins with two of them. Cardinals can move one square in any direction or any number of squares in a cardinal direction (straight, non-diagonal line). They can not jump over or move through other units, friendly or otherwise.

Secondary

The Secondary is the inverse of the Cardinal, it may move one square in any direction or else any number of squares in a secondary direction (straight, diagonal line). It can not jump units either. Each army begins with two Secondaries.

Support

The Support is the most basic unit. Each army begins the game with four and they may move one square in any direction.

Capture

Units capture an opposition unit by moving to the square occupied by that unit, much like FIDE chess pieces. However, once a unit is captured, it is immediately added to the capturing players own reserves and can be deployed much the same as any unit the player began the game with. This is similar to Shogi.

Deployment

Each player begins with both their Cardinals and Secondaries in reserve. A player may deploy any unit they have in reserve so long as their Patriarch is on the core square. If the Patriarch is not currently in the core square, all deployment is illegal for that army. Any unit deployed must be placed on an empty square adjacent to the Patriarch, adjacent to the core square.

Movement

Each player makes two acts per turn, with the exception of the very first turn of the game, where only one act is made. Each act may be a move or a deployment, so a player may make two deployments as one turn, or might make two moves as one turn, or might deploy then move or else move then deploy, but each of the two acts made in any turn must be on two different units. A player may not deploy a unit, then move it nor move the same unit twice. Two acts on two different units equals one turn.

Play it, it'll make sense, besides, the computer will enforce all the rules and tell you which player is to move and whether it is their 1st or 2nd Act of that move. Click on an empty square adjacent to the Patriarch, while it is on the core square and the deployment menu will come up, select a unit and it will be deployed to the square selected. Squares are highlighted when selected.

It is written in Python2.6 and it is a single module and needs only pygame importing to run.

I have released it for feedback on the code itself as I am really new to programming and this is my first application. I'm proud of it of course, I've only been writing code about four weeks, but I really want critical feedback so I can move forwards as quickly as possible.

# TODO

Make main window resizeable

External Docs (Including improving this one)

Add sounds

AI (At least powerful enough to be used to write a tutorial mode for new players)

Basic networking (Just need to be able to play online with a friend)

# FUTURE

If the AI can be made to be adequately challenging, the plan then would be to create a kind of old school feeling, top down, 2D, adventure, chess-quest type game using the same underlying rule set. I could do the artwork for it, the current geometry-whore approach was just the most do-able from a blank page. I don't see graphics as hugely important early on as I can do the art no worries, just takes a while to get done. I'm far less confident with the coding, and the current approach to the graphics helps me focus on the code.

Each level in the game, a battlefield where you fight a new, baddie warlord, would consist of ever more difficult chess variants. Each level would use the same units and rules, but would have some interesting twist. Each map would have different parameters, and there would be other features, including Sanctuary squares (units can not be captured whilst on a Sanctuary square nor capture when moving from one) as well as River squares which would inhibit movement of sliders (Units can only move into an adjacent river square, never slide into one, and must leave the river by moving to an adjacent land square. This slows down sliders, dividing the board into two or more zones within which they move more freely.) There would also be two more unit types, a Star Unit, exactly the same as a FIDE Queen and a Vanguard unit which moves up to two squares in any direction, but in a straight line, a bit like a super Support. Early levels would only use a few features and the others would be introduced along the way.

One of the key differences between the Patriarchs Chess Gaming System and other chess variants is that every unit type in Patriarchs can move in a uniform manner regardless of the orientation of the move, any unit can move in whichever direction it likes. This is much more like a tabletop war game and allows three or more armies to operate on the same map without the problems caused by, for example, pawns that can't wheel around.

The loose end goal is to get the whole thing browser based with a child's play, map editor for human only games.