Aug 23, 2024
Author's Commentary #178:
Time to talk about the Side Story 2 intro, Chapter 178: A tale of salt and crackers.
This time, the side story will be focusing on Daria, though it's true plot won't become apparent right away. In fact, the backstory with Bruno was actually a last minute decision, though one I believe was worth it. But first, a bio on Bruno and Ignatz.
ブルーノ・ルマカ (Bruno Lumaca) is how Bruno's name is spelled in katakana. His last name is actually Italian for "slug" which explains why he hates salt so much. Though the bigger reason he hates salt is because his character is a homage to Chess.com's Eugene bot who plays like a top level player, unless you open with Knight a3, the Sodium attack. Then he plays horribly. As such, I decided to pay homage to Eugene, by creating Bruno. And speaking of homages, his rating of 2832 is actually Magnus Carlsen's current classical rating at the time of this chapter's upload.
His birthday is August 1st, which was the 1st day the Eugene bot was playable.
His favorite piece is the rook, mainly because he believes it's the piece that has the least connections to salt.
One other noteworthy thing about him is that he's Swiss, and hails from Lugano, which is located in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. Ignatz is also Swiss, but hails from the capitol city of Bern, which is 30 minutes away from Biel, a city know for hosting the prestigious Biel chess festival.
イグナーツ・ヴァルザー (Ignatz Walser) is how Ignatz's name is spelled in katakana.
His birthday is March 12th, which is actually two days before the birthday of Ignatz Victor from Fire Emblem Three Houses, the character who Ignatz's name was inspired by.
His favorite piece is the knight, which is a bit ironic considering the character he's named after, Ignatz Victor, is pressured to become a knight even though he'd rather be a painter.
As for the game, I was originally going to have the game be between Ignatz and Bruno with Daria watching, but decided it worked better to have Daria be the one to play Bruno. Bruno's weakness is actually knowledge only a few people know, and since Ignatz likely wouldn't open with the Sodium attack, nor know of Bruno's weakness on the spot, I decided Daria would be the better fit to play him.
The game was actually played against Chess.com's Eugene bot, though with assisted mode on in order to replicate Daria's skill level. I actually have played some games against the Eugene bot with him at full strength in order to play crazy openings. Naturally, I use assisted mode, but I liked Eugene's concept so much, I decided to pay homage to him with Bruno. Since Eugene's rating is supposedly 3500 when you don't play the Sodium attack, I plan to try and play more crazy games against him, and who knows, maybe some will end up being the basis for future games in the series.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
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