Lishogi Theme: Chess-Themed Shogi (Westernized Shogi/Japanese Chess)

LuffyKudo edited

Good day Kishis!

I just want to share the Chess-Themed Shogi style I created at Stylish to be used on Lishogi. You can install it at userstyles.org/styles/203197/lishogi-ji-chess-themed-shogi

These theme also works well with puzzles and analysis. To view the detailed instruction on how to install it, simply visit: luffykudo.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/chess-themed-shogi-westernized-shogi-japanese-chess#Lishogi

Below are screenshots of how it looks on Lishogi:

Lishogi Screenshot - luffykudo.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/lishogi-screenshot-1.jpg
With Promoted Pieces - luffykudo.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/lishogi-screenshot-2.jpg

And below are close-up images of the initial set-up with the second image showing the promoted pieces:

Initial Setup - luffykudo.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/chess-themed-shogi.jpg
With Promoted Pieces - luffykudo.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/chess-themed-shogi-promoted.jpg

And here is a close-up view of the pieces: luffykudo.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/pieces-1.png

Pieces

⚫ As its theme is western chess, I decided to use the standard chess pieces to give a western chess feeling to shogi. The pieces are also differentiated by colors (black and white). The pieces used are Cburnett chess pieces.
⚫ The Pawns (歩兵 – fuhyo), Knights (桂馬 – keima), Bishops (角行 – kakugyo), Rooks (飛車 – hisha) and Kings (王將 – ousho) are the same standard chess pieces.
⚫ The other King (玉將 – gyokusho) or Jeweled General—which is used by the player who is either the challenger, lower-ranked, junior or younger of the two—is a modified chess king with the cross replaced by a jewel or diamond.
⚫ The Gold Generals (金將 – kinsho) are modified chess queens with a rayed sun symbol on top of the middle spike. The solar symbol is the alchemical symbol for gold as gold is associated with the sun. Just imagine it as the golden sun.
⚫ The Silver Generals (銀將 – ginsho) are also modified chess queens with a crescent moon symbol on top of the middle spike. The crescent is the alchemical symbol for silver as silver is associated with the moon. Just imagine it as the silvery moon.
⚫ The Lances (香車 – kyosha) is a new symbol I created. It is a lance on a stand and is inspired by medieval lances.

Promoted Pieces

⚫ The promoted pieces for both black and white pieces are highlighted in red as most shogi sets have red promoted pieces.
⚫ I also initially intended to just highlight the pawn, lance, knight and silver in red for their respective promoted pieces, however, I decided to add the sun-gold symbol as they move the same way as gold generals. Add to the fact that the characters used for these four promoted pieces in shogi are all cursive variants of gold (金).
⚫ The Tokin (と金) or Promoted Pawns are modified chess pawns with the ball on top replaced by a rayed sun symbol.
⚫ The Promoted Lances (成香 – narikyo) is just the same as the lance but with a rayed sun symbol near the tip. So it now kind of looks like a morning star polearm or in this case a morning star lance.
⚫ The Promoted Knights (成桂 – narikei) are modified chess knights with a rayed sun symbol on the head which looks like a sun crown.
⚫ The Promoted Silvers (成銀 – narigin) are modified chess queens which look similar to unpromoted silvers. The difference (aside from the red highlight) is that the crescent moon symbol now has rays from it. So it now looks like a crescent sun or a rayed crescent moon if you may, which is kind of like a combination of the moon and the sun.
⚫ The Horse (馬 – uma) or Dragon Horse (龍馬 – ryuuma) is a modified chess knight with dragon wings. I decided to keep the appearance of a horse rather than that of a horse with dragon scales as the piece is called Horse in both English and Japanese (uma). A bat-like western dragon wings is used rather than feathered wings since the latter would make it look like a pegasus instead. The horse is also facing the right side (similar with the dragon below) so as not to confuse it with the knights and promoted knights which are facing the left side.
⚫ The Dragon or Dragon King (龍王 – ryuuou) is a symbol for a Chinese dragon head. It is also facing the right side like the horse from above to distinguish them as major pieces.

Others

⚫ The board is also checkered with a light square at the bottom right corner just like in chess.
⚫ I, however, keep the shogi coordinates as shogi notations are written using shogi coordinates.
⚫ The board and the 81 spaces are also perfect squares just like in chess in contrast with the rectangular board and spaces in shogi.
⚫ The four Star Points in a shogi board is also not present here as chessboards do not have those.
⚫ I also decided to make the black pieces as sente (which means first player) rather than white since sente is called black and gote (second player) is called white in English. This is also to avoid confusion as shogi notations uses a black-colored shogi piece (☗) or triangle (▲) for sente and a white-colored shogi piece (☖) or triangle (△) for gote.

You can read the full blog post at: luffykudo.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/chess-themed-shogi-westernized-shogi-japanese-chess/

Thank you and have a great day! God Bless =>

LuffyKudo

@YoBot_v2 Thank you! Oh, I didn't saw that, thanks. Would it also be possible to have this theme added here in Lishogi?