Sep 17, 2024
Author's Commentary #200:
Time to talk about Chapter 200: Chess at the hot spring.
As promised, here's a special fanservicey chapter to commemorate 200 chapters of the series. This time, Mimoko, Iori, and Carol are off to a hot spring, and much to Iori's pleasure, some Japanese macaques are also soaking in it, meaning they can play some 4-way chess.
As for why I went with giveaway 4-player chess over the regular version, I didn't want to have Mimoko look too dumb in her playstyle. Since there's no analysis engine for 4-player chess that I know of, I can't have Mimoko make the best moves, nor can I play against bots, meaning Mimoko's skill during the game would essentially be my 1200 elo skill level, which is far below her level even on a bad day. Giveaway however evens things out a bit as capturing is mandatory if possible. A player getting stalemated also counts as them losing all their pieces, which is why Mimoko won when she was stalemated. Speaking of the game, this was a game played by me against 3 other opponents. I actually lost about 2 games before winning this one. I've actually got a library of 4-player and other chess varients in reserve for future games of the series, but tend to shy away from using them due to the fact that they were all played by a 1200 elo player like me, which is well below the level of most of the main characters. There are times though when I'll justify using the games for characters like Okisato anyway, as was the case with the Chaturaji game, though to be fair, I had a bit more leeway in justifying why Okisato was playing the way he did due to not being too familiar with the game.
And with that, the series has reached 200 chapters. Rather than doing more Side Stories. I've decided to jump into Season 6. As I mentioned previously, this season will either be divided into 3 parts or 3 separate seasons. Right now I'm leaning towards the latter simply because it will be easier to squeeze Side Stories in between seasons than parts of a giant season. Though I will confirm that this next arc will be a tournament-centric arc. Thanks for everyone that has supported this series thus far, and here's to another 200+ chapters.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
