It also seems to be built from the same code that lichess and lidraughts use. Maybe someone tech savvy could pull it from there and implement it here.

411

Some years ago lidraughts devs claimed that it is hard to implement any new variants.
However, I looked upon a code which enabled Russian and Brazilian variants, and I can assure that pure coding work for implementation of one new variant should not take more than 2 days (16 working hours). Just for illustration purposes, it would require not more than 100 lines of coding.
Of course, the addition of any new variant might require changes in the tournament schedule, but the rescheduling of events should not take more than 2 working hours.
I believe that we can even find a programmer who could do the coding part for EUR 200,00 or an equivalent, and this sum is easily collectible by donations. So far, devs were reluctant to communicate a necessity for donations in order to implement new variants who could attract more players.
Finally, let me ask you: is the inactivity of lidraughts devs justified?

411

@kalnap If you find someone to code new variants I'm willing to donate to help out. I would be interested in trying new variants if they were available.

I'd also donate but I think what he's saying is it's not a problem of donations. Developers probably just mostly abandoned the site.

11

Is permission from the developers needed to make changes to the code or can anyone contribute?

1

There were some initiatives which were accepted by developers, however, as for adding new variants, their response was noncommittal.

Unfortunately correspondence games are not rated on play strategy

I am one of the developers on PlayStrategy. We know we have more variants than lidraughts and offer Swiss tournaments which is missing here. However we also know we are lacking all of the analysis tools for draughts. We do hope to progress our Draughts package at some point, however for technical reasons its a fairly big chunk of work, and I'm unsure when we'll get onto it.

Currently we get a very small number of players playing lobby/open tournaments in Draughts. However, a reasonable number of groups play their own private draughts tournaments on PlayStrategy.

Out of interest, what are the things that PlayStrategy can do to make it more attractive to Draughts players? What are the most important features that PlayStrategy are missing?

@statmatt
(1) A separate analysis board with an export in pdn (portable draughts notation format; see pdn.fmjd.org/introduction.html ) should be sufficient. While it is easy to convert pgn to pdn, you should keep in mind that only few of players have sufficient level of computer litteracy in these matters.
There is no reason to offer an engine analysis, if this option is provided. For example, playOK draughts players had established a community despite the lack of analysis tools.
(2) Provide BASIC variants of draughts which are friendly for almost beginners or which can attract larger communities.
Let me suggest you:
(a) Tanzanian draughts, which is labeled as "African American Straight Checkers" in some communities of USA players. This is the simplest variant of Spanish draughts family: 8x8 board, regular orientation (long diagonal at the left); white opens the game; draughtsman can't take backwards, no restrictions with regards to quantity or quality capturing rules, the king is long range piece, 3 kings controlling long diagonal win against 1 king in 12 moves, the last one must be capturing move. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzanian_draughts
(b) Italian draughts;
(c) Turkish draughts;
(d) Armenian draughts;
(e) Thai draughts;
(f) Argentinian draughts.
(3) provide ANTIDRAUGHTS and BREAKTHROUGH modalities for each variant separately. For example, 10x10 antidraughts under International rules are far more complicated than 8x8 antidraughts under English or Italian rules.
(4) let me suggest you to add DOUBLE MOVE modalities for each variant, for example, Celtic draughts (English rules, but each player must make double moves instead of single move, otherwise a player suffers a loss) -> youtu.be/r8U0KJhw3tk?si=na13Ieo4LrZM-OvG ;
(5) there are some FUN draughts variants, which can be attractive to any lover of abstract games like Stavropol draughts (each player can make a move by own or opponent pieces, but capturing is mandatory; a winner is one who had captured all opponent pieces; in other matters, Russian rules are being applied) -> youtu.be/PYvSSWGpNxU?si=ATDdp2pgKN_fNoU4

Lidraughts DEVs are inactive ... Or are they?
They might be busy behind the scenes trying to implement to features and variants Please GIVE THEM plenty of time Coding takes a LOT of work and effort.