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u/BucketOBoatTrash

Image 1 — Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.
Image 2 — Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.
Image 3 — Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.
Image 4 — Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.
Image 5 — Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.
Image 6 — Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.
Image 7 — Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.
▲ 1 r/chessvariants

Chess Tactics - Introducing card play and more tactical options.

I love the concept of chess but I feel vanilla chess is far too limiting. I wanted to create something that keeps the core mechanics, but allows players more options. Chess Tactics was the answer.

Yes, the art is AI generated, but all the descriptions were thought up by me. The full game involves 24 cards. I only posted a few here because I may try to take this further one day.

The idea is that at the very start of the game, both players draw 5 cards from the 24. Players are free to use this cards how they see fit throughout the game. You may either play 1 card, or one normal chess action, but not both (unless the card specifically says otherwise).

Drawing 5 from the 24 also means that no game will play out the same, adding to the replay factor. And the best way to use the cards to find synergy between the ones you drew.

Some of the cards allow you to break traditional rules, such as flank, creating for some interesting plays when say, used with a pawn, knight, or bishop (which essentially flips the bishops color).

I have play-tested this about 10 times with family so far, making minor tweaks when new situations that need clarification arise.

Some of the cards, such as Nuclear ICBM may seem completely broken, but so far each game with family has actually been about equal the whole way through. You just have to play smartly.

Edit to add that all cards are one-time-use. When a card is used, it goes into a discard pile. Also that due to higher piece capture rate, the games tend to go much quicker as well. Where normal chess could take an hour or longer, Chess Tactics tends to last 30-45 minutes.

u/BucketOBoatTrash — 5 days ago
▲ 1 r/Careers

A brief review to save people $500 on a course that very likely will be a let down. I'll say it as if readers have not ever used the platform.

Each course on Course Careers has some introductory videos you can watch to see if the course is a good fit for you. I don't work directly in logistics at my current job, but I handle a lot of the sidelines for it. After seeing how well done the introduction videos were and given that I kinda had a novice idea of logistics/supply chain, I thought it would be a great fit for me.

I started off with a lot of enthusiasm and bought the course. When you begin, there's a 'Table of Contents' on the left so that you can see all the lessons that will be provided, however they will be locked until you complete whatever lesson you are currently on. There is also a progress bar on the top of the screen to show you the exact percentage of progress you have made through the course. Pretty neat.

The course starts off strong, teaching a lot of basic principles and fundamentals, and lots of vocabulary. The instructor breaks down the whole process from different points such as procurement, manufacturing, transportation, warehousing/inventory, suppliers, and returns (reverse logistics). Later segments go into more details on each of these with more precise concepts such as supplier scorecards, warehouse layout optimization, shipping method pros and cons, material sourcing, backup/redundancy/contingency planning, last mile delivery, breaking down internal teams, and so on.

Everything seems very fresh for the first 10-15% of the course - Then I started to notice a few things. At 10-15% of the way through, there was a lot of repetition and overlap. That's not inherently bad, some people learn best this way, but I began to wonder just how much of the course was repetition. I also began noticing that so far every lesson was just a video full of powerpoint slides. These videos are also followed by short 4-5 question quizzes, but these quizzes are so simple that you can usually guess the answers just from context clues. Some answers are also purposefully made bad so you know not to select them. There are also "activities" periodically where the only goal is to go make some post on LinkedIn for someone in the industry. Not all that impressive or game changing. I kept going though.

At 20% of the way through, it was much the same. In addition, there had not actually been any legitimate exercises to work with the knowledge that had been provided so far. Sure, some of the lessons in the table of contents are titled "Exercise such & such", but all these exercises amounted to was just more videos of powerpoints. In these videos, the instructor does give you a very vague scenario, but then he just ends up doing it for you and tell you the answers. At no point throughout the entire course do any of these exercises actually require you to, say, have a fictional company with a certain logistics issue where you then have to go do your own research to compare freight methods, material pricing, international politics or wars, weather/traffic conditions, or anything else that you'd need to consider when choosing delivery methods.

So at 20% I commented on one of the lessions mentioning my concerns to which I actually got a response from the instructor - "All I can say *insert my name*, is to trust the process :)"
Real reassuring...

So I kept going. At 40% of the way through nothing had changed. Not all, but the majority of it was still very much videos of "How many different ways can you state the same concepts from the first 20% of the course?". Still quizzes that were super easy from context clues. Maybe I got an answer wrong here or there, but I'd get it right on the next go. Still no activities actually requiring us to put the knowledge to use. At this point I wanted to know if I was wasting my time and if $500 had been wasted. So from here on I just sped through the videos - Click a video, mark it complete, do the quiz, maybe have to repeat it because of one wrong answer occasionaly, move on to the next video, rinse and repeat until 80% of the way through the course.

In the 40% that I essentially skipped, there were only 2 chapters that I actually had to go back and watch the videos because they contained new info that I couldn't answer on the quizzes.

So now you're at the exam phase once you get to 80%. There's a practice exam, and then the actual exam. I opened up the practice exam to see if it was any different or if it was more involved, but it was exactly the same as all the short post-video quizzes. Only instead of being 4-5 questions, it was around 30 questions. I passed it with 97%.

Moving on the final exam you are presented with a lot of warnings and information. Essentially it boils down to you getting 2 free attempts to take the exam. After that you have to pay an additional $50 for each attempt. You also are not allowed to use your notes, you are not allowed to have any other person in the room with you, you are not allowed to switch to any other tab or use a calculator - nothing. They even say you're not to look away from your screen. To enforce this, you are required to both have a web cam enabled so they can record you, as well as share your screen so they can ensure you aren't cheating. Some parts like screen recording and having a web cam I get, but not even being able to use a calculator is kinda f-ing stupid, to be totally honest.

Anyway, starting up the actual exam, it's immediately noticable that it's nothing like all the quizzes leading up to it. It is 40-50 questions long and the questions are much more in-depth. Some of them are multiple choice, but about 10 of them are also 'write-it-out' style. The multiple choice questions give you very specific scenarios and require you to do some critical thinking. This is great, except these are the types of questions that should have been on the practice quizzes the entire way through the course, rather than being freebie's. And you better be good at holding numbers in your head since you're not allowed a calculator beause a few of the questions are asking you to compare pricing differences between different methods over time and at different speeds. As for the write-it-out questions, each of these are worth 4 points, and the points you score for each question are based on the thoroughness of your answer. You will also recieve written feedback on these from the instructor on what you missed out on.

The final exam took me by surprise and I failed my first attempt. Despite a 97% on the practice quizzes, I scored a 49% on the actual exam. I do have an attempt remaining, but I wanted to warn others of this course because ultimately I am extremely disappointed.

It needs actual assignments, not just "go make a LinkedIn post". The post video quizzes need to have actual thought provoking questions. The exam needs to allow a calulator. Some of the write-it-out answers need more leeway because sure, there's ideal answers as provided in the course, but then there's also real scenarios that I've had to deal with that I tried working some of that knowledge in. Ultimately, they want you to answer their way and by what is provided in the course.

I was told to trust the process, I didn't, and I believe my doubt was justified. I still have an attempt left which I will use at some point (and they do let you review all your wrong answers so you know what to improve). But I would not recommend this course to anybody, and even if you do pass the exam and get your completion certificate, you will be grossly underpreparred for what the field actually requires of you. For $500, it was a ripoff. It is worth $250 at the absolute best, and even that is being generous. I could not find much on google about Course Careers or this particular class they offer, so I hope this review helps someone to decide if it is right for them or not.

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u/BucketOBoatTrash — 16 days ago