How to play Shogi(将棋) -Lesson#27- Free Shogi Softwares
Uploaded by HIDETCHI on 11.12.2008
Transcript:
Lesson#27.
I guess some of you who have been watching these videos are anxious to play shogi,
but may you can't find anyone near you who wants to play shogi with you.
Well, this lesson is for those kinds of viewers.
One way you can play shogi is to play against an AI, shogi softwares,
and the other way is to play online.
So I'm gonna talk about shogi softwares in this video, and about playing online in the next video.
So, as for shogi softwares, we have many commercial softwares of shogi in Japan, of course.
I have two of them installed on my PC.
One is, "gekisashi".
You can play against Rieko Yauchi and other professional players with handicapped games.
It's kind of interesting.
And the other one is,
this. "ginsei shogi 7".
You can choose the character you wanna play against.
Well it's pretty fun, too.
All right.
And there are also other commercial softwares like, "toudai shogi" and "kakinoki shogi", etc.
But what you guys must be interested in is free softwares, so I'm gonna present some of those.
All right, the first one is this. It's "ham-shogi".
This is a website flash software, so you don't need to install it on your PC. You can just play it on the website.
You see, you can play against this hamster.
And you can choose even-game or handicapped games.
Let's play naked king.
You see his reaction? He's cute.
He's crying.
It's a good training for you.
And you can find an English manual for this hamshogi in this website.
This website writes about how to play hamshogi in English.
All right, the next one is, "shogidokoro".
This website is written in Japanese, so I'm gonna tell you how to download this game.
You go to this 6th link,
and click this one, and you can download it.
So this is how shogidokoro looks.
I heard that this software automatically turns to English version if it's installed on a PC with non-Japanese version.
And this shogidokoro is a USI software.
USI stands for universal shogi interface.
USI is a communication protocol between the graphical user interface of the software and the shogi engine.
Shogi engine is a thinking part of the software.
And USI makes it possible to develop the graphical user interface and the shogi engine separately.
So one can only develop a shogi engine, and someone who is only interested in making the graphical user interface of shogi software can only develop that part.
And they can be linked by this USI protocol.
So, I've registered several shogi engines to this shogidokoro.
You see, it says, "Laramie", and "Lesserkai", and "Spear".
So these are the shogi engines which only think for the best move.
All right. So let me show you where you can find these shogi engines.
You can find Laramie version 3.
It's written in Japanese, but you can easily download it. Just click here.
And you can fine Spear engine here.
This is website is written in English.
So you can easily find the link to download the Spear engine. It's here.
All right. Let's go to the next software.
It's "Bonanza".
This website is written in Japanese.
So if you wanna download it just click here,
and this Bonanza looks like this.
The graphics is not so good.
I mean, it's another graphical user interface software, "CSA shogi".
But this engine, Bonanza, is very strong.
It's one of the best shogi engines.
Bonanza engine is not an USI compatible engine, but there's a transforming software that transforms Bonanza engine to be compatible with USI.
All right. Now, the next one is "K-Shogi".
It's written in Japanese, so just click this one, and you can download it.
This is how K-Shogi looks. The graphics are pretty good.
Oh, and the sound is good.
All right, and next one is, "usa-pyon".
It's written in Japanese, so if wanna download it, just click this one,
and you jump to another page, and click the first link.
You know, usapyon is pretty strong as a free software that looks pretty simple.
All right, the next one is, "shou-ou".
This one is also written in Japanese.
If you wanna download it, just click the first one.
All right. This is the graphics of shou-ou.
I think it's pretty good. Why don't you try it?
OK. Now, finally, I wanna present this one.
It's "BCMShogi".
The creator of this software is in Germany, and this website is written in English.
Actually, he made contact with me after he saw my youtube videos, and he told me about this software.
I really recommend this one. It's a very good software.
Now, this is how this software looks like.
You see, it even sets up the pieces. Unbelievable!
All right. And also, it has Japanese notation voices.
Did you notice something?
It sounds similar to my voice, doesn't it?
Well, in fact it's my voice.
He asked me for my voice for Japanese notation.
So I recorded my voices for all the words for Japanese notation, and sent them to him.
And it has lots of lots of options in this dialog.
You can also try German notation voices.
I think it's creator's own voice.
And I think this software is also an USI compatible software, so you can link this to those engines I've presented.
And what's good about this software is, it's still in a developing stage. He's adding more and more interesting features to this software, week by week.
So I hope you'll check it out.
Oh, and this is not a shogi playing software, but I think I should show it to you.
You can find this first link in the talbe, "Kifu for Windows".
This is a very famous software for replaying lots and lots of notated shogi games.
Actually, this is what I used in the lesson where I showed the game between Yonenaga and Tanigawa.
All right, that's all for this lesson.
And the next lesson will be on playing online. So please look forward to it.
Good-bye.
I guess some of you who have been watching these videos are anxious to play shogi,
but may you can't find anyone near you who wants to play shogi with you.
Well, this lesson is for those kinds of viewers.
One way you can play shogi is to play against an AI, shogi softwares,
and the other way is to play online.
So I'm gonna talk about shogi softwares in this video, and about playing online in the next video.
So, as for shogi softwares, we have many commercial softwares of shogi in Japan, of course.
I have two of them installed on my PC.
One is, "gekisashi".
You can play against Rieko Yauchi and other professional players with handicapped games.
It's kind of interesting.
And the other one is,
this. "ginsei shogi 7".
You can choose the character you wanna play against.
Well it's pretty fun, too.
All right.
And there are also other commercial softwares like, "toudai shogi" and "kakinoki shogi", etc.
But what you guys must be interested in is free softwares, so I'm gonna present some of those.
All right, the first one is this. It's "ham-shogi".
This is a website flash software, so you don't need to install it on your PC. You can just play it on the website.
You see, you can play against this hamster.
And you can choose even-game or handicapped games.
Let's play naked king.
You see his reaction? He's cute.
He's crying.
It's a good training for you.
And you can find an English manual for this hamshogi in this website.
This website writes about how to play hamshogi in English.
All right, the next one is, "shogidokoro".
This website is written in Japanese, so I'm gonna tell you how to download this game.
You go to this 6th link,
and click this one, and you can download it.
So this is how shogidokoro looks.
I heard that this software automatically turns to English version if it's installed on a PC with non-Japanese version.
And this shogidokoro is a USI software.
USI stands for universal shogi interface.
USI is a communication protocol between the graphical user interface of the software and the shogi engine.
Shogi engine is a thinking part of the software.
And USI makes it possible to develop the graphical user interface and the shogi engine separately.
So one can only develop a shogi engine, and someone who is only interested in making the graphical user interface of shogi software can only develop that part.
And they can be linked by this USI protocol.
So, I've registered several shogi engines to this shogidokoro.
You see, it says, "Laramie", and "Lesserkai", and "Spear".
So these are the shogi engines which only think for the best move.
All right. So let me show you where you can find these shogi engines.
You can find Laramie version 3.
It's written in Japanese, but you can easily download it. Just click here.
And you can fine Spear engine here.
This is website is written in English.
So you can easily find the link to download the Spear engine. It's here.
All right. Let's go to the next software.
It's "Bonanza".
This website is written in Japanese.
So if you wanna download it just click here,
and this Bonanza looks like this.
The graphics is not so good.
I mean, it's another graphical user interface software, "CSA shogi".
But this engine, Bonanza, is very strong.
It's one of the best shogi engines.
Bonanza engine is not an USI compatible engine, but there's a transforming software that transforms Bonanza engine to be compatible with USI.
All right. Now, the next one is "K-Shogi".
It's written in Japanese, so just click this one, and you can download it.
This is how K-Shogi looks. The graphics are pretty good.
Oh, and the sound is good.
All right, and next one is, "usa-pyon".
It's written in Japanese, so if wanna download it, just click this one,
and you jump to another page, and click the first link.
You know, usapyon is pretty strong as a free software that looks pretty simple.
All right, the next one is, "shou-ou".
This one is also written in Japanese.
If you wanna download it, just click the first one.
All right. This is the graphics of shou-ou.
I think it's pretty good. Why don't you try it?
OK. Now, finally, I wanna present this one.
It's "BCMShogi".
The creator of this software is in Germany, and this website is written in English.
Actually, he made contact with me after he saw my youtube videos, and he told me about this software.
I really recommend this one. It's a very good software.
Now, this is how this software looks like.
You see, it even sets up the pieces. Unbelievable!
All right. And also, it has Japanese notation voices.
Did you notice something?
It sounds similar to my voice, doesn't it?
Well, in fact it's my voice.
He asked me for my voice for Japanese notation.
So I recorded my voices for all the words for Japanese notation, and sent them to him.
And it has lots of lots of options in this dialog.
You can also try German notation voices.
I think it's creator's own voice.
And I think this software is also an USI compatible software, so you can link this to those engines I've presented.
And what's good about this software is, it's still in a developing stage. He's adding more and more interesting features to this software, week by week.
So I hope you'll check it out.
Oh, and this is not a shogi playing software, but I think I should show it to you.
You can find this first link in the talbe, "Kifu for Windows".
This is a very famous software for replaying lots and lots of notated shogi games.
Actually, this is what I used in the lesson where I showed the game between Yonenaga and Tanigawa.
All right, that's all for this lesson.
And the next lesson will be on playing online. So please look forward to it.
Good-bye.