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1.0 Title
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YAHOO!
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2.0 Introduction
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I've only come across this game recently, but it's really captured my
imagination. Mostly Yahoo's games are pretty bland, but this one is really
inventive, with a heavy dose of Earthbound-style humour: Your units include
castles that zoom around at high speed and angry bishops. The game's
popularity speaks for itself: it's picked up a big fandom in a short period of
time. Just do a quick search for "Chess" on Google, you'll find a number of
sites with FAQs, walkthroughs, etc, as well as a whole load of bootleg
knock-offs.
(There's even some people who've put together rules for a board game version:
talk about devotion!) A lot of the game seems to be based on the Alice in
Wonderland mythos, so if you're a fan of the series it's well worth checking
out: it does a really good job of fleshing out the Alice universe, and wisely
doesn't include any major characters from the actual film. It is a pity that
Yahoo haven't made any acknowledgement to Tim Burton for the use of his
intellectual property; I certainly hope that he doesn't bring out the lawyers
on this one. In any case, this is just more reason to experience as much of
the game as you can in the short window that it's available!
The style of Yahoo Chess is quite hard to describe. It's like an RTS, in that
you're battling another player -- or the computer -- with a big army, but also
similar to one of the Civ series in that you get as long as you like to decide
what commands to give. It even has a couple of aspects of defend-the-castle
style games, but -- in a clever parody of the staleness of that genre -- the
'castle' you're trying to defend is actually a king, can move under its own
power and even attack -- and is defended by the aformentioned castles which
are far faster than him! I guess if I had to classify it, though, I'd call
Yahoo Chess a turn-based RTS (TBRTS).
The game isn't without its flaws. It feels kind of unfinished: there's no way
to pick which units to deploy or build new ones, and levelling up doesn't seem
to actually have any effect (besides bragging rights!) There are a couple of
pieces there are ridiculously overpowered, and Yahoo don't seem to have any
plans to correct the balance. There is a kind of a quirky charm to the game as
it is, though. If I had one gripe, it'd be that while the stylised graphics are
really nice, the team could at least get the perspective right on them. It'd be
really cool to have the option of surveying the battlefield in a first-person
view, too, but I guess for an Internet Explorer game that's kind of optimistic.
Because of these, the game does have a pretty steep learning curve. I've
written this guide to try and help potential players over a couple of the
more obvious pitfalls.
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3.0 Copyright
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This guide to Yahoo Chess is created copyright
[email protected]. By
reading this text you agree NOT to distribute it without my permission.
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4.0 Factions
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Actually, there's not a lot of choice here. Unlike Starcraft where you can
pick between Humans, Protoss and Zerg, here you just have to choose between
White and Black -- another nice pun on the Lionhead game of the (almost!) same
name. There's not even any difference between these two factions; maybe this
is something that Yahoo are planning on adding in an expansion pack.
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5.0 Pieces
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Like in TF2 or the (very old!) Atari game Archon, your army contains a variety
of different units, all with unique strengths and weaknesses. Unlike TF2, you
actually get to control all of them, rather than being forced into just one!
This means that you get to experience a lot of the different styles of play
that the game has to offer very quickly, but it does also mean that it's easy
to be overwhelmed at first and forget what the unit you're controlling does.
This section contains a handy reference guide to remind you what's what.
5.1 Pawn
Horrible piece. The weakest unit in the game, and the hardest to use
successfully. Pawns can only move forward, and they can only move a single
square at a time (except on their first turn, where they can move a "whole"
two -- which is still peanuts compared to, say, a castle.) So not only are
they weak, they're also incredibly slow. Yahoo don't seem to have programmed
in any ranged units, so you don't have to worry about them getting picked off
before they reach combat, but it does mean that doing anything with a pawn
takes something like five times as long as using another unit. The only
advantage to pawns is that you get a lot of them -- eight, rather than the
usual two -- so you do stand a chance of beating the enemy through sheer
numbers -- but it would be far better to have eight actually good pieces
than eight pawns.
The other big disadvantage of pawns, of course, is that they can only move
forwards. This means that if your enemy's smart, he can slip his units around
them, leaving the pawns completely worthless (as opposed to just mostly
worthless :P). Not only does this mean you can screw yourself over without
realising, which is really bad design, it means that the first-turn turbo boost
is actually a liability -- it gives you one less turn where you can do anything
useful with that pawn. Because of this, if you are set on attacking with pawns,
it's best to hold off on moving them at first until you know you need them,
and keep them all on one row whenever possible so that the enemy can't slip
past them so easily. But generally, their other disadvantages mean that pawns
really aren't worth using in the first place. I rate pawns F-.
5.2 Bishop
The first decently fast unit you'll get, bishops can go as far as they like
when they move, but only diagonally. This doesn't seem like much of a drawback
at first until you realise that this means they can only cover one colour of
square -- white or black. If the enemy player's figured that out (and it's
fairly well documented), he can easily avoid your bishops by keeping to the
other-colour squares. So basically, bishops are only good at countering attacks
from an enemy bishop of the same colour. They're still better than pawns
though. D.
5.3 Knight
Knights are difficult to use well. They move in a sort of L-shape: two squares
in one direction then one square in another, or vice versa. But to make it more
complicated, those squares have to be at right angles to each other. If you put
the time and effort into mastering knight-jumping patterns then they can be
quite powerful, but for the rest of us they're situationally useful at best.
Their only advantage is that the complicated movement seems to mess with
Yahoo's collision detection, so a lot of the time they can move even if it
looks like another unit is blocking the way. D+
5.4 Castle
Now we're on to the actual good stuff. Castles are the fastest unit in the game
bar the queen, but have a numerical advantage over her; you get two castles to
every queen. Castles are especially useful early on when the board isn't so
cluttered, because then they can cover a bigger distance without another piece
blocking them. Castles are an excellent piece at attacking and defending; it's
worth making sure that there's a castle at the centre of each of your main
attacks. B
5.5 Queen
It's kind of a cool inversion of the tropes of the genre that Yahoo have made
the most powerful unit a chick, although the idea is kind of a rip-off of Sarah
Kerrigan in Starcraft. The Queen (and that's all we know about her, we never
even find out her name -- maybe this is a plot hook for a sequel?) is still
pretty hot though.
It's a pity that they didn't put as much effort into her mechanics as they did
to her characterisation. I think the idea is supposed to be that she morphs
between skirmishing (bishop) and battle (castle) forms; it's an inventive idea,
but instead of making the player switch between them the game just does it
automatically, meaning that there's no disadvantage to using whichever one
suits you at any given time, and cutting out a lot of the skill involved in
using the Queen well. Really, the Queen is kind of overpowered as a unit; she
is a decent newbie unit, but I prefer not to use her myself and focus on a more
nuanced, skilled game using castles. I rate her A if you actually want to use
her, but if you prefer to keep her on the sidelines then only D.
5.6 King
The King is a sort of 'commander' unit: like the base in defend-the-base
games, if the enemy kills him than you automatically lose. This gives the game
some nice tactical depth: you can mount as much attack as you like, but if you
don't guard your own King unit carefully, it's easy to be defeated by a
surprise attack. Unexpectedly, the King is actually a lot slower and weaker
than other units, only able to move one square; although he's at least more
manouevrable than a pawn, being able to move in any direction -- both sideways
and diagonally. But since you don't have any choice about whether you use the
King or not, he can't really be reasonably given a rating that makes any sort
of sense.
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6.0 Advanced tactics
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6.1 Bishop-Pawn Combo
As discussed in the Bishop strategy section, the main use of bishops is
attacking enemy bishops. You can prevent your bishop from coming under attack
by placing pawns in each of the squares diagonally ahead of it. Any enemy
bishop trying to kill your bishop will have to waste a turn attacking one of
the pawns first, at which point your bishop will easily kill him.
6.2 King Defence
Since your king is a vulnerable unit, it's unwise to leave him defended by
nothing more than pawns. That might do for a bishop, but not for royalty! Make
sure that you keep a powerful piece, such as a queen, between him and any
enemies who might attack him.
6.3 Pawn Juggernaut
Try to get several of your pawns in one column. That way, enemies wanting to
pass them will have to expend several turns killing them all, using the pawns'
one strength (their numbers) against the enemy.
6.4 Pawn Rush
Although pawns are individually weak, if you can get several of them on one
enemy they can overwhelm them. A risky, but effective strategy is to send as
many pawns as far across the board as you can on early turns, using their
first-turn speed boost to help you.
6.5 King Solo Assault
Since each side can only move one piece a turn, if you move your king and only
your king each turn he will end up moving far faster than the enemy, who has
to manage all sixteen of his pieces. Even his fastest piece, the castle, can
only move eight squares each turn, giving you a speed advantage of 16 squares
to his 8.
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7.0 Cheats, Glitches, and secrets
=================================
Obviously, it's kind of lame to use these in PvP, but if you want to practice
the single-player game you can try these out.
7.1 Confirmed
7.1.1 Pawn Capture Glitch:
If an enemy moves a pawn two squares past one of yours, you can still glitch
the game into letting you capture it by moving your pawn diagonally into the
square it passed through.
7.1.2 Knight movement glitch:
As mentioned earlier, the knight's collision detection seems to bug out a lot.
Often it's possible to move the knight even when another unit seems to be
blocking it.
7.2 Unproven
7.2.1 Pawns Level Up!!
RUMOUR: "If you bring a pawn to the far end of the board, you can transform
it into any piece you like."
STATUS: DUBIOUS. Although this sounds exciting, this does have all the
hallmarks of a classic hoax. It requires a considerable feat of gaming to
achieve, making it conveniently difficult to experience first-hand, it sounds
too good to be true (Any piece? Can you imagine how easy it would be to win a
game with a full ten castles on your team?) and makes no logical sense. We
know for a fact that no other pieces level up like this, and besides, how
could a pawn possibly become another piece without expending any resources to
upgrade it? While I haven't managed to prove or disprove it yet, I'm confident
that this one is just a myth.
7.3 Debunked
7.3.1 King-Into-Corner Glitch
RUMOUR: "Once you've cleared a bishop and a knight out of the squares between
the king and the castle, move the king two squares towards the castle.
Amazingly, the King will be able to move there, and the castle will teleport
past him."
STATUS: DEBUNKED: I tried this in person, and Yahoo! Chess doesn't accept this
move.
