Shogi
Shogi is an old Japanese game similar to chess. It differs in slightly bigger game board, different game pieces, possibility of their promotion and mainly in the mechanism of capturing: captured pieces can be returned to play under control of their captor.
Traditional shogi is quite hard to comprehend for us non-Japanese because the pieces are distinguished only by Japanese caligraphic characters inscribed on them. But it would be pity not to try this great game, so I've drawn a new set of pieces with easy-to-remember graphic design (it's nothing official, I've been making up those symbols on the fly - hope no Japanese feels offended :-) ).
Game rules
The set
- Game board is a 9×9 fields square grid.
- Game pieces are flat squares with one side forming an arrow (they are longer and more skewed in traditional form). There are 40 of them (two sets, twenty each) and they are not distinguished by colour - alignment to their owner is determined from the orientation: they always face the enemy by their arrow side. Colouring of the kings is just a cosmetic detail without any influence on the game.
Most of the pieces have different pattern on each side. This is because of promotion - when a piece reaches certain area on the board, it is flipped upside down and becomes something better than before.
Game principle
The pieces are placed on the board. One of the players begins (determine this at random or take turns when you play more than one game) and moves one of his pieces. Then the second player makes a move, then the first again etc., like in chess. Goal of the game is to capture opponent's king.
Types of pieces and their movement
Pawn is the weakest and the most numerous piece. It moves by one field directly forward and captures other pieces the same way. Unlike in chess, there are no special rules like diagonal move for capture, two-field start or en-passant capturing; a shogi pawn always moves only one field forward. |  |
Lancer also moves directly forward, but by any number of fields. Sort of long-range pawn. |  |
Horse moves in combined steps: one field directly forward and one diagonally forward, and as the only piece in the game it can jump over other pieces that stand in its way. Horse is similar to a chess knight, but it can move only forward (which means that if it is not standing on the edge of the board, it always has exactly two valid target fields). |  |
Silver general moves by one field directly forward or one field in any diagonal direction. |  |
Gold general moves by one field in any direction except of diagonally backwards. |  |
Dragon moves diagonally by any number of fields, like a chess bishop. But unlike a bishop, the dragon is only one on each side and is one of two most powerful pieces in the game. |  |
Chariot rides by any number of fields forwards, backwards, left or right, like a chess rook. It is also only one and is the second of the two most powerful pieces. |  |
King moves like its chess counterpart: by one field in any direction and who loses the king (gets a checkmate), loses the game. |  |
For clarity, possible directions of movement are indicated on every piece's edge (this is just an unofficial feature of this set). Single line means "one field in this direction" and double says "any number of fields in this direction". Triple lines appear only on the horses and say you must remember their move rules because this simple code can't express it.
If you threaten opponent's king by your piece, you may say "check" (or "óte" in Japanese), but it is not mandatory.
Initial piece layout
At the beginning, all pieces have their basic (unpromoted) side up and the promoted side down and they face the opponent by their arrow side.
Promotion of pieces
When a piece reaches opponent's "base" (last three lines on the game board), it may be turned upside down, which is called "promotion".
Dragon promotes to a dragon king, which in addition to its current movement rules can also move by one field in remaining four directions. |  |
Chariot gets better wheels and, in addition to its current movement, can also move diagonally by one field. |  |
King and gold generals don't promote. | |
Everything else changes to gold generals. | |
Promotion is mandatory only if the unpromoted piece would get to a position from which it couldn't move (for example a pawn reaching the far end of the board). If the unpromoted piece can still move, the player chooses whether to promote it or not (for example, a silver general is often left unpromoted).
A piece can be promoted at the end of every move, which, at least partially, crosses the promotion zone; actually that means if it begins or ends there.
(by the way, "dragon king" is officially a name for a promoted chariot and promoted dragon is called "dragon horse", but it sounds strange and illogical, so I don't use those names)
Capturing of pieces
Pieces capture in the same way as in chess: by entering a field with an opponent's piece. But the captured piece is not removed from the game permanently, it just becomes a "prisoner of war" and can later return to play under its captor's control. Returning - or "dropping" - a piece into play is considered a move; so we can either drop a piece or move some other piece on the board, but not do both in the same turn. Pieces can be dropped onto any free field and the following additional rules must be kept:
- We can't drop a pawn anywhere into a column where we already have one (i.e. in front of or behind our other pawn). This applies only to basic pawns - a pawn promoted to gold general doesn't restrict us in dropping new pawns.
- A pawn cannot be dropped in a way to immediately checkmate the opponent's king.
- A piece dropped in the opponent's base (promotion zone) is dropped in its basic form. It can promote later, if we move it.
- A piece cannot be dropped on a field from which it couldn't move (e.g. a lancer to the last line).
Captured pieces are kept somewhere in sight where everyone can see what they are.
Additional rules
Traditional or professional shogi contains various extra rules. For example:
- If the same situation (i.e. all pieces on the board get to the same fields and there are the same distribution of captured pieces) repeats four times, the game ends in a draw.
- Perpetual checking is not allowed. If someone gives the same check fourth time in a row, he automatically loses.
- If you get to an impasse where both kings got to the opposite side of the board and there is no chance of checkmate or more captures, the game ends and both players count their remaining pieces (both on the board and captured): chariots and dragons count for five points, kings for zero and all other pieces for one point each. Who has less than 24 points, loses. If both have 24 or more, it is a draw.
- Who makes an invalid move (no matter if by mistake or by cheating), automatically loses.
- Stalemate as we know it from chess (when one player has only the king and the other surrounds it in a way it cannot move, but is not checked) is practically impossible due to the "recycling" of the pieces: if one player captures all the pieces except a king, he can drop them all into play and literally sweep the other king from the board. Therefore, the official rules say nothing about stalemate; if you reach one, solve it as you see appropriate.
If you play just for fun, you can forget there supplements and solve the described situations by a talk, dice, brawl or whatever :-).
That's all for the rules, now you need something to play with:
Assembly instructions
File list
- shogi1.bmp - top and bottom faces of the pieces (the most important page)
- shogi2.bmp - side rims for the pieces
- shogi3.bmp and shogi4.bmp - game board split to two parts
- shogi5.bmp - game board in one piece, but you need an A3 printer to print it in full size
- shogi?w.bmp - same as above, just uncoloured
- shogi.dwg - everything together in the original vector form (AutoCAD 2002 format)
- *.htm - this instructional text. If you'd like to translate it to some other language, go ahead, thank you in advance ;-).
- *.gif - illustrations for the instructions
Page 5 is an image of 3000×2100 px in size (A3), the remaining BMPs are 1500×2100 px (A4). Everything in 200 DPI.
Material and print
The pieces need to be heavy and sturdy, so either print them on some strong cardstock or laminate them as needed. The game board needs to be laminated even thicker - find a suitable cardboard for that.
When printing, don't forget to turn the "preserve aspect ratio" on. Set any scale you want; at 100%, the board is 241×241 mm big (including the edges), fields are 25×25 and pieces 19×20×7 mm.
Assembling the pieces
You can choose from three options differing in tediousness and the final look:
- The simplest, fastest and easiest to store is to make the pieces flat: laminate the top surface on some appropriate cardboard, cut it out and glue the bottom surface from the other side. You don't need to print page 2 at all.
- The middle version is a classic "box" technology: take the top and bottom surfaces from page 1 and glue the rim from page 2 between them. You can see it on the little drawing on page 2 (tabs are not shown). You may glue some weight into every piece - a metal washer, some magnet (which, combined with steel board, gives you a traveller's version :-) ), dry sand or whatever you like - to make it more resistant against being blown away.
- More patient modelers can print page 1 once more, laminate it with an appropriate cardboard, carefully cut out all the symbols and rims and glue it to the pieces to make them look more 3D.
Treating the pieces with a clear varnish is useful - they will look better and become harder and more resistant to natural moisture of players' fingers.
Assembling the game board
Several options again:
- If your printer can print A3, print page 5, glue it on some cardboard or plywood base and you're done.
- If you have only A4, print pages 3 and 4. Glue 3 (the one with a tab) to the base first, then the 4. Or cut the tab away, then the order doesn't matter and you just have to glue precisely enough so as not to make a visible seam.
- If you want a folding game board, a box or whatever, it's up to you - there are no such parts in the kit.
That's all, folks.
I hope you enjoyed both the build and the game.
B@F
This and other paper kits can be freely downloaded from PaperGallery.mzf.cz.