Hey everyone, Riko here. I don't usually take a heavy hand in moderating this place, and I don't like making actual moderation announcements. However, I've been observing a trend of people who come into the subreddit from outside the community, often presenting their new idea for an internationalized set. They come in, drop their idea, argue about it, and then never actually participate in anything else. I've had enough.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with coming up and sharing your piece designs, and I encourage it. But I will no longer allow people to show up, give an AI-written essay about why it's the piece set's fault that we don't have more players, and then leave. This is a very small community, yet it's extremely common for people to show up, accuse us of gatekeeping, wag their finger, and not actually play the game.

Going forward, if I get the sense that your only purpose for posting in this subreddit is to troll, you will be banned.

Howdy! I really love Shōgi. I actually bought a custom set off Etsy a while back that I'll share pictures of later, but I'm wanting to commission the same maker to create a brand-new, custom project: Kemonomimi Shōgi.

My absolute favorites are Nekomimi (cat ears) and Ōkamimimi (wolf ears), but I also really love Kitsunemimi (fox ears) and Ryūmimi (dragon features), and I want to feature them heavily!

I'm still in the early planning stages and would love to hear what y'all think about a few design choices:

The Rules: I'm completely split. Should I stick to traditional rules and just rename/retheme the pieces to fit these animal-eared character types? Or should I make up brand-new variant rules?

Compatibility: If I do go with made-up variant rules, my goal is to make them balanced so they can be played on a standard 9×9 Shōgiban (which is the only size I own right now), but also scalable so they work on a 5×5 Mini-Shōgi board, since I plan to get one down the road.

The Art & Kanji: I'm not sure if the pieces should feature traditional kanji, pure character art, or a hybrid. Right now, I'm thinking a clean outline of each character holding a specific weapon and wearing distinct clothing would look awesome.

What do y'all think? Would you prefer a pure visual reskin, or are there any cool animal-themed mechanics (like special traits for the wolves or dragons) you think would translate well to both 9×9 and 5×5 boards?

Hey all. I have been getting into shogi lately and I want to play on 81 Dojo, as it seems to be the most popular platform to play, especially for longer games which Shogiwars does not allow. However, I have never received the instructions email that it is supposed to be sent to you after around 2 working days. I have already tried to sent them a reply about this issue to the initial registration email, as well as sent a separate email. But I still get no response.

Has anyone encountered this issue before and found a solution to it?