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Topic: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com (Read 2915 times) |
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omar
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Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« on: Aug 29th, 2008, 8:49am » |
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Arimaa has been added to this game playing web site:
http://googleGameCenter.com/
I recently came across this site and asked Arty, the owner of the site if he would be interested in adding Arimaa. He really jumped on the idea and implemented it right away.
This will help expose Arimaa to more people and also provide another place where Arimaa can be played. Arty plans to provide an archive of finished games so they can be downloaded for analysis.
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aaaa
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #1 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 9:13am » |
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That's great news, although when I look at this page, I think it would be hard to get a quick read of the board as the piece icons don't stand out so much from each other.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #2 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 9:26am » |
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Very nice-looking site. I'm excited to see Arimaa spreading beyond its cradle.
Do frozen pieces have a visual distinction compared to non-frozen pieces? I think that would be a great feature for the V2 client. If frozen pieces were slightly transparent, it would be an extremely useful visual cue.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 29th, 2008, 9:27am by Fritzlein » |
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Arty
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #3 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 11:50am » |
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Hi all,
I am really glad that you liked the interface 
Concerning the pieces, well, I can change them to the pieces used on this site. I just wanted to be original
Btw, the official URL of the site is http://www.iggamecenter.com/
The site is also accessible via googlegamecenter.com but I prefer to use the igGameCenter instead.
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Arty
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #4 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 11:54am » |
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Ah, forgot to mention that I made some change in the game engine already so it stores a history of moves for each game in a separate archive. I will keep all played games in that archive.
All I need now is to find time for implementing some client interface to the archive.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 29th, 2008, 11:55am by Arty » |
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Fritzlein
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #5 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 12:02pm » |
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Hi, Arty. Actually, my comment was directed at Omar. I want him to take your great idea for displaying frozen pieces and implement in the client we use here.
As for the piece images, I think diversity is good. It would be boring to have all Arimaa cats everywhere look the same. Just think of all the different and creative chess sets there have been over the ages! But it's probably human nature to prefer standardization. People who play here will be thrown off by your pieces, and vice versa, so there would be some benefit if you used the arimaa.com images, which incidentally Omar has put in the public domain.
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aaaa
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #6 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 12:39pm » |
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I don't think it's necessary to completely lift the exact piece design here; I would advise to simply follow the same idea of having the animals be represented just by their heads.
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The_Jeh
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #7 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 1:30pm » |
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I'm fine with ghosting frozen pieces as long as it is an optional feature. To me, it would be more like a training tool for beginners, sort of like a chess program that shows squares under attack. But, I would advise people to wean themselves off of it as soon as possible, especially since such a feature wouldn't be available to them in a physical game.
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Arty
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #8 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 2:54pm » |
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Yeah, I searched for the animal head clipart myself but didn't find something appropriate. I got another idea though: I can use two sets of images and let players to choose the set they want.
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omar
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #9 on: Aug 29th, 2008, 3:25pm » |
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on Aug 29th, 2008, 9:26am, Fritzlein wrote:| I think that would be a great feature for the V2 client. If frozen pieces were slightly transparent, it would be an extremely useful visual cue. |
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You know I actually thought about doing that at one time and decided not to. Though it seems like a nice feature I thought it starts to fringe on the computer assisting the human. This could be taken even further with pieces that could be trapped being highlighted; that would definitely make checking a move before hitting the send button easier. But should we. I would prefer not to. We do show arrows where the piece can move and expert mode allows moving pieces for both sides; these could be considered aids, but that's about as far as I would want to go.
I played 2 games so far at Arty's site and after a while the different shade for the frozen pieces started to feel like a distraction rather than a aid. The feature which I missed the most is moving the mouse over a piece to select it rather than having to click on it. It really does making entering your move faster; I could feel the difference. Also it took me a while to adjust to the different piece images. I think I would prefer it if Arty used the same images that we use here just for consistency and to make it easier for people who play here to play there and visa versa.
I highly encourage the players here to try playing a few games on Arty's site to help him with testing the code and also to provide feedback on the interface.
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| « Last Edit: Aug 29th, 2008, 3:43pm by omar » |
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Arimabuff
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #10 on: Aug 30th, 2008, 3:20am » |
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on Aug 29th, 2008, 3:25pm, omar wrote:
You know I actually thought about doing that at one time and decided not to. Though it seems like a nice feature I thought it starts to fringe on the computer assisting the human. .. |
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I agree, it would make the game played on a computer and the one played "manually" definitely two different games. People used to computer assistance would make huge mistakes when switching to manual and people used to manual games would be at a disadvantage when playing on the computer. I don't think that we want that to happen.
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Arty
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #11 on: Aug 31st, 2008, 11:27am » |
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Just letting know that I added an option to show the original Arimaa pieces (it also disables highlighting the "frozen" pieces)
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Arty
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #12 on: Aug 31st, 2008, 12:22pm » |
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on Aug 29th, 2008, 3:25pm, omar wrote:
The feature which I missed the most is moving the mouse over a piece to select it rather than having to click on it.
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Well, this is done too
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Fritzlein
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #13 on: Aug 31st, 2008, 2:29pm » |
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Thanks for the improvements, Arty. It's really slick to play now with the mouse-over arrows and the pieces I am used to. Furthermore, after our game today, I think I will no longer be able to give you a camel handicap. 
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| « Last Edit: Aug 31st, 2008, 2:31pm by Fritzlein » |
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omar
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Re: Arimaa on googleGameCenter.com
« Reply #14 on: Sep 1st, 2008, 8:24am » |
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I just played a few games with the new interface. It feels much more comfortable now. Thanks for adding these features Arty. I wish I could program as fast as you By the way I have to mention that Arty added Arimaa to his site in just one week. Not only that but he created his own pieces and wrote the rules page from scratch in that time as well. Totally amazing.
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