u/Frosty_Feeling8439

Hey! I've been into shogi for a few months, but almost everyone I tried to get into it bounced off, the kanji pieces, the low-contrast board, and 40 pieces on a 9×9 board is a lot when you don't know the rules yet.

So I started building shog.io. The main idea is to start people on 5×5 minishogi instead: same rules, captures, drops, promotion, but only six pieces each, and games last a few minutes. I think drops are the best mechanic in any board game, and minishogi gets you there without an hour of memorization first. Standard 9×9 is on the site too obviously but more as an expert upgrade!

A few other choices: pieces don't require reading kanji (you can switch to kanji if you prefer), there's a tutorial and daily puzzles for complete beginners, and rated games with Elo.

Disclaimer: i added it online today, so there aren't many players yet (at all, actually ahah). If nobody's in the queue you'll get a bot (clearly labeled). Hopefully that changes hehe

If you try it, I'd really appreciate feedback! Whether you're experienced and something feels wrong, or you're new and got stuck somewhere. That's the whole reason I'm posting! Be critical ahah

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who pointed out the errors! They were real misses on my end, and all of them are now fixed: board orientation corrected, komadai on the right, coordinates from the top-right, and a traditional kanji piece set added. This is exactly the feedback I was hoping for by posting here. If you spot anything else, I'll fix that too.

What is this?

I made a free shogi site that starts with 5×5 minishogi, would love feedback!

My little tribute to RR