''Shotest Shogi'' is a 2008
shogi
, also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, ''chaturanga, Xiangqi'', Indian chess, and '' janggi''. ''Shōgi'' ...
AI engine, made by Jeff Rollason, which was made into a
video game for
Windows and
Xbox Live Arcade developed by British studios AI Factory and Rubicon Development. It provides a
3D environment designed to recreate a traditional Japanese room. The Xbox version includes a tutorial system, and all versions include an option to use a
Western-style set of playing pieces for players who are unfamiliar with
Japanese characters
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese wor ...
.
The AI engine has been competing in the Computer Shogi Championships since 1997, and has achieved the highest ranking of any Western entry in all championships. It has competed in 12 World Championships, 2 Invitation ISF tournaments (Tokyo) and 3 Olympiads, winning one of the latter. In all it has beaten 3 different world champions (Gekisashi, IS-Shogi and YSS) on 5 occasions in the year they were world champion.
[ISF] A game running Shotest was released on July 23, 2008, for Xbox Live Arcade in Japan. It was released in the United States on September 10, 2008. Although the game is playable entirely in English, Chinese, Korean and EMEA languages, there is currently no announced release date for other territories, but this will be in the fall period.
The Japanese unannounced release on 28 July 2008 saw Shotest Shogi immediately top of the current Japanese Xbox live chart.
Two PC versions are already on release, one in Japan and one in the UK (see "Shotest Shogi Official Website" below). These do not include the advanced teaching system used by the Xbox version.
Notes
References
*ISF International Shogi Foundatio
*CSA World Computer Shogi Championship
*Olympiad ICGA Maastricht 200
Shotest Shogi Official WebsiteShotest Shogi at GameFAQs
*Reijer Grimberge
External links
AI FactoryRubicon Development
2008 video games
Xbox 360 Live Arcade games
Windows games
Shogi video games
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
{{board-videogame-stub