4PC & Variants April Update

Greetings variants creators, players, and enthusiasts! 

The development team and CGA team have planned out several changes over the last few months that will be released in the coming days to improve quality-of-life on the variants server, prepare for bigger changes to come, and clean up many of the nasty bugs!

First, we want to reiterate the changes (first announced here) made to Variants World (https://variants.world/) a few months ago, which is the variant submission platform that we rolled out back in late 2023:

• Scrolling and loading times have been sped up
• Clicking into and out of a post will return you to your location while scrolling the submission list
• Filters were added for "Under Review", "Accepted", "Declined", and "Pending Reply" statuses
• All code for Variants World was made open-source on GitHub

More changes are to come for Variants World, and any recommendations are welcome! We hope to make the platform more and more intuitive as time goes on, so that the variant creation experience can continue to improve.

The changes coming to the variants server this month are listed below by topic:

Category Reorganization

• Slight changes to the variants order in the Most Popular category
• The FFA category's name has been expanded to "Free for All"
• The Extra category's name has been changed to "Custom"
• The custom editor box has been moved from the bottom of the Most Popular category to the top of the Extra (now named Custom, see above) category
• New Wheel of Fortune (aka WoF) category, with a collection of several selected variants showcased within that category (in the future, the Wheel of Fortune arena will be directly accessible from the category)

Category Section Restructuring

• In each category, its list has been divided into two sections: "main" and "additional"
• By default, only the "main" section is displayed, and the "additional" section is collapsed
• A button displaying "Show more" has been added at the bottom of the list which can expand the "additional" section
• It is possible to configure in settings whether the "additional" section should be expanded by default, and this can be done for each category individually

Removed/Hidden Variants (due to low popularity)

The following variants will be permanently removed from the server due to extended periods of time without significant amounts of activity. The last time a change like this was made was in 2022, due to overcrowding on the variant list and changes in acceptance standards.

• Tag Team (Extra)
• The X of Tricks (Extra)
• Crazy Cavalier (Extra)
• Phalanx (FFA)
• Sergeants Laboratory (FFA)
• Surprise Attack (FFA)
• The Triune Wasp (FFA)
• Unison (FFA)

The following variants will be hidden, but not removed; they can still appear in Golden Variant arena votes and can still be played rated. However, they will not show up on the default variant lists. After the update, these variants will only be accessible for now by typing the keyword "#deletecandidate" into the search bar.

• Caught in a Snag (Extra)
• Counterturn (Extra)
• Infiltration Danger (Extra)
• Trapped Queens (Extra)
• Villagers Chess II (Extra)
• Battle of Castles (FFA)
• BlindGold (FFA)
• Color Blinds (FFA)
• The Four Horsemen (FFA)
• The Hive (FFA)
• Unique (FFA)

4 Player Chess (4PC)-related Changes

• Multiple Festival-related limited updates have been removed
• Removed the drop-down menu for 4PC setups from the variants list
• 4PC on the variants list now refers to 4PC of a user-preferred setup.
• 4PC setup selector received UI improvements and is no longer collapsible, but rather a built-in option of 4PC, that can define user preference regarding setup
• Public voting for preferred 4PC setup has been started!
  • When submitting, the player's data (4PC and Self-Partnering ratings and number of games played; for each time control type) are collected for further results and stats
  • This is fully anonymous; all usernames and other user info are not collected.
  • You can change your submitted response at any time.

Improved Help Modals

• Improved interface and descriptions, with better rule explanations, more readable text, and a more intuitive layout
• You can now try new variants by clicking "Play" from the help popup, without switching your entire context to the selected variant
• The help popup will automatically appear when clicking on a variant box from a list for the first time
• You can click "customize" button in the popup to switch the right-side interface to the selected variant's customization page, instead of the entire screen being swapped to the variant page immediately

Bug Fixes:

• Insufficient-material is no longer triggered if there are spells left
• Tournaments can now be searched properly by title/variant in archive
• A missing space in duck hint has been added
• Spell options in Edit Position have been fixed
• Royal icon and N-check indicators will now display properly in Chrome
• N-check indicators will now display properly in Safari
• Square highlight colors overrides have been removed
• Duck chess backward compatibility has been added
• "My-standing" text's height in leaderboards has been fixed
• Playing a listed variant rated by using custom lives modified in FEN has now been restricted
• The Seirawan last-drop bug has been fixed
• Fixed the empty bank on client if no drops are available
• Premoves can be made through the duck in duck chess
• Dead immune zombies are now capturable as intended
• The archive now properly shows all variants when the variant filter is used
• Bug where moved piece stays on its source square in Atomic + Fatal has been fixed
• En-passant mechanics in Spell Chess have been fixed
• Castling is no longer allowed if the rook is frozen in spell chess
• Upcoming tournaments will no longer display duplicates
• Out-of-order updates of promoted pieces in crazyhouse have been eliminated
• Captures of pieces under jump spell are now allowed if spell ends the next move

With these changes, we look forward to seeing more of your submissions, ideas, and creativity!

For those new to the club and looking to submit your own variant creations, please check out this compilation of very helpful forum threads within this club that will aid you in your journey:
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/custom-variants-club-directory

With any questions, please ask in the comments of this news article, on the forum, or by messaging any of our admins/coordinators.

Thank you,

Your CGA team