Similar to the Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN) in chess, I have devised my own notation to describe a Khet position. It is a one-line ASCII string that encapsulates all the necessary information needed to play a game from a particular position, minus history for threefold repetition.
A PKN record contains 4 fields, delimited by a space.
- Piece placement from A1 to J8, where uppercase letters denote silver
pieces and lowercase denote red pieces. A series of blank spaces is given by
a digit, where 0 represents 10 spaces. A forward slash
/signifies the end of a row. Pieces are represented as such, Anubis='A', pharaoh='R', pyramid='P', scarab='S' and sphinx='X'. - Piece rotation, in order of placed pieces. Directions are represented by only lowercase letters, one for each cardinal direction, 'n', 'e', 's' and 'w'.
- The color of the active player.
- The current turn, incremented after the Red player makes a move.
For example, here is the PKN for the starting configuration of the Classic game arrangement.
2PARA3X/7P2/6p3/p1P1SS1p1P/p1P1ss1s1P/3P6/2p7/x3arap2 wnnnnneewwsnsnsneewwssssse s 0