Chinese Dark Chess - Developer Notes

Chinese dark chess is a common & popular game in Chinese world. We concentrate on developing Chinese dark chess which is simpler and just played on a half chessboard instead of complete Chinese chess because many people designed the game for complete Chinese chess already.

Initially, we only designed the version of two players. AI function had been added later. We asked for trouble unexpectedly as we added AI function. It’s not easy to write the original AI artificial intelligence. The first version of AI is not smart because we try to prevent AI cheating and let AI make decision only base on the current information and the situation that have occurred. So, many users complained about AI on Android market at the beginning. Frankly speaking, we suffered from it and dared not to check the message from Android market at that time. Then, we realized such a high requirement for the free version and upgrade version around end of May. This time, we did our best to improve AI even it is still not smart enough. Interestingly, some users turn to complained AI is getting smarter and cheating. We take it as compliments.

We will not have much upgrade for AI afterwards because human brains are always smarter than AI. The only thing we considered is to do the version of online game next year. It may be more interesting to let human brains fight each other.

暗棋是華人世界裡很普遍的遊戲,由於象棋全盤的軍棋已經有很多人做了,所以把心思放在較為簡易的半盤暗棋上.初期只有做二人輪流對奕的版本,後來想了想又加入人工AI對奕的部份,沒想到是自找麻煩的開始,原來AI人工智慧這麼難寫,因為我們不打算讓電腦做弊,只能用現在的資訊及已發生的資訊來判斷電腦的最佳棋步.所以第一代的電腦AI超笨,常常在android market留這版上看到使用者駡電腦腦殘,其實我們也很難受,沒想到大家對免費版本要求這麼高,也有一陣子我很怕去看留言版.直到5月底我們才又大改版了一次,這一次電腦AI自己覺得雖然不是很聰明,但我們盡力了電腦AI已經有一般的表現,甚至有使用者留言又駡說改版後電腦變聰明了做弊......就把他當做對AI的讚美吧.之後應該很少會再對AI做大幅變動,因為我們覺得AI怎麼改都沒有人來的聰明,所以可能會考慮在明年初出個網路對戰版本,就讓人腦對決人腦才有意思吧.

Chinese Dark Chess

Chinese Dark Chess , or Half Chess, is a two-player Chinese board game played on a 4x8 grid, or half of the board. Most games last between ten and twenty minutes, but advanced games can go on for an hour or more. Chinese Dark Chess is a social game, usually played for fun rather than serious competition. It is easy and fun.

暗棋是由象棋演變出來的棋類遊戲，使用象棋半盤與棋子來進行的棋類遊戲，它的規則簡單，由兩名玩家輪流翻棋與下棋。一開始棋子都蓋著，得逐一翻開才能知道該棋是什麼棋，故稱為暗棋。玩法比象棋簡單，縱使沒有象棋那般的深奧，但也有可能會因下錯一子而全盤皆輸！而選棋的運氣也左右了暗棋一定的勝敗，人人皆有機會，這也正是暗棋的迷人之處啊！隨時隨地來一盤吧，挑戰自己與朋友的棋力與手氣吧！