Giveaway of the Day - Xou Dou Qi

Xou Dou Qi (19.14Mb)

Introduction and Installation

This was first given away in July 2007; where it received a positive 89% of 186 votes with 79 comments, which you can read HERE. The downloaded zip file unpacks to a dual setup and activation module plus a read me document. Installation is simple; just click on the set up file. The installation path should be C:/Games, or whichever hard drive you have as your root directory (for example I have windows installed to my D:/ drive rather than the traditional C:/ drive.) As usual you’ll need to make a note of where the game was installed so that you can create a shortcut. There’s a short tutorial in the games discussion forums that tells you how to create a desktop and Start Menu shortcut.

Some community members received error messages saying a particular graphics dll was missing. If this occurs again you can download the correct dll from HERE Originally posted by Chris Bolt, comment #16; or alternatively download the latest directX 9.0c from HERE

(Read Fubars comment regarding the use of single dll’s from the previous comments section #37 via the first link above).

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The Game:

The game was made by the same developers of last weeks giveaway Surakarta and it has the same menus and mechanisms such as the ability to cancel your last move (as many time as you like), or get a hint for your next move. There’s also a good tutorial that will help you through your first game and explain the rules as you progress. They may seem complex at first, but bear in mind this was traditionally a children’s game in China, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick up the rules. You can change the viewpoint from 3D to 2D and also rotate the board if you wish using the controls underneath the playing area. You can also access a shortened main menu (which doesn’t have the multiplayer button) from here as well. The game offers single player and multiplayer modes, but the latter suffers from the same lack of any official servers that Surakarta did, though you can set up a multiplayer game using your own computer as a server as well as play on a local network. The gaming board can be moved into four different 3D and a 2D top down view. From the main menu you can also access the games rules as well as high scores. The options menu allows you to toggle the music and sound effects on or off and control the volume, though there’s only music (of a oriental flavor) when you’re in the menu area’s. On starting the game you are presented with a configuration window where you can set the game up to play either against another human or the computer and also set one of the three difficulty levels. As with most Merscom sponsored games, Xou Dou Qi is a free standing game, so you can play it from any external drive or even from a CD.

The origins of this traditional Chinese game go back as far as the fifth century. On the board, two teams oppose each other, each having eight pieces: the elephant, the lion, the panther, the dog, the wolf, the cat and the rat, (sometimes called a mouse). The objective is to go onto take all your opponents pieces. According to its rank, a piece can capture an opponent’s piece. The elephant, the most powerful, can eat all other pieces. Only the rat, which is the smallest creature, represents any danger to it! Simple rules associated with largest strategic possibilities make this game a very good initiation to chess logic, in a very attractive way.

Reference accessed 26th Feb 09

Rules:

The game is played on a board of nine rows and seven columns. The board has several special areas: each player has at his side of the board a Den, which is surrounded by three Traps. In the middle of the board there are two Lakes.

Each piece moves one square horizontally or vertically (not diagonally). The mouse is the only animal that is allowed to go to water square; none of the other animals may move to a water square.
The lion and the tiger may jump over the water, when going in a horizontal and vertical straight line. (They jump to a square at the border of a lake to another square at the border of the same lake. For instance, a lion at a4 can only jump to d4.) When jumping, there may not be a mouse on one of the squares that is crossed; there may be a mouse on the square that is landed on.
Pieces have a strength: stronger pieces take weaker pieces. The elephant can take all other pieces, the lion all other pieces except the elephant, the tiger is the third strongest piece, i.e., wins from all pieces except lion and elephant, then come in order the jaguar/leopard, dog, wolf, cat, and mouse. There is one exception: a mouse can take an elephant. However, the elephant can also take a mouse, i.e., the moving player wins the battle between elephant and mouse. One takes a piece by moving a stronger piece (or a piece of equal strength) via a legal move to the square containing that piece. When jumping, lions and tigers can take pieces that are on the square they land on. Mice may not take elephants from outside a water square. A piece can take a piece of equal strength: when two pieces are of equal strength, then the piece that moves takes the other piece.

A piece of a player in one of his own trap squares cannot be taken by the opponent. Pieces in a trap square of the opponent are very weak: they can be taken by any other piece when in such a trap square.

A player may not move a piece to his own den. A player wins the game by moving a piece to the den of the opponent.

Reference accessed 26th Feb 09 (reference originally found by Ballpeen)

Apparently using the above rules makes it very easy to gain a draw a lot of the time. There are alternate rules quoted in the second reference above which I’ll leave for you to find for yourself.

System requirements:

o Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP
o Pentium III 700 MHz
o RAM 128 Mb
o 28.99 Mb free disk space
o 3D Graphics card DirectX
o DirectX 9.0c

Conclusion:

Another excellent world game that should get your heads whirring and is worth 7 or 8 out of 10 in my opinion. A great game of strategy that is purportedly for children. It’s a pity the music loop is only one minute in length as I’d liked to have copied it to my music folder. The file is an MP3, so you could change the music if you wished, though you must change the replaced files name to intro.

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Additional Resources:

Images:

See Images of Xou Dou Qi all on one page HERE

See Images of Xou Dou Qi as a slideshow HERE

See Googled Images of Xou Dou Qi HERE

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I didn’t get this before. I have enjoyed the last couple of games by these people. This is fun and looks pleasing as well. No problem with the download.