‘SHOGI — THE NEXT GENERATION’ — Paul Glover ©1996, 1997

SHOGI — THE NEXT GENERATION of play­ers, as well as long time play­ers, will find them­selves mov­ing into the future with this excit­ing tra­di­tion­al game. The game relies
on all of the instruc­tions for Sho­gi. How­ev­er, because of the dimen­sion­al fac­tor, there is a need for addi­tion­al instruc­tions as to how the pieces move. It takes the same amount of time and the same num­ber of moves as reg­u­lar Sho­gi. (Here’s a 2D game of Sho­gi down­load).

The top and bot­tom boards each have 81 squares for a total of 162 squares.  As with oth­er 3D games, the Pieces are set up in this way: one play­er on the top board labelled “A” and the oth­er play­er on the bot­tom board labelled “B” in their tra­di­tion­al man­ner. When you record a game as the game is being played out (Sho­gi nota­tion), the board lev­el (“A” or “B”) is writ­ten in front of the square named. Both boards have a pro­mo­tion line. A pre­vi­ous­ly cap­tured piece may be dropped onto any vacant square on either lev­el, and this con­sti­tutes one move. In the sec­ond game, each play­er switch­es board levels.

THE GAME PIECES all move and cap­ture in their usu­al man­ner on any one board lev­el as in reg­u­lar Sho­gi. The move­ment from one board lev­el to anoth­er or a dimen­sion­al move, (either to a vacant square, or to cap­ture an oppo­nents piece) is as follows
(see also the diagrams):

All pieces, except the Knight and Bish­op, can move to or cap­ture direct­ly below or above the square on which it is sit­ting. For the rest of the pieces, mov­ing your piece direct­ly Up or Down does NOT con­sti­tute a back­ward movement.

K — KING: — (If, for exam­ple, it was on lev­el “A”, sec­ond row) can move one square away from the square on which it is sit­ting. There­fore, the nine squares below it three in front, one direct­ly below it, one on each side of it, and three behind it, are the squares it can move to.

R — ROOK: — (If on “A” lev­el) can move to the square direct­ly below it. When
it cross­es the far side pro­mo­tion line on ether lev­el, it pro­motes. It gains the ability
to move eight more squares for a total of nine squares, same as the Ring.

B — BISHOP: — Can move to the two squares diag­o­nal­ly for­ward or the two squares
diag­o­nal­ly to the rear (a total of four squares). Upon pro­mo­tion, it can now move a
total of eight squares. Three squares for­ward, one square right or left of it, and three
squares in the rear.

G — GOLD GENERAL: — Can move one square away from itself in any direc­tion except the two diag­o­nal squares to the rear (a total of sev­en squares).

S — SILVER GENERAL: — Can move to the three squares direct­ly in front, one below, and the two diag­o­nal squares to the rear (a total of six squares). Pro­motes as a Gold General.

N — KNIGHT: — (If on “A” lev­el) in one move goes for­ward two squares and drops
direct­ly below the sec­ond square. There­fore mov­ing like the shape of an “L” dimen­sion­al­ly. It jumps over any piece in its way and lands on the vacant square or cap­tur­ing the oppo­nent piece on that square. From it’s orig­i­nal posi­tion, (on “A” lev­el) mov­ing two squares for­ward, it would land on the square beneath the pawn on the third row. Pro­motes as a Gold General.

L — LANCE: — Can move/capture the square direct­ly below it or direct­ly in front
of it (a total of two squares). It can­not retreat. Pro­motes as a Gold General.

P — PAWN: — Same as Lance.

The dia­gram below demon­strates if a piece was on the top board lev­el, although the piece could also be on the bot­tom board lev­el. How­ev­er like shown in the pic­tures above, one side is on top and the oth­er on the bot­tom.

Because of the Dimen­sion­al factor,
BEWARE OF THE UNEXPECTED.
It’s Not The Same Game!

Something to Think-about …

When play­ing reg­u­lar Sho­gi (or 2D flat 1 board Sho­gi), you only have a cer­tain amount of good open­ing moves to make. Some moves are bad moves or los­ing moves. How­ev­er you must move the pawns to get things in motion. There­fore, you are lim­it­ed to what you can play as a good bunch (1st five moves) of open­ing moves!

How­ev­er, when play­ing 3D Sho­gi (or “Shog — The Next Gen­er­a­tion”), you have 20 pos­si­ble open­ing moves! There is also an incred­i­ble num­ber of open­ing com­bi­na­tions (1st five moves) that would nev­er have exist­ed in reg­u­lar 2D Shogi.

This game gets you think­ing up/down as well as on a flat sur­face, there­fore in 3D! It will give your brain a real work-out like you’ve nev­er had one before!

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