Would be more interesting if it actually played chess. I mated it, it captured my queen with its king, I captured its king with a pawn, and then it declared a draw.
They're reasonably evocative (both of the pieces' actual nature and of the traditional shapes used for them), I think.
The rook/castle, which moves orthogonally, is represented by a square made out of orthogonal lines.
The bishop, which moves diagonally and traditionally has a kinda-triangular mitre on its head, is represented by a triangle with diagonal lines for sides.
The knight, which moves in a funny way and is traditionally shown as a sort of horse's head, is represented by a quarter-circle which is unlike all the other shapes (less symmetrical, mix of straight and curved lines) and actually quite similar in outline to the traditional horse's head.
The king, which is usually shown with a cross on its head, is represented by a cross.
The queen, which moves like a king but more so and which is usually shown with a many-pointed crown on its head, is represented by a many-pointed star (a bit like that crown, and also a bit like the king only more so).
And the pawns, which are weaker than all the other pieces and traditionally smaller than the others, are represented by little circles, smaller than the other pieces.
it's like you are explaining how somebody can invent a new alphabet that is "evocative" so we should accept using it instead of the alphabet we already know.
I'm pretty sure this is quite old. I remember the exact same graphics from something I played with at least 12 years ago (I think it might have actually been in like 2001 or 2002, but my memory is vague).
My pieces are still a little stuck, but I'm a full rook up! To my surprise, black was very happy to exchange pieces. The main thing that delayed the final result was my own imprecision.
In practice, I didn't notice the thinking lines, and I didn't even see the board itself. The author should've displayed the thinking lines on a separate, perhaps smaller, board on the side.
I feel like the AI is particularly intelligent in its use of lines to distract me. Fun visualization otherwise, even though it's a little hard to really understand what's going on. At least I can tell which moves are not considered.
what would make it much better along those lines (are you listening designers?) would be if it drew its thinking lines on the board but under the pieces.
because I can't study the board while it's thinking (it obscures all the pieces) I can't quickly learn if its lines are interesting or not
I love the idea. Not sure if it is the best visual. What does a strong line mean versus a thin line? Does it mean you are thinking real hard about that route? I know it would be much more effort but it would be interesting to read what it is thinking. Which piece is it trying to get in the short term. What is the long-term rational.
I really liked this. Understanding what the AI is doing is usually something that comes with experience and a bit of analysis, but a good visualization can act as a shortcut to intuition.
And this one in particular was nicely designed.
The end result: http://imgur.com/WoFSJcr
People should polish a little more before releasing these things. Who knows what the visualization means if the rules are this broken.