The package ppgames contains functions that generate the starting piece arrangements for several piecepack games. These functions return data frames that can be used directly with piecepackr::pmap_piece() or ppgames::cat_piece() to generate piecepack game diagrams or they can be used with ppgames‘ Portable Piecepack Notation parser read_ppn() to initially setup the game pieces.

This article includes details on how to make piecepack game diagrams using just Unicode. The ppgames R packages has a prototype function cat_piece() which generates piecepack Unicode text diagrams. Game Bit Mono and Duo are a pair of bitmap fonts with with special piecepack support in its Private Use Area.

Portable Piecepack Notation (PPN) is a human-readable plaintext file format for storing board games. The default Movetext parser is designed to be provide a fairly flexible notation system out of the box for playing a large variety of games but the structure is designed allow support for parsing alternative notation systems in the future as well. Originally intended for notating piecepack games, it also provides some support for other game systems as well. There is a prototype parser for this file format written in R that can be used to generate 2D/3D graphical images, plaintext Unicode diagrams, and animations for the games saved in this file format.

An example of making an animation directly using the {animation} and piecepackr packages and an example using ppgames‘s animate_game() function that can be used to animate games recorded in Portable Piecepack Notation.