|
Post by Ex on Dec 12, 2019 10:52:15 GMT -5
Chess is a great wife She feeds me morning and night Then cuts like a knife
As I have mentioned in other areas of this board, I've taken a vested interested into the ancient game of chess recently. A renewed interest rather, as I used to enjoy chess quite a lot, when I was much younger than I am now. I am presently working to improve my chess playing skills, hoping to break an ELO rating of 2000 in a year's time. This is a very difficult (if not ludicrous) goal honestly, as high level chess is considered a younger brain's game. Someone freshly coming into this sport as a 40 year old is at a considerable disadvantage. (Which makes the prospect all the more appealing to me.) Part of my personal training will be attempting to beat retro chess video games. In that regard, this thread will serve as a repository for reviews of retro chess video games I manage to conquer. When I defeat one I will talk about it here!
|
|
|
Post by Sarge on Dec 12, 2019 13:30:29 GMT -5
Do you remember Battle Chess from back in the day? I'm sure it wasn't terribly smart, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever to see animated chess pieces go at it.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Dec 12, 2019 13:35:07 GMT -5
Do you remember Battle Chess from back in the day? I'm sure it wasn't terribly smart, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever to see animated chess pieces go at it. Yes indeed! I had the EGA DOS version as a kid, thought it was awesome. A few days ago I played the NES port. The NES port has impressive animation (when the pieces fight), but it is terribly slow when pieces move. By that I mean, how long it takes for pieces to walk around the board, not the speed of the decision tree. If I beat the NES version, I'd have to raise the emulation speed WAY high to deal with it.
|
|
|
Post by anayo on Dec 12, 2019 14:35:32 GMT -5
Ex,
I think this is a great idea. Keep us posted on how it unfolds.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Dec 13, 2019 22:51:17 GMT -5
Okay folks, I beat my first retro chess video game: Video Chess | Atari 2600 | 1979
Video Chess is a chess playing simulation, developed and published by Atari, Inc. in 1979. It supports player versus AI, but strangely not player versus player. Despite what the package claims, there's not 8 different video games. There's one chess video game, with 8 different levels of marginally different difficulty. Though you wouldn't want to play the higher difficulties, unless you're watching a movie at the same time or something. The instruction manual says the highest AI level (7) can take 10 hours between turns! Level 8 is actually the lowest level of difficulty. Yeah I don't understand that logic either. So here's how the game looks:
I'll be honest, I did not expect much from a 1979 chess game on Atari 2600. I was wrong! This is an incredibly good chess game from an interactivity and AI standpoint, for its time. Video Chess was programmed by two people: Larry Wagner and Bob Whitehead, who are known for their work with Activision. To create such a thing on an Atari 2600 was no simple task.
"At first, the idea of chess on the Atari 2600 was considered to be impossible due to the limitations of the technology at the time. For example, Atari had to overcome sprite limitations; the Atari 2600 was only capable of displaying three sprites in a row, or six (such as in Space Invaders) with the right programming. The eight-piece-wide standard chess board exceeded this limitation. To rectify this, Bob Whitehead developed a technique known as "Venetian blinds" where the position of each sprite changes every scan line; this allows for eight or more sprites in a row. Additionally, Atari developed a bank switching ROM cartridge for earlier prototypes of Video Chess that were larger than four kilobytes in size, however, the released version ended up fitting the standard 4K size. This technology was later used for other Atari 2600 titles."
Even in 2019, it's unbelievable that someone could make a chess game this good in only 4K! The AI is considerably challenging, even on the lowest level. However, I only beat this game on its lowest level. The reason why, is after the player makes their move, and it's the AI's turn, the screen flashes a kaleidoscope of colors while the computer is thinking. This visual effect should have come with an epilepsy warning! The longer the computer thinks, the longer you have to sit there and watch the screen flash like it's having a seizure. Meaning that on the highest difficulty settings, your TV could sit there and rainbow spaz-out for 10 minutes or longer. Nah. I went with the easiest difficulty just so I could get the shortest amount of screen flashing per AI turn. +A fully functional chess simulation on an Atari 2600.
+The AI is surprisingly good on a friggin' 1.19 MHz processor. +Castling, pawn promotion, and en passant are supported.
+Competent graphics and intuitive controls.
+Eight levels of difficulty. -Epilepsy inducing flashes when the AI moves. -When you are checked, a loud annoying buzzer noise occurs.
-On difficulty levels 6 and 7, a bug can happen where the computer moves twice in a row.
-Can't play as two human players.
-You can keep playing the game even after checkmating the AI... yeah.
When I beat the AI, this was the state of the board (I was playing white): I moved white queen to h7, and checkmated black. Video Chess is the first console chess video game I've put much time into. For a game that is as old as I am, this was more than I expected. Granted this game cost $139.65 (in today's money) when it released, but still... as a training tool it would have been hard to beat this forty years ago. After all, an Atari 2600 was a lot cheaper in the late '70s than an actual PC would have been. And Chess Odyssey on its higher levels could well be the most difficult game on the Atari 2600.
This was a good start to my retro chess odyssey.
Ex's rating: 7/10
|
|
|
Post by toei on Dec 14, 2019 8:41:16 GMT -5
I guess the way to make the highest difficulty work would be to do one move every evening some time before going to sleep, then possibly another in the morning before work. People used to play chess through postal correspondence, so that's still faster in comparison.
Still, it's wild that they went to the trouble of coding AI complex enough that it could take 10 hours to calculate a move. I wonder how many people actually played through that mode back in the day. Sounds like the kind of thing I would have wanted to try if I were both into chess and alive in 1979.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Dec 14, 2019 12:19:59 GMT -5
I guess the way to make the highest difficulty work would be to do one move every evening some time before going to sleep, then possibly another in the morning before work. People used to play chess through postal correspondence, so that's still faster in comparison. Technically that could work, but you would have needed to leave your Atari 2600 running for an awfully long time to complete a game at level 7. I would have been leery of having the hardware powered on for such length. It's wild to me too, because that means either there's a LOT of decision trees packed in that tiny amount of memory - or the AI can adaptively generate decision trees to calculate the present game against. Either scenario is extremely impressive considering the paltry resources. I doubt there are many modern video game programmers today who could accomplish such a task. I assume some folks must have done it. And maybe the Atari 2600 could handle being powered on for a month or more at a time, I don't know have a fan blowing on it or something. Pretty crazy it's even an option. - I spent some time with a SEGA produced chess game last night. I was playing against it at "Professional" level, which is about 1800 ELO best I could tell. I lost three games in a row. But it's a VERY good chess game, so I'll keep going until I beat it - at least on "Professional". I think the top difficulty in this one is Championship Grand Master which is absurdly difficult to defeat. Or at least at my personal present chess level it is.
|
|
|
Post by toei on Dec 14, 2019 12:38:24 GMT -5
Well, I left my Genesis powered on for several days with a fan on it when I was a kid cause I was trying to finish a game with a broken battery backup. The Genesis was fine, so it should be possible, even if it's not a good idea.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Dec 14, 2019 12:57:59 GMT -5
it should be possible, even if it's not a good idea. I'd simply be concerned about the life shortening effects on the solder joints and resistors, due to thermal stress of that duration. Having a fan blowing air into and out of the unit could mitigate the issue entirely though. Apparently your Genesis survived just fine!
I'd be willing to bet somebody left their Atari 2600 on for extreme amounts of time to combat Video Chess at level 7. I hope they won.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Dec 15, 2019 0:48:38 GMT -5
SEGA Chess | Master System | 1991
SEGA Chess is a chess simulation developed by Probe Software Ltd., and published by SEGA Enterprises Ltd., in Europe and South America in 1991. SEGA Chess is a feature rich chess simulation that offers the following... Can be played Human VS AI, Human VS Human, or AI VS AI. AI offers 11 difficulty modes: beginner, novice, amateur, intermediate, professional, chess champion, grand chess champion, chess master, grand chess master, adaptive (which tries to adapt to the player's skill) and infinite think mode. The game also offers a problem solving mode... meaning you can input piece positions and watch how the AI handles the puzzle. Digitized speech is available. There are timers to track each player's time. The ability to play in overhead mode or isometric mode. And lastly a complete move log is generated as the game is played.
Here's the isometric view, which I did not like using.
In game there are more options. You can take moves backwards and forwards, get a hint, swap sides with the other player, change from overhead to isometric view, force the AI to stop thinking and just move, promote a pawn, and go back to options. It's all very robust!
This was my winning move against the AI (black). I moved white queen to f4 for the win.
I managed to beat the AI on professional level AI. Professional is equivalent to class A on the chess ELO scale. Meaning I beat an opponent with an ELO of about 1900. I did not use hints to do it, but it did take me seven lost games against the computer before I finally took the win. I'd consider professional to be "normal" difficulty for a chess game, so I'll call this beat for now. I may come back to SEGA Chess later next year, and go against grand chess master (lol). No way I'd do infinite mode, who knows how long the computer would think at that point!
SEGA Chess is an extremely good chess game from a developer I'm not usually fond of (Probe). The graphics are nice, the interface is great, there's tons of options, and the AI puts up a serious fight. I suppose a negative would be there's not any background music to chill with. Although I suppose that was avoided due to how repetitive it'd become eventually. I find it a bit interesting how late in the Master System's life this game appeared. By 1991 the Genesis was on its third year in the market, and yet SEGA took time out to publish this on Master System. Perhaps the popularity of Garry Kasparov back during that time had something to do with this game's impetus. Whatever the reason, if you're a fan of the Master System and you enjoy chess, picking up a copy of SEGA Chess would be a smooth move. Ex's rating: 8/10
|
|