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Title: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 3rd, 2013, 6:27am It's a good moment to switch to a new thread because the other one is quite long enough, and I've got some new games for starters. Please note Omar's request to fellow inventors: on 03/02/13 at 09:21:15, omar wrote:
The periods in which I invent appear to be scattered, but if they happen it is usually in the approach to winter. The recent wave started late november and was triggered by Luis Bolaños Mures' extraordinary game Ayu (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/ayu). "Dynamic connection" plays a role in Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple), but as a means to an end, not as the object itself. Ayu takes it for its very object, and does so in such a simple and generic way, with each rule necessary and sufficient, that I had little trouble recognizing it as a truly significant game. It made me realize that I had grossly neglected this theme, which in my mind more or less had boiled down to Lines of Action (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lines_of_Action). A very nice game, no question about that, but clearly bot fodder. Symple had just led me to taking the theme more seriously when Ayu arrived and confirmed what I was already beginning to suspect: I had clearly missed something. Other than LOA, Ayu is highly organic. You can literally imagine the stones having a mind of their own and organizing themselves into unity in the most effective way against equal yet alien opposition. I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one having this sensation when looking at a game of Ayu. A new opening protocol And then it so happened that I couldn't stop thinking about it. Such periods are characterized by a certain discrepancy between what happens on the outside and what happens on the inside. Virtually I'm sitting in the center of my head, looking at what's going on in IMAX. Physically I'm in zombie-mode, doing everything (except taking care of the animals) on automatic. I knew Luis had captured the essence of the theme, but it was a big prey and I was out for a chunk - it's a war out there, in case you hadn't noticed ;D . Of course I was after another implementation of the theme, not after the mechanics Ayu uses. So I started to focus on leaving out a fixed initial position, in favor of an opening array that would start out on an empty board and result naturally from one or the other protocol. Something that would spead out evenly, and cover about half the board, as in Ayu. Strangely enough I almost immediately found one, and the process brought me so close to a territory game that at least would work (that much I could see) that I decided to use it to store the protocol. That was Triccs (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/triccs-627) and though nothing is actually wrong with it, it lacks drama. No reason to dismiss it, but not much reason to play it either. Shortly afterwards I noticed that I had the order of moves in the new protocol the wrong way around, but that was an easy fix. One sticking, one free I coined the protocol "one sticking, one free" and it turned out to be a combinatorial game in itself. Here's how it goes. White starts by placing one stone on the empty board. From that point on players take turns to:
On square boards we're talking 'orthogonally adjacent', as usual. If you think about the implications, you'll find that when the protocol has reached its end, then
The hunt for games fitting the protocol But above all: it's a generic protocol, free to use for anyone who cares, and for that moment for me in particular. So I had the general concepts of LOA and Ayu revolving around the kind of initial positions that would result from the protocol. It's often a somewhat dreary process till a clue presents itself. The first clue arrived in the LOA realm. In LOA a piece may move (in principle) the number of squares that are on the row or diagonal it moves on, so one move changes a lot of things:
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 4th, 2013, 5:11am In between ... there were a few other alleys of thought. One of them involved Nick Bentley's Produto (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/136995/produto), Luis Bolaños Mures' Alpha (https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/rec.games.abstract/PCYjeUkh8uE) and Néstor Romeral Andrés' Omega (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/81588/omega). Nick, by the way, pressed by marketing considerations, has renamed his game Ketchup to "Catchup (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/catchup-620)". But that aside.
Another alley of thought was actually a shortcut. Before I get to that, here's the diagonal cross-cut problem:
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 5th, 2013, 2:36am Copied from part 1: Quote:
on 03/02/13 at 09:13:12, omar wrote:
Hi Omar, I had missed your reply. The lecture was in Dutch indeed, with an audience of some 50 new students. Of course one cannot be all-embracing in 15 minutes, so I focused on the technogogy driven changes that are taking place in the world of abstact games. As for your fears, I fear they are fully justified. Humans will lose the battle, eventually, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't engage (do we have any choice, really?) or that the battle itself cannot be interesting. The fun is not in the outcome but in the journey. :) On second thought ... Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions here. It may be a bit more compiclicated. We're at the point now where some less than trivial games like Checkers, Awari and Fanorona have been solved (I'm not distinguishing, in this context, between strongly and weakly solved). Humans may still enjoy them, but they're playing in the shadow of perfect play. The question would be if this fate threathens all games, and the answer, for the foreseeable future, is still "no". First of all, will there be any incentive to kill more games? We know it can be done with certain games, and we know that we're not anywhere near where others are concerned. Schaeffer et al did something that wasn't done before, at least not with a game of Checkers' standing. But follow-up kills will increasingly be duly noted. It will be like stretching the realm of the possible in the full realization that it is embedded in the impossible. If there were any profit in it, things might be different, but what would that be? Recognition for something that has been done before? Better programming techniques? I have some doubts there. I don't think you can rule out the human factor. If a 16x16 Othello Computer Challenge were organized, then there would be a winner. Who cares? The programmers maybe, but the field to me seems hardly the most likely area for great innovations in programming techniques. The interesting areas are those where humans can compete with bots on the highest level. The problem with new games is precisely that: they lack the broad base that is needed for a high peak. My suggestion for a follow-up match between last year's winner of the CodeCup and the best human player tries to fill that gap. Humans will not within a year be able to reach the 'highest level' in the kind of games that qualify, but neither will bots, I presume. Another interesting area is the one of generic bots like Zillions. Not so long ago it was deemed impossible to have 5.000 songs in a matchbox, with all sorts background information provided. I think we may soon be able to have 500 abstract games at our disposal, allowing one to play live or turnbased with anyone, anywhere, anytime, complete with rules and examples, and a generic bot that has a 'reasonable' level of play in all. And a lot of them may belong to a new category of abstracts that are dependent on features provided by the app technologies. Programs In the realm of computation one may well imagine there's still huge progress to be made in terms of speed. But what are we calculating? Deterministic evaluation functions for new games will never be perfect (nor are they for many old games). Does calculating faster at a fuzzy evaluation function help? Monte Carlo evaluation basically cares for the result of a statistical outcome, so it doesn't have this particular drawback of requiring 'knowledge' (though it usually helps). MC would appear to profit more from increased calculation speed. But so far as I can see, not all types of games are equally suited for the method. Infinite games in particular pose some inherent problems in random play-outs. Moreover, pressing the limits costs money. We're not talking simple programs to suit humans in intelligent recreation. In any case, players of abstract games will have a few interesting decades ahead of them. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 7th, 2013, 1:46pm
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 12th, 2013, 5:41am
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 12th, 2013, 3:01pm
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 14th, 2013, 1:08pm Ludotopia It's hard nowadays to find a name that isn't already taken, so I wasn't really surprised to find that Ludotopia (http://ludotopia.tumblr.com/) is actually a gamesite "... for all gamers who don't care about winning or loosing as long as we play all kinds of games: boardgames, videogames, cardgames, miniature games, etc...". Close enough, so I hope they don't mind that I use it in the context of abstract strategy games for:
on 11/22/12 at 09:33:02, MarvinSpellbinder wrote:
Here a number of issues come together. Are games "alive"? Before you answer the question, look at a game of Ayu in a one-minute play-out. It looks like two self-assembling organisms, each with its own intent and plan. It's not Ayu specific of course. Go, Oust, Symple, Catchup (Nick renamed it), Slither, Draughts, Emergo, Othello and countless others would give a similar impression. On the other hand, games are mathematics. If a game is solved (the distinction between 'strongly' and 'weakly' is not relevant here), then the truth of every possible position is known: win, loss or draw. I've more than once linked to MiniMancala (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/minimancala-567) because it shows a complete tree, including the truth of every possible position (onmouseover). So you can simply count the number of positions that are a draw. This is a very small game, but the argument extends to any game that can end in a draw, whether or not we have an 'overview' of the complete tree:
Another thing is whether the margin of draws is known or not. In the latter case we must rely on speculation and estimates based on the best available arguments. on 11/22/12 at 16:35:56, NickBentley wrote:
In the first paragraph Nick refers to Ludotopia and I can only agree with his purpose. But the second starts with a statement that I dare to question, because it doesn't address the objective aspect of a game's margin of draws: the fact that it's a percentage. We may not know this percentage for any particular game, but its size is a factor in whether or not the doomscenario Nick paints will actually take place. So his argument boils down to "better safe than sorry" and as such I think its valid, but also restrictive. Let's look at a number of games that either may end in a draw or are as yet labeled 'inconclusive'.
on 11/22/12 at 22:30:18, SpeedRazor wrote:
This was in reply on Nick's quote above. I don't necessarily agree on the "myriad geniuses". The transformation to what basically would become the modern game took place in a very tight timeframe: "The queen and bishop remained relatively weak until between 1475 AD and 1500 AD, in either Spain, Portugal, France or Italy, the queen's and bishop's modern moves started and spread, making chess close to its modern form." history of chess - wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chess) This change was more of a revolution than a gradual evolution, and it may well have started with a small group of 'modern thinkers' deciding to rethink the whole concept. More importantly, the example also doesn't quite fit the argument. I've previously commented (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=other;action=display;num=1236541162;start=929#929) on the difference between 'organic' and 'mechanic' design. The latter is characterized by clever assembly rather than by invention or discovery. Go to BGG-abstract (http://boardgamegeek.com/forum/743500/abstract-games/general) and you can find lots of threads about 'assembly' games, with various different pieces and various movement- and capture mechanics, serving quite a number of different goals. Often they are presented as provisionary, and posters are invited to comment on them, or playtest them and suggest improvements. There are always lot's of things to tamper with along the fringes, and every now and again something more fundamental is addressed. These types of game are more prone to tampering and thus more prone to evolutionary changes than the four discussed above and Chess is there to prove it. But the only possible tampering with Reversi led to Othello, Havannah is a lucky and very specific merger. Ayu is quintessential, that is: there's nothing to tamper with. Inertia allowed one obvious choice: the movetype. These games are discovered rather than put together and they are not "tamper friendly". So Luis wasn't hunting cycles to somehow "correct" them, should they emerge, but just to see if they were possible. Because if you can't rule them out, you'll have to rule them in. Draughts would actually serve SpeedRazor's argument better. In 1947 Roozenburg (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Roozenburg) scored 37 out of 40 in the first postwar tournament in the Netherlands and in 1948 he became "Sportsman of the Year". A Draughts player no less! Nowadays matches for the worldchampionship start with ten obligatory draws, and then the 'speed' and 'blitz' protocol takes over to eventually decide the winner. Draughts is definitely an 'organic' game, though exceptionally prone to tampering. The huge number of variants bears witness to that. At the time the rules of the international 10x10 game were established, the overwhelming combinatory power of the game blinded the ones in charge for the large percentage of drawn positions in the gametree, because they weren't looking with unbiased eyes, nor with 'modern' eyes. I've long heard the argument, even by top players, that the number of draws is dependent the attitude of the players. But the draws can only be found because they are there in the first place, and sometimes too abundantly so. So Draughts and Chess support the 'evolutionary' argument, but not because it holds for all games, but because they are "tamper friendly" and have a large enough margin of draws to make them subject to evolutionary pressure. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 15th, 2013, 11:11am Of small changes & big effects One of the arguments Nick gives for thoroughly playtesting a game before passing judgement is that small changes can have a big impact. The butterfly effect. It's good to realize that it concerns sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Put the same butterfly in the center of the storm it caused, amid flying rooftops, cars and cows, and its flapping one way or the other won't matter much. So it's true, yes, but only for small changes at the core of a game. Although many would like to have it otherwise, tampering at the fringes usually results in a slightly different game. The Tampertown assembly line Two thousand published chess variants (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/how-i-invented-games-and-why-not/chess-variants-are-easy) cannot all have a big impact, now can they? Then why are there so many? Because it's so easy to assemble a chess variant, so easy to try, adjust, replace and try again. Its great fun and you can call yourself a game inventor. A guaranteed 99% successrate! Or you let yourself inspire by Arimaa and the Jungle Game and come up with something along those lines. It's easy to visualize several concepts, all dependent on the nature and shape of the grid ('special' squares or hexes are popular) and the choice of pieces. Then the result is posted at BGG and discussions more often than not follow lines like: "I've given the Hippo the power to [-make your choice-] and it works fine and even helps to [-make your choice-] in the endgame.". It's all very social and workshop-like, but most of it is about game-assembly and tampering along the fringes. In those cases small changes usually don't have any major effect. I've spend my early years as an inventor in Tampertown, and it was all very social and workshop-like and, yes, fruitful. A fair amount of chess variants gives evidence of that. But Grand Chess was invented a quarter of a century ago, and since then I've had two Tampertown hiccups, Hanniball (http://www.iggamecenter.com/info/en/hanniball.html) and Cyclix (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/cyclix-580). The first one illustrates my very point in that Arty Sandler had to come to its rescue by tampering it into a reasonable behaviour, the second one was based on a piece roulation system that made a perfect completion of the "Atlantis Triplets", three miniature chess variants with shrinking playing areas. Apart from these short visits, I've not seem Tampertown in a long time. The other games (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/how-i-invented-games-and-why-not/late-arrivals-a-final-whispers) of the last two creative waves are all 'uniform' systems. The discovery trail
A small change at the core In Ayu the core rule supports unification: the number of groups can never increase. It was a simple reversal that sprouted Inertia: forbid the number of groups to increase, and see what mechanics it suggests. This is a change at the very core of the game, the type of change Nick's argument that small changes may have big effects, refers at. The big effect is a new move protocol: pieces can now move between groups without increasing their number. The mechanics came last! Ayu and Inertia have exactly the same object, though Ayu's 'self-immobilization' is called 'inertness' in Inertia. The games are are amazingly similar in structure, each employing one of two slightly different governing restrictions. But the resulting mechanics are so different that they lead to very different games. Ayu is the cleanest game in that the rules seem necessary and sufficient, not to mention self explanatory once the core idea is understood. Inertia features a move choice that is very good, but admittedly arbitrary, so it is not quite 'self explanatory'. The possibility of cooperative cycles doesn't harm Ayu at all, and anyone who harbors the opinion that "draws will find a way" may try to find even one such position. But I'm also confident now, after playing a reasonable number of games, that Inertia will most likely never have a draw problem in Ludotopia either. Of course all Ludotopia related statements are speculation. But for draws to be a problem you need obvious examples. For instance, Draughts' draw problem emerged after a century or so, but there was no lack of obvious examples of draws before that, now was there? In the absence of these, no game is likely to suffer from a draw problem. And I've seen no obvious examples in Inertia yet. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 24th, 2013, 9:27am Here's an update after a number of increasingly interesting games we played in the exploration of Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia/). In this game you'll find some hopefully useful comments on strategy. Jos Dekker (ger) - Christian Freeling (nl) (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Inertia1364060816.html) (running) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 25th, 2013, 11:46am Ingo Althofer (http://www.althofer.de/) sent me this mail: "Now two reports on your Havannah match were published in the ICGA Journal (http://icga.uvt.nl/). You can find the table of content of that Journal issue in the appendix." Attached was this jpg: http://i49.tinypic.com/261dc05.jpg |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Apr 1st, 2013, 6:42am
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 1st, 2013, 8:51am Inertia unwrinkled So this is what happened, I didn't die but Inertia spawned a second draw and I saw problem arising because of the way it happened. I got the distinct feeling a player could "play for it". I've recently commented on the difference between tampering and making small changes at the core of a game, and in retrospect this is a nice illustration. For starters, Inertia isn't very "tamperable" because it is effectively based on the interaction of one generic governing principle - the number of groups may not increase - and an upgraded hexrook move that allows a stone to start by sliding over any number of subsequent like colored stones (including zero) before proceeding over any number of vacant cells. Here's where I got involved as an inventor. Clearly the governing principle, once it had formulated itself, would allow stones to conditionally jump between groups. The one move that suggested itself above all others is the most basic one: the hexrook move. But it felt a bit flat. By allowing a stone to start its move by sliding over any number of subsequent like colored stones, groups would have their own limited ability to move and to conditionally jump from the far side of their group. It seemed to enhance tactics without any trade-off with strategy. So much for inventor involvement. Yet, with no tamperable variables available, I had to reconsider the move. "If the system is sound, the rule will be there" has always been one of my leading principles. So I reconsidered the move and saw one possible change that would not compromise the concept: extend the same move with the possibility to capture. Capture emerging It's not all that uncommon for a rook type piece to be able to capture, so in terms of internal logic there's no compromise involved. But the consequences in terms of gameplay are enormous. That's why I played a fair number of games against Ed van Zon and Jos Dekker before making the game public. Because something fundamental is lost and I wanted to make sure what is won. What's lost What I like most about Ayu (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/ayu) is its constructive character. There's no placement, no growth and no reduction, an almost friendly organism trying to arrange and unify itself in the face of equal opposition, governed by the simplest of rules. Inertia was initially based on that very aspect. That is definitely lost. Inertia trades it for a LOA type of unification where the conflicting organism are effectively reduced by mutual capture. You can actually win with one stone left. It also shares a characteristic dilemma: capture reduces the number of stones that the opponent must unify, so there must be different reasons to do so. What's won
Ayu restricts a unit's move as 'towards those units that are at the minimal distance' of the moving unit. Since 'distance' is the defining criterion, there must always be at least two groups involved. If a player has several groups, but all of them are isolated, with no path between any two of them, then he cannot move. If it happens to be his turn at that point, he has won, despite not having unified all his groups. Inertia, under the old rules, needed a similar adaptation. Under the new rules it does not. However, one aspect has been maintained: if a player on his turn has only one group left, he has won. Let's call it 'strong unification' (as opposed to weak unification, as featured in LOA). Inertia thus joins a set of games where you formally win after an opponent's move. Besides Ayu there are several others, of which I mention Epaminondas (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7338/epaminondas) and Hexade (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/hexade-532). In Inertia it means that:
And, why not, here's our current game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Inertia_capture1367335387.html). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 5th, 2013, 10:21am Done. If you go to rules of Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia) now, you'll find the capture version. Same for the players' section (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section). All games of the non-capture version have mysteriously vanished. Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia) and Ayu (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/ayu) both result from the interaction of one generic restrictive rule and one specific move. That's all both games require to generate deep strategy, certainly in Ayu's case, and innovative tactics, certainly in Inertia's case. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 15th, 2013, 4:54am How to get more stupid and gain the wisdom not to care It's easy, get older. So I missed the obvious once again, and, to my consolation, so did everybody else, including Luis who previously led me to reconsider game concepts or specific rules more than once. The first implementation of Inertia, the Ayu implementation so to say, showed emphasis on strategy, with tactics in a minor role, as in its parent game. The second implementation, the one introducing capture, shows the reverse, and more than necessarily so. Here's why: the first and foremost move to present itself under the generic restriction of the game is and was the hexrook move. In the Ayu implementation this appeared a bit flat as I said at the time, and the decision to give the rook a "special" power, namely the option to start a move by sliding over a subsequent number of own stones, seemed appropriate because it widened the range of tactics. I explicitly mentioned this (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=other;action=display;num=1362313664#11) as inventor involvement as opposed to a system explaining itself. When the Ayu implementation revealed a possibly problematic margin of draws, I made the above switch to "Inertia capture", which is a far more tactical concept with a very fluid behaviour and low on solidity. So what made me take along the "special" rook that increases tactics is a mystery. It drives tactics beyond balance. The normal hexrook move that suggested itself so emphatically is tailor made for the game. What was wrong was the absence of capture, not the move. This little fix will be implemented shortly and further simplifies the rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia). The restrictiveness of using the hexrook move (as opposed to the "special" hexrook move) can be felt by placing two red and two black stones on four subsequent cells. like this: R-R-B-B. Under the "special" move the outer stones can capture. Under the normal hexrook move only the inner stones can capture ... but they cannot because such a move would increase the number of groups. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 17th, 2013, 4:09am Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia) now has hit the bottom in terms of simplification. New games (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section) will feature the normal hexrook move. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 14th, 2013, 6:49am It so happened that I didn't die but my father did, three months ago, not unexpectedly because he was ninety-three and suffered from Parkinson's disease. His death left me as an only child in the most-likely-to-die-next chair, but comfortably so, given a substantial inheritance and the fact that I'm not particularly bend on beating him at longevity. Generally I followed the abstracts forum and found it at least as interesting as usual, and I played some Havannah at LG and Inertia at Mindsports, but that was about all I could manage gamewise. Many forum discussions were about what makes the best abstract. There's the romantic notion of 'grail games', but what these should be seems arbitrary and subjective. Zickzack (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/Zickzack) introduced a distinction between a 'game' and a 'ruleset' but has not elaborated, which is a pity because under deeper scrutiny I fail to see any objective criterion to support it. I do however have an intuitive notion of what he's getting at: sometimes good ideas have resulted in mangled games because of an inventor's preoccupation with certain 'rules regarding rules', in particular the dogmas of the Church of Cyclophobia and Hard Finitude. Admittedly I've taken note of these too, but not to the point of rejecting games for not complying, or marring games to have them comply. If my goals changed over the years it is because of a shift of interest. I've naturally drifted away from inventing games that can be assembled easily towards an arbitrary result, albeit in the full recognition of the fact that any such a game could actually turn out great. I don't want to keep anyone from trying. Instead I've focused on simple homogeneous games in the last couple of years, with a self-explanatory structure. The former seeks an intricate combination of object and mechanics, while the latter implies reducing inventor involvement and arbitrariness as much as possible. It may not necessarily render the best game as Nick Bentley pointed out, but such a combination nevertheless tends to be trustworthy, with an 'organic' quality that usually begs and rewards investigation. I prefer to start by choosing an object because the question "what does it want" naturally precedes "how does it do it". Specifically You have been able to follow the process of invention of Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia) from a flawed Ayu clone to something completely different. So I'd like to shine a light on what that is. What is not original about Inertia? * The material is emphatically traditional. * The rook move is the primary slider on a hex board. * The object - unification - is identical in idea and execution with the object of LOA. What is original about Inertia? * The generic placement protocol. * The generic restriction rule regarding movement. Further characteristics are that the game couldn't be simpler, well … I couldn't make it simpler but if anyone can my mind is open. Draws by simultaneous unification are possible, and forced cycles may be possible. Base-5 would seem to be quite large enough to reveal its full scope, and a square version will most likely be base-8 and certainly connectivity-8, because the game doesn't need much material to reveal its depth and connectivity-8 sharply reduces the density at the end of the placement stage, if compared to connectivity-4. The placement protocol Coined "one sticking, one free", this opening protocol is a generic way to start games that benefit from an evenly divided initial position with a variably density. Inertia is one such game. During this stage there's always one stone sticking for every free stone, so everything comes in pairs. The reverse is not true: that terminates the protocol. The last sticking stone may be of either color, so either color may end up moving first in the second stage. If we assume on theoretical grounds that it is good to have that first move, then the placement stage can be considered as a game in itself, and a far from trivial one at that. On a base-5 board the placement stage may end with as few as 2x7 stones, Red to move, or as many as 2x18 stones, Black to move. These are likely the extremes that are possible. Here's an example of the first: http://i41.tinypic.com/20axvtf.png And here is an example of the second, last placements are indicated in both examples. http://i40.tinypic.com/34g8oyq.png Both have been achieved by legally knitting around and inward. It means that density after the opening stage in Inertia can vary between 23% and 59% and that's what makes getting the first move in the second stage against matching opposition so difficult. Actual play I played a lot of games against Jos Dekker at mindsports and a couple of games against different opponents at the 3rd Hexx6 Tournament, 13 July 2013 in Hilversum. Here's a photo of Pascal Huybers (white) against Ton van der Valk: http://i41.tinypic.com/bi9d7q.jpg What struck me most, initially, was that it felt a bit like Othello and LOA when I first played those: a desperate search for some permanency and solidity. Othello and LOA are excellent games, but not wholly my taste, though obviously some players' taste, or they would have vanished. As an inventor I'd go for an excellent game that isn't wholly my taste anytime, so I kept playing despite the fact that Jos won most of the time. Jos likes the game and may have more of an intuitive feel for it, though that may change with experience. We also turned to playing base-5 most of the time, because the game gains clarity with decreasing material. Here's an example of a game I resigned (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Inertia1375093750.html) after Red's 20. F56. Why? Because I was too lazy to look closer. http://i40.tinypic.com/30cy338.png Red threatens to win with CG7 and 20…D47 is the only defense. Red cannot capture this stone nor can he capture F6G7x, both because of 21…F26. Moving 21.C74 loses on F25! (not 21…DF7? 22.CF4! and Red wins). The really nasty reply is 21.H8G7x: http://i40.tinypic.com/hvs77c.png Now capturing G67x or DG7x loses on 22.FC6 while GF6x loses on 22.GD7x. I thought for a moment that I could force a draw by simultaneous unification by 21…F26x, but instead of 22.GD7x? Red plays GE7!! http://i39.tinypic.com/il9406.png Now Black cannot split his double (unless by 22…FD6 or FC6 which both lose) and neither can he move the isolated stone. So he must move one of the double without disconnecting it from the other. Now Red moves 23.C76! and Black cannot prevent a red unification (that leaves Black with two groups) on the next move. So … was I right to resign the game? No, I failed to consider the move, but after 20…D47 21.H8G7x I should have moved 21…F25 which secures at least a draw. http://i41.tinypic.com/m997ye.png The threat is of course 22…DG7x. Capturing the lone black stone is an immediate Black win. F5 cannot be captured legally and 22.G76x loses on F56x while 22.FG6x loses on for instance F57 and 22.F67 loses on GD6!. So at least mistakes would have been competing for attention. The redeeming move for Red is 22.GF7 after which Black can force a draw with 22…GF6x. Now capturing the lone black is a draw and not capturing it but moving 23.FE7 (to prepare 24.C76 and try to unite without capturing) meets with 23…FE5!. http://i40.tinypic.com/sx0g7q.png Black threatens to connect at D5 or F7 (if E7 is vacated) so Red is forced to simultaneous unification. As said, I should have looked more closely. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 18th, 2013, 5:01am I've already posted the density range at the end of the placement stage on a base-5 hexboard: 2x7 to 2x18 stones, or 23% to 59%. Pretend for a moment that the placement stage is the whole game and the player who moves last loses. So these are the rules: Quote:
Now try it on a chess board, using connectivity-8 (so a diagonal stone is a neighbor) and you'll discover that the density range at the end of the game may vary between 2x6 stones and 2x19 stones, or 19% to 59%. If you play it you may find it a surprisingly more difficult game than the simplicity of the rules would suggest and I never would have expected the highest possible density to be be more than three times as high as the lowest. Did anyone? edit Haha, probably not. My abilities as a puzzler have always been questionable :) The 2x6 isn't that hard: http://i40.tinypic.com/2n007ra.png But I've not come beyond 2x16 in the highest density attempt, probably missed an illegal move in the previous one. I'll have a closer look at it. edit I did and it's 2x16 max if I'm not mistaken again. Minor mess up. :P Ed has implemented a base-8 connectivity-8 square version of the game. If you're not registered at mindsports, choose (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section) 'Inertia' in your prefs. If you challenge someone, the option "sq-8" will appear (next to "hex-5/6/7"). But ... a chess board and draughtsmen will also suffice. It's always nice to invent a new and hopefully interesting game for standard material. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 22nd, 2013, 7:55am Take a natural number 'N' and split it into natural numbers so that n1+n2+n3+ ... +nk=N. Now consider n1 ... nk to be factors such that n1*n2*n3* ... *nk=K. What is the maximum value K can reach? Obviously no 'n' should exceed 4 because '5' can be split in 2 and 3 and these factor to 6, increasing K with one fifth of its value. Now take the Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple) move protocol, where you have the choice to add a new group or grow all existing ones, and let the groups represent 'n1 ... nk'. In order to maximize 'K' you'll have to create multiple groups, but none of them, ideally, should exceed 4 stones. Under compulsory placement this creates a beautiful and ice-cold dilemma: you need many groups yet must avoid having to connect them. Connections kill! Evenf one would not have the total score available, strategy, both overall and local, would be fairly clear, without the need for a calculator. But of course the applet will constantly keep track of a) the number of stones, b) the number of groups and c) the score. Needless to say that the protocol's embedded turn-order balancing mechanism adapts itself seamlessly. The game may end in a draw, even on a hexhex- or an odd-sized square board: imagine both players having groups that are equal in size and number, but one player has an isolated extra stone. I don't care to much about draws (who started that decisiveness nonsense anyway?), but here's an elegant way to avoid them altogether: in case the same endscore 'F', the player with the least number of stones wins on efficiency grounds. If this is not a quintessential 'product' game, then there must be one that is simpler and equally self-explanatory. It's called Multiplicity (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/multiplicity-651). As in Symple and Inertia the inventing process was hexagonal and implementation will be square. It may take a while though because we've got quite a pipeline and the going is slow. The season is approaching, but I hope I can avoid new games this year and catch up on last year's stuff. |
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Title: Inertia Post by christianF on Aug 23rd, 2013, 5:36am So get out yer chess boards and draughtsmen and give it a try. I't not all that long a game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Inertia1376833251.html) either: I lost this one fairly quickly, which is annoying considering the number of hexgames I played. I take comfort in the thought, whether true or not, that good players are usually bad inventors (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/chess/423-why-do-great-players-make-poor-inventors) and vice versa. :o |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 28th, 2013, 7:39am http://i42.tinypic.com/124kikk.png Well ... occasionally I win one. :) (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Inertia1377202692.html) |
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Title: Relatively absolute ... Post by christianF on Sep 1st, 2013, 6:41am Take a 7-cell hexhex section and put 3 black stones alternating on the edge. Now add a black stone in the center: how can it be captured? Obviously, in doing so, you turn 1 black group into 3, so you have to simultaneously merge 3 red groups into 1. This is possible if and only if 2 remaining edge cells are red (and separated) and a single captures along the entrance line of the last free edge cell. There's a square equivalent where black occupies 3 corners and the center of a 9-cell square section. To capture the centerstone Red needs 2 stones on opposite sides of the centerstone and a single that can enter along one of the remaining orthogonals or the one remaining diagonal. But if Black were occupying all four corners, then the centerstone would be absolutely safe from capture, a situation that cannot occur in the hexversion of the game. Of course even that is 'for the time being', but it's nice to discover something absolute in Inertia, even if it's relative. :) |
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Title: It isn't always a close finish either ... Post by christianF on Sep 1st, 2013, 8:59am http://i43.tinypic.com/v8ooj9.png (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Inertia1377626222.html) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Sep 2nd, 2013, 5:30am In Multiplicity (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/multiplicity-651) groups are factors. Now consider the square grid, say a chess board, and connectivity-4. Putting a black stone on every black square and a white one on every white square, and you have 2x32 groups (and an equal endscore of '1'). What's the point? Well, you can't have that many seperate groups on a hexboard. The question 'what is the maximum number of black and white groups in any distribution on a base-N hexhexboard' may be interesting in this context (2N-1 presents itself). In any case, it is far less than c-4 groups on a square board. So on a hexgrid groups, whatever their number, will eventually be forced to merge into bigger groups, or in other words, scores will be forced down earlier than on a square board. The more groups, the faster they will be forced to merge. Multiplicity will behave in a similar way on both grids, but not to the same effect. Scores on a square grid are likely to be higher, and the trimming down of the scores by forced connections towards the endgame, will start later and probably be less dramatic. In terms of gameplay the hexgrid would appear to offer more drama and at an earlier stage. These considerations are in part build on a solid insight in the nature of the Symple move protocol and the way it interacts with this particular object. That interaction would seem even more intricate than in Symple itself. After all, Symple needs an artificial entity to make it work: the group penalty. Multiplicity's goal is less than usual, but wholly natural. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Sep 17th, 2013, 11:32am Chaosu (http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=12757) at LG pointed out that the "one-sticking-one-free" opening protocol might serve Lines of Action (http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/forum/topic2.jsp?forum=130&topic=71) itself, though to what effect? The "one-sticking-one-free" protocol is a game in itself, that results in a variety of opening opsitions for a variety of omni-directional games, such as LOA for instance. On a 8x8 board with connectivity-8, the average density of the resulting positions has been 11.7 men per player, ranging from 2x10 ... http://i42.tinypic.com/263inpt.png ... to 2x14. Last placement indicated in both cases http://i39.tinypic.com/oj05yd.png That's higher than LOA, but maybe not annoyingly so. The effect, in my view, would be similar to the effect of the Chess-960 opening protocol for Chess: increased scope for and dominance of tactics, and a strategy that must be formulated in more general terms. The opening theory based on the specific opening array of LOA would not be applicable. It may be fun, or maybe not, but in any case it shows the wide field of games to which the "one-sticking-one-free" protocol may be applicable. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Sep 21st, 2013, 9:09am It's that time of year again so I feared it might happen, and it did. I found a new game. Just an hour ago a crucial missing part fell into place. Material Cemetery is played on a chess board. There are two players, black and white. Each has a sufficient number of draughtsmen at his disposal. In addition there's a sufficient number of tombstones. Definitions * The "capacity" of a square equals the number of orthogonally adjacent squares. * Pieces are "stacks". A single man is a stack of one. Stacks may have any composition and are controlled by the player on top. * A "zombie" is a man that has been returned to its owner in the course of the game, to be used at a later stage. * A "tombstone" removes a square and thus reduces the capacity of the adjacent squares by one. Rules The game starts on an empty board. There are two stages, the placement- and the movement stage. The placement stage This stage follows the 'one-sticking-one-free' opening protocol. White starts by placing one man on the empty board. From that point on players take turns to: * Place a man on a square orthogonally adjacent to the last man placed by the opponent, and ... * ... place a man on a square that has only vacant orthogonal neighbors. Both placements are compulsory. When the player to move can no longer make the second placement, then his turn ends and his opponent may start the movement stage. The number of white and black men will always be equal, although the 'density' of the position may vary and either player may end up being the one to start the next phase, depending on whether the number of full turns was even or odd. The movement stage On his turn a player either moves one of his stacks or enters a zombie. * A stack moves horizontally or vertically, based on the number of pieces to be moved (e.g. one piece moves 1 square and a three-piece stack moves 3 squares). Stacks may be split in this process: a player may choose for instance to move only the top man or the top two men of a higher stack. Stacks may move over or onto any square, whether vacant or occupied, but they may not move over or onto a tombstone. * Instead of moving a stack, a player may choose to enter a zombie on any square, whether vacant or occupied. Capture, with or without resurrection * If moving or entering causes a bi-colored stack to surpass the capacity of its square, then the moving player's men in it return to his stock of zombies, while the opponent's men are removed from the game. At the same time a tombstone is put on the square. * Erecting a tombstone may cause a bi-colored stack on an adjacent square to surpass capacity. Such a stack is removed in the same turn causing another tombstone to be erected. Chain reactions are possible. Regardles of whose color is on top in follow-up captures, the moving player's men add to his stock of zombies, while the opponent's men are permanently removed. Object A player wins by eliminating the opponent, that is leaving him without stacks and zombies. Cemetery © Mindsports Edit 1: It is logical to apply the concept of "capacity" only to bi-colored stacks. High mono-colored stacks then pose a severe liability, rather than being a means to erect tombstones while retrieving zombies, as they would otherwise. It also eliminates the possibility of players co-operating to completely blanket the cementery with tombstones, while still having zombies. Edit 2: "Reserves" have become "zombies", courtesy of meadmaker (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/Meadmaker) :) Edit 3 As for having a provisional shot at Cemetery's behaviour, obviously the basis is a mechanism similar to Focus' way of accumulating small material advantages, like the extra captured man or the extra retrieved zombie. Such advantages grow with diminishing material. In that sense the basis provides little room for drama. Linking capacity to the number of neighboring cells isn't new. I did that in Crossfire (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/crossfire-525), providing the mechanism with a new kind of tactics: aiming large stacks at low-capacity cells. What is new is to make 'capacity' variable in the process, by introducing tombstones. Since every tombstone causes at least one man to be permanently removed from the game, their maximum number will be less than the number of men on the board. Their tactical impact will be clear: * They constitute obstacles, lowering mobility but introducing some positional aspects. * They lower the capacity of adjacent cells, allowing for quicker but less dramatic captures. The emergence of tombstones may cause formerly critical stacks to surpass capacity. If such a 'secondary' stack belongs to the opponent, the moving player yet wins it as if he had been in top. That's a taste of drama. Chain reactions will occur occasionally, but there's no positive feedback, so they will usually be limited to say one or at most two follow-up captures. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Sep 29th, 2013, 8:55am Recently I found myself back in Tampertown. After all these years I thought it a good idea to visit the cemetery and pay tribute to all the dead inventors. On my return I did some tampering myself (in red), because I had just the right game for it. ;) Tampertown Cemetery Every year on Walpurgis Night the dead at Tampertown Cemetery rise from their graves to engage in their annual "Kill the Undead Dead" celebration. The cemetery counts 48 graves around a small chapel in the center. All graves are open for the night, and every grave has two, three or four graves called 'neighbors' immediately next to it. The number of such neighbors is important. There are initially 12 graves with two neighbors, 16 with three, and 20 with four. There are two zombiemasters, Red and White. Each has a sufficient number of zombies at his disposal. In addition there's a sufficient number of tombstones. Definitions * The "capacity" of a grave equals the number of its neighbors. * Zombies operate in stacked "groups". A single zombie is a group of one. Groups may have any composition and are controlled by the color on top. * A "tombstone" removes a square and thus reduces the capacity of its neighbors by one. Rules The game starts with the dead eagerly waiting to rise from their open graves. There are two stages, the resurrection- and the movement stage. The resurrection stage Zombies rise in pairs from adjacent graves, side by side, one of each color. The White master starts by resurrecting one corpse from a grave he chooses. From that point on masters take turns to: * Resurrect a corpse from a grave next to the corpse just resurrected by the opponent, and ... * ... resurrect a corpse from a grave that has only open neighbors. Both resurrections are compulsory. When the master to move can no longer perform the second resurrection, then his turn ends and his opponent may start the movement stage. The number of white and red zombies will always be equal, although the 'density' of the teams may vary and either master may end up being the one to start the next phase, depending on whether the number of full turns was even or odd. http://i44.tinypic.com/2d7zs08.gif Here's a position at the end of the resurrection stage. Red's last move was the placement at C2, White now starts the movement stage. The movement stage On his turn a master either moves one of his groups or enters a zombie. * A group moves horizontally or vertically, based on the number of zombies to be moved (e.g. one zombie moves 1 grave and a group of three moves 3 graves). Groups may be split in the process: a player may choose for instance to move only the top zombie or the top two zombies of a larger group. Groups may move over or onto any grave, whether open or occupied, but they may not move over or onto a tombstone. * Instead of moving a group, a master may choose to enter a zombie on any grave, whether open or occupied. Capture * If moving or entering causes a bi-colored group to surpass the capacity of its grave, then the moving master's zombies in it return to his stock of zombies, while the opponent's zombies are removed from the game. At the same time a tombstone is put on the square. There is one exception to this: a mono-colored group may not be captured by entering. http://i42.tinypic.com/do6q76.gif White has just moved H5-H3. Despite the fact that H3 is now 'on capacity', Red cannot capture this group by entering. However, entering on H3 does result a bi-colored group that either player can capture by entering there on his next turn. * Erecting a tombstone may cause a bi-colored group on an adjacent grave to surpass capacity. Such a group is removed in the same turn causing another tombstone to be erected. Chain reactions are possible. Regardles of whose color is on top in such follow-up captures, the moving master's zombies add to his stock, while the opponent's zombies are permanently removed. Object A player wins by leaving the opponent without any group on the board, regardless of how many zombies remain in either stock, or whether his own last group disappears from the board in the process. Tampertown Cemetary © Mindsports By the way, both the applet and the game are still in Tampertown, but here's our first game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Cemetery1380384398.html). I feel I'm in somewhat uncharted territory here regarding endgames and the role of forced cycles, so let's look if and when "the ship runs ashore", to use a literal translation of a dutch expression. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 2nd, 2013, 3:21am I'd like to direct some attention to Tampertown Cemetery (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tampertown-cemetery). Our first game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Cemetery1380384398.html) was somewhat flawed in that the code had to be adjusted regarding the legality of entering on a opposing mono-colored group, yet it allowed a glimpse of some interesting tactics. More about that later. Remember Nick's post (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1032083/redefining-the-abstract-in-which-i-revisit-mark) at BGG? Here's a quote: Quote:
There's still David Buckley's question (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1032083/redefining-the-abstract-in-which-i-revisit-mark/page/3) whether this constitutes any significant difference from Mark Thompson's concept of Clarity versus Depth, and I suppose it depends on what is meant by "clarity" and how it can differ for different players of the same game, depending on their level of play. But we had a perfect example of a Eureka moment in Tampertown. Before I come to that, let's first have a look at TC's structure, and compare it to the stucture of its ancestor Focus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_(board_game)). This comparison is inevitable, so I'd better do it right to serve those who feel appearances may be misleading. The motor: recycling reserves Barring draws by exhaustion, what eventually drives Focus over the cliff are its recyled reserves. The influence of small material advantages tends to increase with diminishing material, and barring a very fine balance, the thing eventually goes one way or the other. That's the game's undercurrent and tactics go easier with the flow than against it. Introducing the number of adjacent cells as a criterion for a cells 'capacity' works fine in Crossfire (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/crossfire-525) in that it provides some strategical solidity in a very 'fluid' environment: you can aim large center-columns at low-capacity cells along the edges and harvest the fruits. The criterion isn't anymore logical than Sid's choice of "5" in Focus, but it seems less arbitrary. A chance encounter of ideas Chance encounters of ideas are always a part of the process. I had trashed "Trounce" because it had an annoying smell of something being wrong despite my failure to find it. It set my mind on the quest for something simpler. That means juggling with ideas, mechanisms and principles during the daily routine. The exact time of birth of TC was when I realized that the principle of recycling reserves in Focus could be implemented with a different mechanism. Instead of stuffing men from above and harvesting the surplus from below, one could remove a whole bi-colored column once it had surpassed its 'capacity'. Capacity would be determined by the number of a square's neighbors. If the square itself were to be removed after a capture, the capacity of each of its neighbors would be reduced by 1. Sub-critical columns on such squares would suddenly be critical, while critical columns would raise above their limit and thus be captured in the same move. Chain reactions would be possible. The board would consist of ever less squares with a decreasing average capacity. Since every capture requires at least one man to be removed permanently, the number of blocked squares would never surpass the number of men. Since 'entering' is part of the mechanism, isolated areas would present no special problems. That was the moment of its birth. It took considerably less time to see it than to write it down. Tampering The board I eventually chose serves the mechanism: it has 12 capacity-2 squares along the edge, 16 capacity-3 squares, half of them along the edge and half around the chapel (apart from pittoresque and thematic aspects the chapel only serves to add 8 capacity-3 squares to the center) and 20 capacity-4 squares. It was already impossible to get reserves without capture (that is: you cannot capture mono-colored groups of your own), so capture was restricted to bi-colored groups or groups belonging entirely to the opponent. Since I prefer generic rules, there was initially no difference between 'capture by moving' and 'capture by entering'. However, unrestricted capture by entering seemed to lead to lack of solidity and a tensed up game because entering on a sub-critical group would always 'expose' it. Forbidding it altogether could lead to capping and recapping the same group till one side was exhausted. So I came to a logical balance: you cannot capture a mono-colored group by entering. Since there are ample capacity-2 squares, this allows a player to enter a single there, and another one and another, and all the while the opponent, who makes the column bi-colored if he enters there, runs the risk of having it captured next move. A mono-colored group can thus relatively safely grow, and move as long as it doesn't sink below sub-capacity. It provided the solidity I was after. I also decided to make presence on the board, or indeed lack thereof, the deciding criterion for winning or losing. This advances the critical point in endgame situations. It led to unexpected endgame tactics. A Eureka moment We initially considered entering on a (sub)critical mono-colored group as dumb: why enter there if you can be captured next move? Why not simply forbid it? And that's what Ed did, provisionally, because the codechange required was minimal. But I had my doubts, both by experience and principle. I had doubts whether capping a (sub)critical mono-colored group would under all circumstances be dumb. I know the tricks games can present one with. I also find, on philosophical grounds, that rules are not there to prevent dumb moves. Ed agreed but now faced a problem he had tried to avoid: the applet would simply consider every square at the end of a move, and execute a capture if a bi-colored square was above its limit. By allowing a bi-colored group above capacity to exist, he had to rewrite the code accordingly. Meanwhile we were continuing our game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Cemetery1380384398.html) and I want to draw your attention to (R)ed's 24...G3. It threathens to capture H3 and I can't escape to E3 (because of the groups at B3). I can cap it once, but not twice. Fortunately I found 25.HF3 and now Red cannot move G3 to either side, because both would turn critical. Or so I thought. But Ed moved 25...FE3 just the same, and I wondered why. Of course I captured 26.F3. Then came 26...H3! It was the 'dumb' move, at that point only possible because it didn't surpass capacity, because Ed hadn't changed the code yet. But I had it there for the taking. Why wouldn't I...? And then the "Eureka" moment kicked in. Capturing H3 would lose the game because it would leave only one white group at B2, and this last group would simply be capped. Suddenly there was a less than dumb reason for playing the 'dumb' move, and not as a result of a tactical peculiarity either, but rather as a structural aspect of endgames: if you're down to two groups and the opponent caps one of them, you cannot capture it! Endgame peculiarities I've not yet puzzled out the extremes, but you get between say 10 to 15 pairs of zombies on the board. These are stacked in groups while some go permanently off the board, some temporarily. Pretty soon one or both players will be down to three groups. If then a sub-critical one is capped by the opponent and the player captures it, he will be down to two groups. That means he cannot capture anymore if one of them is capped, but must enter instead. This of course can already be the point of a combination: The capped piece is now under the opponent's control and may cause an immediate threat. These tactics result from leaving reserves in hand out of the equation in terms of the win condition. Finally, notice that the endgame was decisive from an almost symmetrical position with only a few pieces left. TC implicitly has cooperative cycles, and I strongly suspect that there are positions possible that resolve in a forced cycle. But I don't think their appearance will be frequent. Draws by exhaustion are possible of course, and in exhausted endgames sides may end up without reserves and in isolated territories. But that, I expect, will not be a frequent occurence either. We've engaged in a second game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Cemetery1380568188.html) and a third one (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=TampertownCemetery1380653381.html) under its full name. The applet works fine now and the game has been fully implemented. I thank Ed for that, and I invite those of you who at least halfway trust my judgement to join us in the player section (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section) for some new and surprising tactics. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 3rd, 2013, 4:58am This question came up recently at BGG; Quote:
Nick Bentley, actually. Apart from being simple, homogeneous and answering one basic principle, there's this (answer reposted from BGG): Tampertown Cemetery (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tampertown-cemetery) made me realize a prime characteristic of organic games: they act on a 'plain plane'. The point shows in what I consider my major games of the last three years Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple/), Sygo (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/sygo/), Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia/) and (yet veiled) Multiplicity (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/multiplicity-651). They all use plain boards and they're all scalable. Boardsizes should be practical, but they allow different shapes. All are possible on both square- and hexboards, though gameplay may favor one or the other. Edges and corners have no special role apart from their inherent necessity and its consequences in terms of strategy and tactics. An organic game is something you release on a plane. In contrast, TC is a merger from different principles and mechanisms, pointing to a particular board-structure to optimize its behaviour. Putting it on a hexboard immediately gives problems. I only mention the fact that you need capacity-2 cells to (relatively) safely start a group. A Crossfire board would do: http://mindsports.nl/images/stories/sidedishes/moregamesbycf/crossfire_3_297x226.gif But then, with the OSOF protocol you don't get enough zombies in the yard to climb to capacity-6 and over. So TC isn't like releasing an organism on a plane, but more like starting up a mechanism in a prepared playground. In terms of gameplay there's no value judgement implied, I just like the natural ones better. But I couldn't resist a Tampertown detour. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 4th, 2013, 7:51am Let me elaborate just a tiny bit on TC's strategy. Take a position a couple of moves beyond the opening phase, with two or three tombstones and each player having one or two reserves in hand. You're Red and you have two groups, A and B, both composed of a red zombie on top and a prisoner underneath. A and B are one square straight apart, so A can jump onto B and vice versa. However, both A and B occupy capacity-4 squares, so either jump only brings the resulting group 'on capacity' and ready for the taking by the White, by simply capping it with a reserve. White cannot enter on either group because the other would then jump and capture, but to complicate matters let's say group A is also under attack by a White group of two (also on a capacity-4 square, lest it should be captured by A). So Red cannot enter a reserve on A in preparation for a jump by B, because A would be captured before B could jump. But he can enter on B because B is not under attack by a white group of 2 so if Red enters on B, white cannot capture. Now Red has a group of 2 on A and one of 3 on B, and moving A onto B captures two prisoners and gives three reserves. White cannot prevent that by moving his two-group onto A, because that's still four on a capacity-4 square and it triggers a Red reply of moving two of the three zombies of B onto A catching a mixed total of six. This little scenario that can be explained without so much as a board, comes in a number of variations the key theme of which is capturing the extra prisoner and/or getting the extra reserve to dominate events. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 5th, 2013, 12:36pm This one (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Cemetery1380568188.html), the last one under its first name, has ended in defeat for me. Note that White cannot capture by entering at A4 or C5 because Red then wins by capping C2. The group at C2 has been severely handicapped since its appearance on F2. If Red enters on it now, White can wave the world goodbye in a suicide capture! Despite my loss :P (that was a joke, actually) the game till now behaves as intended and expected. Better actually, I expected tactical surprises but not to this extent. There must be draws hidden in this pit, but we've not seen a shadow of them yet. I know "fun" is the least useful word to put on a game, but I see no alternative. :( This one (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=TampertownCemetery1380653381.html), the first one under its proper name, shows an updated applet with a "dead & buried zombies" counter and a move indicator. There's some casual comment included that does little justice to Ed's excellent strategy (from a rookie's point of view) of creating sub-critical groups that made it difficult for me to enter. Eventually I was immobilized while having more material! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 7th, 2013, 1:40pm Reposted from BGG: (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/13615273#13615273) I feel I'm occasionally praised into the grave here, a revered relic of the past, well beyond the expiration date. But as far as I'm concerned I'm not quite dead yet. Here are some 20 (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/how-i-invented-games-and-why-not/late-arrivals-a-final-whispers) games I invented or co-invented in the past three years. Most of them are what I'd call collateral damage: they're good games, but amongst the multitude of games competing in this niche they will have little chance to stand out. I'm not in the lobbying business, I'm an inventor, art for art's sake, and so be it. There are a few exceptions, games of which I feel their quality will eventually tip the balance: Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple/), Sygo (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/sygo/) and Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia/) are all simple, homogeneous games that follow one governing principle both in mechanics and object. Among them they introduce a new generic move protocol and a new generic opening protocol, the first with an embedded turn-order balacing mechanism, the second as an implicit turn-order balacing mechanism. They adapt to the plain square- and hexgrid alike and allow almost any size or shape (though they provide no reason to deviate from the usual ones). They're natural and organic: remove the edges after the opening phase of Inertia and proceed on an endless grid, and you will find the game plays just as well - how much closer can it get to being a natural organism? I didn't exactly make a secret of how I invented Inertia. You were all able to see it emerge via a failed Ayu (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/ayu/) clone. This may have caused some posters to disconnect (how original can it be?) and if so, I'm sorry for them. Fortunately there's no roadmap for inventing an original abstract game, and any road that eventually leads to the right result can hardly be the wrong road. I was a bit surprised that the strategical and tactical implications of the generic restriction rule weren't recognized all that well. It's the kind of rule that makes a game. But then, I think in principles, protocols, mechanisms, trying to find new ones or to merge existing ones in new ways. I don't think in (or ever use) boards and pieces or a notion of what the game should be: I'll know what it is when I've found it, even if others may be slow to recognize it. I'm a bit surprised however by the obvious lack of response to Tampertown Cemetery (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tampertown-cemetery). Did I tamper too little I wonder? Did I put it together too fast? Am I making fun of inventors? Since the whole process of invention (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1042254/cemetery-the-sweet-fragrance-of-death) was public I'll let you be the judge of that. I got reactions of three posters, and the first one was rather characteristic: Quote:
How far is that from "It's like Focus with a bigger board", I wonder? Inertia revisited? May I remind the community that initial impressions, though unavoidable and often very useful, can be misleading? I'd be surprised if anyone disagrees. I didn't build on Focus, I reflected on the terminating principle of Focus, based on simultaneous 'capture' of both colors, whereby the opponent's men are permanently removed from the game, while friendly men return as 'reserves' that may re-enter the game one by one at the cost of a turn. The mechanism is to move columns on top of columns, removing every man above 5 from the bottom. Since colomns may be (and usually are) mixed, men of both sides may thus be collected. Small differences in material tend to amplify towards the endgame, thus toppling the game one side or the other. A very good undercurrent towards decisiveness. Partial capture Focus uses partial capture of a column. At the end of the move, the square on wich the capture took place still holds a column of 5 under your control, still stuck in the tube through which the remainder was purged, so to say. Total capture Tampertown Cemetery uses total capture: all men coming from the departure square (or the one man coming out of hand) and all men on the target square disappear simultaneously. If you combine with two pieces under your own control, and you leave an opponent's man behind on the departure square, then you will have two pieces less at the end of the move while your opponent has gained one. In endgames it is possible to combine yourself to oblivion this way. For anyone with no particular lack of imagination, it should be clear from this alone that the implications are radically different from those of partial capture. Forget "Focus with a bigger board" (quite apart from the fact that TC actually has a smaller board). The Tampertown Assembly Line revisited The idea of using the number of adjacent squares for 'capacity' as in Crossfire (http://www.boardspace.net/english/about_crossfire.html) suddenly merged with making that number variable by removing squares where a capture had taken place. It's not hard to foresee a new kind of tactics emerging there. From that point on it was assembly all the way, with rules that would appear logical without being less arbitrary for it. Initial capacities were distributed over twelve squares (c-2), sixteen squares (c-3) and twenty squares (c-4) by truncating corners and adding the chapel. I decided that: * Capture would concern mixed columns, so players can't capture a mono-colored column with a man or a mono-colored column of their own. It implies that the number of graves cannot surpass the number of men. * A mono-colored opponent's piece could not be captured by entering. * The win/lose criterion would be one's presence or lack thereof on the board, disregarding men in hand. All arbitrary, but giving rise to new and surprising tactical consequences and a solid basis for strategical considerations. If that's what you're looking for, there's little I can do to stop you. We've got the rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia/) and a fully functional applet. If not, then I don't quite understand the basis of this forum. There are certainly many related areas of interest, but aren't new abstracts what fuels it? |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 8th, 2013, 4:50am Here's a game between Jos Dekker, a first time player, and me: http://i41.tinypic.com/nqsm0i.png (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=TampertownCemetery1380724713.html) Since it is by all accounts a rookie game, the commentary may suit beginners. Ed and I have played several games and as I write, we're at the beginning of the movement stage of the current one. This will likely be somewhat trickier now: http://i44.tinypic.com/ogyi6g.png (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=TampertownCemetery1381071171.html) Enjoy :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 11th, 2013, 8:33am In this thread (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1051302/one-small-idea-for-a-plenty-new-shogi-variants) started by LG's Richard Malaschitz, you'll find this post (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/13653592#13653592) and I quote: Quote:
That was yesterday, I've slept over it. So what about "Traxion": Material Easiest would be to use generic material, a Chess board and a sufficient number of draughtsmen. It makes the recycling of pieces easy. There are three pieces in the game: * A Shogi pawn, represented by 1 man. * A Chess pawn, represented by 2 stacked men. * A 'forward knight' represented by 3 stacked men. Initial position Shogi pawns on the 3rd rank, Chess pawns on the 2nd, back rank vacant. Movement Both type of pawns move as usual, knights can only jump forward. Capture and its consequences Pieces capture by replacement. If a Shogi pawn is captured, the capturing side gets a Chess pawn 'in hand'. If a Chess pawn is captured the capturing side gets a knight 'in hand'. Pieces in hand may be dropped on the player's back rank at the cost of a turn. If a knight is captured, it is removed from the game. Object The first player to move a piece onto the opponent's back rank wins. Traxion © Mindsports Commentary One might use a Jump Sturdy (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/jumpsturdy-576) board, since Traxion resides in that general area. It's not a natural organism but an assembled mechanism, so there quite a lot to tinker with (I did follow Richard's suggestion (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/13617474#13617474) to replace Tampertown by Tinkertown). I considerd pieces that would fit a logical framework, but decided against it because players are familiar with Shogi- and Chess pawns, and it also seemed a nice idea to have them cooperate. Moreover, the forward knight also sort of keeps the middle between Shogi and Chess. Regarding decisiveness, I considered having captured knights demote to Shogi pawns, to keep it fully cyclic and let decisions follow the general inclination of the system to topple one way or the other. But to not make a meal of it, captured knights are out and the game eventually topples by a shift in the material balance. More than anything, it seemed fun to embrace the principle Richard posted and have a game the next morning. To remind everyone at BGG that "I'm still standing better than I ever did Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid" 8) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 11th, 2013, 3:39pm http://mindsports.nl/images/stories/sidedishes/moregamesbycf/traxion_inpos.gif Here's a board, the knights reperesenting the stack from which they are entered. The side columns can inherently only be 'activated' by knights. Not much has changed in Tinkertown over the years. If you know your way around a little, it can be a fun place. ;) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 12th, 2013, 10:04am So here are the rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/traxion-661). There are more important things in the pipeline than an applet, but with a Chess board and bag of draughtsmen it should not be too difficult to play. In the material sense. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 19th, 2013, 11:50am It's not that I'm here to convince anyone of anything, but I think the community here might benefit from a closer look at something quite new. Of course there's a catch. You'd have to let the rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tinkertown-cemetery) of of Tinkertown Cemetery sink in for a while, in particular the rule that the criterion for winning is the opponent's absence on the board, disregarding reserves and even disregarding whether or not the initiating player's last group disappears in the process, leaving only an empty cemetery. The rule was established because it felt right and in any case would speed up the game, avoiding the possibility of dragged out endgames (a fear that may not have been justified, but nevertheless) and reducing the possibility of draws. In the above posts I already touched on the phenomenon that players in endgames will likely come in a position where they cannot capture, even if tasty groups are on offer, because in a capture both the capturing group (or reserve) and the captured group disappear. And they may both belong to the capturing player, because ownership doesn't matter in TC. The image below is the endgame of the example game that you can find in the rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tinkertown-cemetery). Note that the material balance both off and on the board is even: both have 6 buried, 4 in hand and 3 on the board. There's a red/white and a white/red, both on sub-capacity on c-3 graves, and there's a red/white on capacity on G3. http://i39.tinypic.com/4in1jb.jpg Of course it's white to move, otherwise red would simply cap B3 with a reserve and win. If white captures by entering on G3 he loses for the same reason. White needs two groups to survive (if he weren't dead already). So he enters on E6 and red replies by entering on B3 and now all groups are on capacity and entering on one is suicide. Both have 3 reserves, so if white enters one, red can simply cap it - three times in a row. So white must split his group, but to make a short story even shorter: to no avail. Ed said he thought he had me around move 19. There's some similarity here with having "the move" (http://www.jimloy.com/checkers/move.htm) in checkers. The fact that red could bring the last piece on capacity left white with only the wrong moves. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 21st, 2013, 7:28am Joe Joyce started an interesting thread (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1052240/activators-pieces-that-allow-other-pieces-to-movec) at BGG about a generic idea regarding 'activators'. I'd give you a definition, but we're in the process of finding that out. To give you a very basic implementation, have a look at Chess with Batteries (http://www.chessvariants.org/contests/10/chesswithbatteries.html) by Roberto Lavieri. Anyway, in the context of a possible contest in inventing an 'activator game', I've made an "Activator Checkers" game, in the same line, although its activators behave differently. I can't publish it now of course, but I've made sure that it will satisfy even the stricktest definition of an activator, and also that its activators will play a significant role throughout the game. It's very pleasant to have a generic concept with considerable potential appear in the right season. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 24th, 2013, 9:36am Barring Ray Alicea and Joe Joyce there isn't a lot of response to the contest challenge at BGG yet, more like Bored Game Geek actually. So if at all, it may take some time to get it up and running. Time enough to invent a new game and publish the entry I made on the fly. Medea (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/medea-656) Medea is based on Ljuban Dedic's Croda (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/croda-524) but employs an initial position taken from Dameo (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/dameo/). http://mindsports.nl/images/stories/sidedishes/moregamesbycf/medea_inpos.gif The game has no linear movement like Dameo, but instead introduces the Transmitter featured in Chakra (http://mindsports.nl//index.php/the-pit/chakra-521) to the world of Draughts. The image shows the board and the pieces in their initial position. Pieces move one square straight or diagonally forward and capture omni-directional, but orthogonally only, by the short leap. Kings move along unobstructed lines as the Queen in Chess, and capture orthogonally only, by the long leap. Witin this framework, all capture conventions of International Draughts apply, so ... * Capture is compulsory * Majority capture precedes (the king counting as 1 piece) * A capture must be completed before the captured pieces are taken off the board * In the course of a capture a square may be visited more than once, but a piece may not be captured twice * A capturing man is only promoted if it ends its move on the back row The Transmitter The Transmitter consists of two parts called chakra's. In one respect a chakra is a piece: on his turn a player may move a vacant chakra, just as any other piece. A chakra moves like a king in Chess, but it can only move if it is vacant itself, and the target square is vacant too. A chakra may never move onto another chakra of either color. In all other respects the chakra is a square, so any piece may move onto a vacant chakra as if it weren't there, and kings may move over chakras as if they weren't there. A piece occupying a chakra may be captured like any other piece, while a chakra itself cannot be captured. Basic property The basic property of the Transmitter is this: if a piece makes a non-capturing move onto a vacant chakra of it's own color, and the other chakra is either vacant or occupied by an opponent's piece, then the piece is transmitted to the other chakra, capturing the opponent's piece as the case may be. If the second chakra is occupied by a piece of like color, the Transmitter doesn't work and the result of the move will be that the player occupies both his chakra's. Note that a man can be promoted instantly by having one chakra in front of it, and the other on the backrow. Capture using the Transmitter New is that not all capture is by the short and long jump. If a piece captures using the transmitter, it captures by replacement. Capture by replacement is inherently restricted to one piece at the time, so any multiple capture precedes over it. In case of a choice between a capture of a single piece by a jump, or capture through the Transmitter by replacement, the player is free to choose. If capture by replacement is the only available capture, then it is compulsory, like all capture. Object Barring the Transmitter, if a player loses all his pieces he has lost. Draws may occur, but a 2 versus 1 kings' endgame can be won by the majority player. Medea © MindSports (http://mindsports.nl/) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 24th, 2013, 9:41am And yes, Tinkertown Cemetery (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tinkertown-cemetery) becomes more and more interesting. I haven't seen a game before with such a curious yet structural endgame dilemma. christian freeling (nl) - Jos Dekker (GE) 0-1 http://i39.tinypic.com/10x4ho4.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=TinkertownCemetery1382200013.html) And a new one: Jos Dekker (GE) - christian freeling (nl) (running ...) (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=TinkertownCemetery1382618527.html) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 28th, 2013, 9:49am How about a serious game based on Tinkertown's method of capture? It's a possible entry in a possible contest to create an "activator based" game (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1060161/the-activator-game-design-contest). Quote:
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 30th, 2013, 11:14am Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/663-pit-of-pillars) leads the method of capture of Tinkertown Cemetery (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tinkertown-cemetery) to a logical conclusion. I definitely feel I should have gotten the idea to make the capture tokens (i.e. the graves in Tinkertown) mobile, without having the generic activator concept literally blowing it into my face. But I don't know if I would have. Thanks again Joe! Tinkertown Cemetery was an ad hoc implementation that needed some tinkering indeed. On a regular square board capture implicitly starts on squares with lower capacity, that is in corners and along the edges, before creeping inward to the large capacity-4 center. To get a more even distribution of squares with different capacities I made arbitrary decisions regarding board shape, and they work out fine. But the mobile capture tokens in Pit of Pillars change the whole landscape. Their infiltration of the center changes the distribution: squares along the edges regain lost capacity, while squares in the center may lose capacity, without any guarantee of permanency. Mobile pillars also allow for an almost square board, but doubling the number of c2 squares by omitting the corner squares would seem a well motivated decision. Here are some very basic observations about the implications of the capture mechanism in both games: * Most of the time, but not all of the time, players would like to capture. * Most of the time, but not all of the time, players will have reserves. Reserves can only be entered one at the time, so they can only capture groups that are on capacity. That's why most of the time, but not all of the time, it is wise to keep groups "sub-critical", that is: one below capacity. On the board, things are different because double and triples can cooperate to capture, using two sub-capacity groups. In the examples below, both are willing to capture but both do only have reserves to do so. The groups are doubles at a two-square distance. It's white's turn. Two c4 squares http://i40.tinypic.com/wciwe0.jpg Both A and B are c4 squares, so white can't jump with B, but he can safely prepare a capture by entering on A. Not on B of course because then Red can jump and capture. He cannot afford to wait because then Red will enter on B. http://i42.tinypic.com/25akbh5.jpg Here White is screwed. http://i43.tinypic.com/153lcgw.jpg Here he can afford to wait because Red cannot enter without being captured next move. Alternatively, he can enter on either group. A c4 and a c3 square http://i44.tinypic.com/f5bsx0.jpg Here White must capture B to A. Entering on either column would give Red the opportunity to do so. http://i44.tinypic.com/14nfoll.jpg Here White is screwed. http://i42.tinypic.com/10gkzmv.jpg Here White must enter on B. http://i41.tinypic.com/ju7btc.jpg Here he can afford to wait or enter on B. Two c3 squares http://i39.tinypic.com/2wgde2w.jpg Here White must capture B to A. http://i40.tinypic.com/2dsreqo.jpg Here he's screwed. http://i44.tinypic.com/2s77z1c.jpg Here he may capture either way, but can afford to wait. The attack dilemma Here's a basic truth: * Capture cannot increase the number of one's groups and will quite often decrease it by one or even two groups. One might think that capture will always pay off, because opponent's men are removed, and own men return as reserves, so what can go wrong? This can go wrong: the object of the game is to remove all opponent's groups from the board, even regardless of whether the moving player uses his own last group to that end. Now consider one is full swing on attack. One gets lots of reserves in hand but at the cost of losing groups in the process. With lots of reserves in hand, and a couple of men buried in the opponent's groups, the number of one's groups on the board can fast drop to a critical level. A level that forbids one to capture because one cannot afford to lose another group! The opponent thus gets the option to raise existing groups to capacity and exploit their increased range and vulnerability. On the edge of the choice between attacking- or defensive moves, this can be a difficult judgement call. Investing too many groups in an agressive strategy can totally backfire. In time … Pit of Pillars may turn out to be a great game. I'm very satisfied with it and I feel it may be good enough to fit in the ArenA (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/). It is also the last game of this season's harvest. At my age one cannot afford to close a season with a mediocre game, lest it should be one's last! ::) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Nov 18th, 2013, 4:43pm After several weeks of playing Tinkertown Cemetery (rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/662-tinkertown-cemetery)) it's time to give an update on strategy and tactics. But first a few definitions. * A piece is "critical" if its size equals the capacity of its square, "sub-critical" if its size is one less. * "Capping" a piece means entering a zombie on it. * A player has "the move" if he manages to be the one to move first after the placement stage. Usually you'd want your pieces to be sub-critical. It means the opponent can't cap the piece without exposing it to capture. So on a c2 square you'd like a piece of height 1, on a c3 square a piece of height 2, and on a c4 square a piece of height 3 (or 1 for that matter, but not 2 because then the opponent can raise it to sub-critical). Reserves can only be entered one at the time, so they can only capture groups that are critical. On the board, things are different because doubles and triples can cooperate to capture. In the examples below, both are willing to capture but both do only have reserves to do so. The pieces are doubles at a two-square distance, one on a c3 square and the other on a c4. It's white's turn. http://i44.tinypic.com/f5bsx0.jpgHere White must capture B to A. Entering on either column would give Red the opportunity to capture (on A by capping the triple). http://i44.tinypic.com/14nfoll.jpgHere White is screwed. http://i42.tinypic.com/10gkzmv.jpgHere White must enter on B. http://i41.tinypic.com/ju7btc.jpgHere he can afford to wait or he can enter on B. Please remember this: * Mixed pieces can be captured by both sides, regardless of who is on top. * Usually a capture will reduce the number of the captor's own pieces by one, sometimes by two pieces. * The object is to capture all the opponent's pieces on the board, regardless of how many reserves he may still have in hand. A short analysis The game below will hopefully give a basic insight in the unusual consequences this has for attacks in the endgame. The actual game can be found here (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=TinkertownCemetery1384160217.html). The "one-bound-one-free" placement stage is characterized by avoiding c3 squares as much as possible, and setting up some knight's move placements to prepare for building mutually safe stacks. 1 F6 F7-H6 2 G6-C7 C6-B3 3 C3-A6 B6-F3 4 G3-F1 F2-C1 5 C2-A4 A3-E8 6 E7-H4 G4 http://i40.tinypic.com/hrf0r8.jpg White has managed to get the move. One of the first things to achieve is to get a couple of reserves in hand. 7.HG4 removes a single from a vulnarable c3 square, prevents HG6 and sets up an attack on G7. Red cannot prevent this so he sets up his own mutually safe pieces on E7 and C7. Next White captures G47, moving a 3-piece to an empty c2 square and Red solidifies the E7-C7 couple by moving E87, preparing CE7. White cannot prevent this so he prepares to get a 3-piece on F6. 7 H4-G4 F7-E7 8 G3-G4 C6-C7 9 G4-G7 E8-E7 10 G6-H6 C7-E7 11 H6-F6 ... http://i44.tinypic.com/2iuuyx2.jpg Red is now a reserve up and White is a zombie down. But White has a sub-critical 3-piece with a corresponding range. Red sets up a new target at A6 by moving A34. White flees to A5 and B5 but cannot prevent the capture that brings Red on 5 reserves, but with dwindling numbers on the board. White is another zombie down and moves 14.FC6 to bring the 3-piece to the action. 11 ... A3-A4 12 A6-A5 B6-A6 13 A5-B5 A4-A6 14 F6-C6 ... http://i40.tinypic.com/2di1qww.jpg Red has no good moves on the board. C3 is covered by C6 and C12 is met by C32 while F21 is captured by capping F1 and F23 is simply capped while reducing Red to 2 pieces. So Red enters a zombie on A3 as a bait. A capture there makes B3 a c3 square, allowing Red to raise it safely and jump from there to another c3 square at D3 to make raising F3 possible. 14 ... A3 15 C2-C3 C1-C2 16 C3-A3 B3 17 B5-B4 B3-D3 http://i43.tinypic.com/2mepw7l.jpg However, White comes with 18.C63! and thus also attacks F3 (while still being safe on a c4 square). It forces Red to detour via D31 to attack F1. On move 20 White prepares the capture, but is not yet forced to take it. With 20...F3, counterattacking C3, Red forces White's hand to get to a 2x2 endgame with initiative. 18 C6-C3 D3-D1 19 D2 D1-F1 20 F3 F3 http://i43.tinypic.com/auw1gy.jpg Or maybe White should have entered elsewhere, because a red capture (FC3) would leave Red with only two pieces. But White takes the capture because it is quite substantial, burying 3 reds and adding 3 reserves. Red next enters on D2 and now we have an interesting and characteristic endgame position. 21 C3-F3 D2 http://i39.tinypic.com/1957qv.jpg If White enters on D2 here, Red follows suit and raises it to critical, and now White cannot capture. It would leave him with only one piece, which is simply capped, so a fifth zombie on D2 would lose! There you are, with a handful of reserves and a lost game. This is the typical TC endgame attack dilemma! So White enters on F2 (now a c2 square) and invites a capture, hoping to turn the tables and bring Red in a similar predicament. 22 F2 F2 23 C2 B4 http://i39.tinypic.com/2hrpbic.jpg But the strategy gets refuted: both now have 5 buried and 3 reserves, with three mixed 2-pieces on the board, two of which are Red. Every capture leads to the captor's loss, and Red has a piece majority and can simply keep it by capping where White enters. White played on a few moves that can be seen in the game. Finally... For me it's time to leave Tinkertown Cemetery to do its own business. So far as raising interest in this new method of capture and its consequences goes, we've followed introductory etiquette, that is we've made it available for turnbased play and I have commented on strategy and tactics. What more can we do? The essential if not quintessential game based on the capture mechanism is of course Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/663-pit-of-pillars) for which an applet will shortly be available. The experience we now have with TC will be invaluable in getting to grips with that game. Meanwhile, you can lead a horse to water, you can't make it take off its "inverse strategy" glasses! http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FHzhz1gm0TM/TPXInou-a3I/AAAAAAAACic/JJ_PEOJcHlw/s1600/horse-phony-glasses.jpg ::) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Nov 28th, 2013, 7:17am http://i44.tinypic.com/6rht9z.jpg Check out Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1385304466.html) - (rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/663-pit-of-pillars)) Note: It's clear that white's reserves should be stocked on H8 rather than on H1 - we'll change that shortly. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by chessandgo on Nov 28th, 2013, 9:31am I hope it's ok for me to post here, sorry if it's kind of off-topic. I haven't read the whole "Christian Freeling on inventing games" two threads (far from it), so maybe this has been adressed before. I don't know much about communication media, but it looks to me like this thread has more of a blog feel to it than a forum thread. Anyway, keep up with the good job Christian, inventing cool games! All the best. Jean |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Nov 28th, 2013, 9:53am on 11/28/13 at 09:31:22, chessandgo wrote:
Thanks Jean, and you're right of course, it's more like a blog, courtesy of Omar Syed, the owner of the site. But anyone is free to post opinions or replies. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by chessandgo on Nov 28th, 2013, 2:01pm okay, just checking :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Dec 4th, 2013, 5:05am http://i42.tinypic.com/ke9ctc.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1385305433.html) Nowhere men please listen, You don't know what you're missing … (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfWEPu0w-7w) Actually I trust the game enough to transfer it to the ArenA (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Dec 13th, 2013, 11:24am For a game between two players with a dawning understanding of strategy and tactics, this one (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1386155032.html) is a nice representative. Implicitly, to understand what's going on, emerging interest is required (and justified, for that matter, if I may represent the game rather than the inventor). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Dec 16th, 2013, 9:19am The game in the post above has an educational drawback. It's between Jos and me, and with a history of Tinkertown Cemetery games between us, as well as a number of PoP games, it gives a hopefully decent impression of what the game is about. But there's no commentary because we're both too focused on winning to give away any clues. That, I realise, must leave the average interested poster with a rather chaotic impression. After discussing strategy and basic tactics, Luis challenged me to our second game, so let me take the opportunity to provide some general comments on the fly. Here's the game (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387125651.html) As I write, we both made one move. Since you're reading this, you probably will be familiar with the "one-bound-one-free" opening protocol. Within that placement protocol there are a number of strategical considerations, one of which is trying to get the first move in the subsequent stage. The strategy involved is so opaque that the protocol effectively doubles as a turn-order balancing mechanism. Initial placements are not concerned with it, but towards the end it becomes a major consideration. Here's my comment after the first full turn: Quote:
I won't give away to much on my specific plans, but I'll try to give some general comment like the one above, in several stages of the game. All stages have their own strategy, and endgame strategy, as I pointed out in earlier posts, is unlike anything I've seen before in any game. I hope that you'll soon find that endgames, to cite Alice, are curiouser and curiouser. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Dec 16th, 2013, 1:28pm It's always nice to have a clear example of something you want to make clear. In this case it's the endgame predicament of Pit of Pillars. Here's a game between Ed van Zon, who has a few games under his belt (as well as having written the applet) and Tjalling Goedemoed, a dutch Draughts master rated around #50 in the kndb (http://www.kndb.nl/cms/) rating and author of an online Course in Draughts (http://fmjd.org/promo/cid.php). Here's the game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1385727820.html) Ed's last move is an illustrative (not to mention obvious) oversight. Instead of entering a highly crucial reserve, he captures one more group, which loses immediately. Even with two pieces left his future would have looked bleak, so it's really a blunder, but it clearly illustrates the capture dilemma in the endgame. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 3rd, 2014, 10:09am On the mindsports homepage (http://mindsports.nl), the difference between a strategy game and a tactical game is summarised thus: Quote:
There's a permanency issue regarding subgoals. In tactical games subgoals don't cast long shadows because most of them are fairly immediately linked to the main goal. Crucial dilemmas, presenting a choice that will predictably cast a long shadow over the remainder of a game, are a hallmark of strategy games. At least two of my 2013 games (the year, yes) came out above expectations, Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia/) and Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/). Inertia excells by being completely self explanatory, but that implicitly means that there's no choice in the outcome. Inertia is a tactical game of considerable depth, but I wouldn't call it a strategy game. It offers everything LOA has to offer, except vulnerability to opening analysis. I hope and trust it will eventually gather a similar following. Pit of Pillars, given object and mechanism, is almost self explanatory, yet there's some arbitrariness involved like: * Why are the cornersquares removed? * Why can't mono-colored stacks be captured by entering on them? * Why do pillars move as queens rather than rooks? * Why can't pillars capture one another? * Why does the vanishing of one or both colors from the board end the game, even though players still have reserves? For those interested I can argue these decisions, but for the moment I'll ask you to accept them, because the main point I'm trying to make here is: Pit of Pllars is a strategy game because it is wider, deeper and more varied in the plans it allows and the execution thereof than any game that might be labelled 'tactical'. To illustrate that, here's a partly analysis of a game I played with Red against Ed (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html). For your convenience, every diagram links to it. I've omitted reflections on strategy in the placement stage for now (though they are interesting). Ed managed to get "the move", the first move after the placement stage, and we proceeded with setting up and making early captures, because you don't want to be without reserves in the early movement stages: it would allow your opponent to raise stacks that are safe from capture by pieces on the board, to critical, and higher stacks are more dangerous, at least in this stage. Analysis starts at a critical point towards an endgame: can I afford to take at E6, knowing I will be down to 1 piece the next move? But also: can I afford not to take at E6, being a reserve down? http://i41.tinypic.com/294s3ds.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) E6 did become critical because White captured at F6 and left the pillar in place. Instead he moved the pillar at G3 to G4, making G2 a capacity-4 square. This made me wonder, because usually you'd rather have a 2-stack on a capacity-3 square. Now, if I cap it, White cannot 'recap' because it would raise the stack to critical and Red could simply capture it. But entering on G2 would give White the chance to capture at E6, getting one more reserve while still having two pieces on the board. And moving the emerging pillar to E2 would isolate Red's triple on G2. So despite having G2 on offer, Red decides to capture at E6 and live through the consequences. Like diving under a sheet of ice with only one breathing hole in sight. http://i43.tinypic.com/1213n1j.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) One move later and Red's on a leash: he can only enter men to ensure his very presence. He cannot capture anything because that would mean immediate loss. White can afford to put stacks to critical by adding pillars to adjacent squares, and Red can only create a new stacks and have them capped, but … White cannot do that indefinitely because Red has more reserves! That's the breathing hole. At some point the leash must be loosened and Red will have the chance to capture. Of course there must be prey ready by that time, that's why Red has already lowered the capacity of G2 by moving a pillar to G3. http://i42.tinypic.com/wmkvog.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) We're a few moves onwards (that can be followed in the actual game) and here it is: White, down to his last reserve, was forced to take a 4-stack of his own color at G2, to get two additional reserves and capture two red men in the process. He moves the pillar to C6. Red of course takes a deep breath, because he must capture at D8 and have the leash tightened again. http://i42.tinypic.com/34edb40.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) And here he's on the leash again, but with just enough reserves to get him to the next breathing hole. http://i40.tinypic.com/11ad54p.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) Which comes here: White, again down to the last reserve, was forced to capture to get an additional reserve. He did so at A4, moving the pillar to C2. Now all white stacks are critical: they're all 2-stacks on capacity-2 squares. http://i41.tinypic.com/1zqbwpc.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) Red has captured at B5 and moved E3F2, White has capped G3 and Red is a reserve up. http://i41.tinypic.com/2lcxjc3.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) Red has recapped at G3 and has moved the pillar at F3 to G3 to make the stack sub-critical again. White, down to his last reserve, could not raise it to 4 because Red would capture it with his last reserve (no, not with G2 of course, that would literally be suicide). So White decided to capture at C7 and move pillar C6F3 to make G3 critical. Big mistake! But no prospective alternatives either because after all White is two men down. Maybe capping G2 would have worked, but Red then could recap and capture one of his 3-stacks by moving it to a c-2 square, knowing that Red cannot capture the other because he'd be out of reserves. But he didn't and instead moved the above, which allowed Red to move the surpisingly strong 36…G35 pillarG6F5! http://i42.tinypic.com/s2r491.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) This move puts G5 and G7 in a direct confrontation, but … White cannot capture because it would mean his immediate loss! White is now on the leash. He must enter and does so at D5, blocking G6 with a pillar, but setting G5 to critical in the process. http://i40.tinypic.com/23kolzt.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) Red has next captured at C3 and moved a pillar away from the stack at G6, to make it sub-critical again. White follows suit by entering on G6 and moving G7 away, but he is now without reserves and Red still has two and uses one of them to simply cap D5. http://i44.tinypic.com/21kiaz8.jpg (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1387221842.html) It's White's turn. Red has three pieces on the board and a reserve in hand. White now has two isolated stacks that are completely unable to assist one another. Every capture would blow one or both off the board, and if one remains, like after 39.G58, Red can simply cap it. This was quite an epic effort, and it left me elated and Ed in a "where did I go wrong?" mode. And it left those among you who are interested in strategy games with a glimpse of the excitement Pit of Pillars has to offer. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by aaaa on Jan 3rd, 2014, 11:37pm I guess congratulations are in order for Havannah having been inducted into the IAGO Hall of Fame this year. Funny coincidence it does so together with Arimaa. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 4th, 2014, 8:24am on 01/03/14 at 23:37:46, aaaa wrote:
Thanks, I guess it's an indication that both have shown some lasting power. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 10th, 2014, 5:55am 200000+, I'm glad (albeit a bit surprised) to see viewers keep mining the original thread (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=other;action=display;num=1236541162). :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 11th, 2014, 9:51am I'm too intrigued by Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/) strategy, or more precisely its endgame strategy, to resist a further attempt to show something … well, intriguing. christian freeling (nl) - Ed van Zon (NL) (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1388503076.html) Ed's final comment: "Congrats! You must be getting it (somewhat), but I'm just dancing in the dark. Why that is, is fascinating in itself, so …" So we play yet another one: Ed van Zon (NL) - christian freeling (nl) (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1389451000.html) with my first comment: "Getting it … somewhat, indeed. The opening and middle game are fairly clear to me, and then comes the endgame, and sometimes the strategy is to prevent you from capturing at all, but then it switches via making sure I get at least a follow up capture to making sure everything stands critical. Then suddenly it's a parity issue and I win. I'm not sure how or why these switches in strategy occur. Quite confusing actually.". |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 15th, 2014, 6:15am http://i40.tinypic.com/28iohfc.jpg Here's Kobus, stocking up for the next 6 weeks with a 2k rabbit. It's how I feel playing (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section) Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/) against novices. ;D |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by rbarreira on Jan 15th, 2014, 7:10am It would be nice if graphic images like that were posted with a link instead of inline (and possibly a warning). Many of us use this link (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?action=recent) to check for recent posts and it's not nice to be greeted with images like that. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 15th, 2014, 7:56am on 01/15/14 at 07:10:53, rbarreira wrote:
I'm sorry. It's a snake eating a dead rabbit. Rabbits eat carrots and snakes eat rabbits. If a rabbit eating a carrot or a human eating a burger is permissible, then it's hard to draw a line. I agree however that this is an off topic games forum and as such posting a picture of an eating animal might be questionable. My excuse is that pictures of Kobus have been posted before without meeting any objections. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by rbarreira on Jan 15th, 2014, 8:47am on 01/15/14 at 07:56:22, christianF wrote:
I understand a snake eats animals. But since you're a smart person, I'm sure you also understand that many people find it at least a bit uncomfortable looking at a picture of it happening (especially in an unexpected place like an Arimaa forum). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 25th, 2014, 7:04am Our applets at Mindsports (http://mindsports.nl) have been certified to meet the security requirements of the latest Java updates. background (http://www.java.com/en/download/help/java_blocked.xml) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 28th, 2014, 5:55am We've had no winter at all this year (not that I object) and nowadays, at noon, the sun has crept its way back into my eh … garden, that is: the raccoon dogs' enclosure. By and by they awaken from their semi-hibernation (during which they only came out towards dark, for one or two hours) and today they were coming out into the sunlight. http://i41.tinypic.com/2s8g21v.jpg The wire fence isn't a fence, actually, rather it's meant to separate them if and when that might be necessary. Here's a live cam (http://www.wasbeerhonden.nl) covering most of the area. In about 3 weeks Daisy (the wild colored one) will get in heat. Raccoon dogs are monogamous so she will allow only her mate, not her son. It's a fairly quick affair, lasting two days at the most. After that everyone seems puzzled about what happened (what the heck was that all about!?). Mid April there will be another litter. Spring is in the air (that one could miss the target though … it doesn't look like January, but it still is). This got nothing to do with games or mindsports applets, by the way. Blame it on the spring feeling. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Apr 8th, 2014, 1:33pm And so the absence of winter culminated in an untimely spring, ominous by context, but glorious for those touched by it in the Netherlands. We broke the usual records, warmest March ever and the like. It allowed me to air Kobus out in early April. http://i57.tinypic.com/ephdsz.jpg That's another record for that matter. There's more news from the animal front. Daisy expects her litter in about ten days. If you're lucky or patient, you can see the pups 3 or 4 weeks later on the livecam (http://www.wasbeerhonden.nl). Meanwhile they're shedding the down fur in the usual explosive way. That looks like this: http://i60.tinypic.com/292386f.jpg The brilliant thing is that nothing ever gets entangled, it just slides out, ready made for countless birds that fly in and off continuously. They even can choose white if they like. Ah, yes, games… Mindsports' Joomla cms has been updated which had some unforeseen but manageable consequences. We're quite happy with it (of course, what choice do we have?) and we hope you like it too. Rotary Ed finally managed to finish the Rotary (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/rotary/) applet, giving everyone interested the opportunity to play a decent chess variant based on rotational pieces. Here's the first game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Rotary1396801249.html) between two players who are embarrassingly concious of not quite doing the game justice. Multiplicity Ed also made the much anticipated (by me at least) Multiplicity (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/651-multiplicity) applet. My curiosity was rooted in the fact that Multiplicity's concept is flawless (if you don't agree, don't bother). So far as I know it is the only 'product' game that counts the product of all groups as the score, and the simple move protocol fits that goal as a glove. No exceptions, no 'special rules', just the bare thing. However, I was acutely aware that Multiplicity is a non-connection game, where you initially try to keep your groups as wide apart as possible, and extend every group as close to itself as possible. The center is the most important area to avoid. But Multiplicity has compulsory placement, so in terms of hot and cold, it ends in a freezer. In actual play, this results in a game with an obvious strategy and little tactical leeway. The real judgement call is when to grow all groups, and when to start a new one. That's the tricky part, and the only tricky part. So it's a great concept, resulting in a somewhat disappointing game. Certainly not ArenA stuff. Here's our second game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Multiplicity1396552397.html) (never mind the first one). Pit of Pillars We played PoP (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/) a lot, but I've said quite enough about the game I think, so I'll only repeat that you don't know what you're missing. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by browni3141 on Apr 8th, 2014, 4:51pm I find the rotating pieces mechanic in Rotary interesting. I have challenged you to a game on your site! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Apr 9th, 2014, 3:14am on 04/08/14 at 16:51:48, browni3141 wrote:
Thank you, let's invite some spectators too, here it is (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Rotary1396993586.html). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Apr 20th, 2014, 8:29am Occasionally things happen, even in my life. The raccoon dogs are busy with the pups, initially dragging them around to find a place and arrangement to suit both parents and Snowy alike. I always wonder how they survive. I'm not sure about numbers and kinds (white/wild colored, male/female) cause I'm not allowed near the nest, at least not for now. Quote:
Remember this Shogi proverb? I disregarded it when Multiplicity revealed itself. It arose in the context of the Symple move protocol and I considered it a perfect fit, at least as far as perfect goes in an imperfect world. That blinded me for alternatives. Putting it to the test was a disappointing experience. Theoretically the strategy is very deep, but due to the initial opacity it is dull in practice. Add that tactics didn't seem to have much scope and the reasons for my disappointment would seem clear. It took me more than a year to finally realise I had used the wrong move protocol. I should have used the "one bound - one free" protocol. So I did: Quote:
Now here's a nice twist regarding turn order balance. The "one bound - one free" protocol may end with either player to move next. The strategy to get (or to avoid getting) that move is very opaque. In Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/) and Inertia (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/inertia/) having the first move after the 'one bound - one free' phase would seem advantageous, but how about Multiplicity (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/651-multiplicity)? After the restricted placement phase there's an even number of stones on the board, so there's an odd number of vacant cells left. So the first player to move in the 'free placement' phase, is also the last to move. In terms of hot and cold Multiplicity ends in a freezer, so having the last move, if it implies a forced connection, may well be one's undoing. Of course there are many factors to consider (no pun intended), but if it would turn out to be the case that generally speaking having that first move would be considered disadvantageous, then part of the strategy of the first phase would be to avoid that from happening, which basically poses the same problem. P.S. Ed will modify the applet shortly. P.P.S. Done. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by aaaa on Apr 20th, 2014, 7:19pm on 04/20/14 at 08:29:57, christianF wrote:
You appear to be the only one placing the origin of this saying outside of Western chess. Some online digging unearthed this (https://encrypted.google.com/books?id=AJmkAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA124&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false): Quote:
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Apr 21st, 2014, 2:37am on 04/20/14 at 19:19:15, aaaa wrote:
Mea culpa! :( However, if we consider what it suggests, the origin doesn't mean all that much to me. I'm sure it holds for Shogi too! :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 1st, 2014, 11:28am I've played some 25 games of Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/) now, to reach a point where I feel fairly at home in the game. The initial opacity of its unusual endgame strategies has made way for deeper understanding, and the considered choices I made regarding implementation (the shape of the board, the exclusion of mono-colored stacks from being captured by entering, and the winning condition) all enhance its behaviour. So I'm satisfied leave it to its own devices in attracting players. I can't very well comment on its more advanced tactics. The mechanism, though simple and efficient, gives rise to considerable complexities that aren't easily explained when basic strategic knowledge isn't present at the moment. My hope for those who don't know the game is that this lack of knowledge will not be permanent. Multiplicitly (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/651-multiplicity) is a different bird altogether. Its visual appearance supports it goal perfectly, and makes some specific strategic considerations possible with a high degree of clarity, even to beginners (implicitly, actually). I'll post these considerations shortly. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 2nd, 2014, 8:56am Multiplicity (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/651-multiplicity) - basic strategies Here are the rules sec. Quote:
Simple enough. Groups are factors, so a little visual and computational dexterity goes a long way in calculating the effect of a particular move. Moreover, the applet keeps track and also indicates the result of a move before submitting. Strategy We'll take it from the end of the restricted phase, like here for instance: http://i60.tinypic.com/3313qiq.jpg We have an even division. It might have been denser or less dense, and both might have ended up having to move first in the free placement stage that is now beginning. There's usually a couple of doubles present already, maybe even the odd triple. Now what? Let's call adding a stone to only one group extending, while adding a stone to more than one group simultaneously is called connecting. Extensions Extending from a group of size 'n' increases the score by 1/n x 100%, so the smaller the group, the larger the effect. This leads to a basic strategy of primarily extending from the smaller groups, preferably singles, and if at all possible, preventing the opponent to do so by enclosing singles. Connections Though the maximum increase in the score can be effectuated by a connection (connecting 3 singles with one stone increases the score fourfold), connections quickly turn unfavourable with increasing groups sizes. Connect a double to a triple and you play even. Connect a 4-group to a 5-group and your score halves. Compulsory movement This is the catch: you need many small factors for a high score, but you rapidly approach the crunch time event horizon in which avoiding connections is an increasingly looked for and decreasingly present option. All other things being equal and given the choice between two extension cells, one of which leaves the opponent with an extension, while the other forces him to a connection, then the choice would naturally be for the latter. But usually not all things are equal and indeed, some things may be more equal than others. Turn order balance This one is specially interesting. Without the one-bound one-free protocol it might eventually be established whether or not having the first move, and consequently the last move too, should be considered an advantage or a disadvantage. The latter is a distinct possibility: in these ice-cold endings the last move may well be the one that does you in. Now if this were to be established, then a pie would be no remedy, because it is the presence of a stone that matters, rather than its position. To be ahead of emerging problems, the one-bound one-free protocol not only insures the emergence of an 'initial position' that provides an even division of material that includes the center, an area that would otherwise be avoided for as long as possible, resulting in an 'inward creeping' game, but it also implies a fight for whatever is considered advantageous regarding the first free move: to take it or to leave it. The restricted phase Strategy in the restricted phase is not only about the first move in the subsequent phase, but also about positioning. Since every group wants the maximum space, a kind of Voronoi division suggests itself. But with the prospect of crunch time, this may need some refinement. Rather than keeping all groups separated as much as possible, one should aim at separate clusters and be prepared to connect within a cluster as a necessary prize to pay. Status It's a funny little game and interesting in the sense that most connection games are focused on establishing one or more connections, not on avoiding them. I like it for its simplicity of concept, the elegance of its implementation and the generality of its object. But its not quite ArenA (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena) material. christian freeling - ed van zon (0-1) (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Multiplicity1398504346.html) |
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Title: Afterhours Post by christianF on Sep 4th, 2014, 12:59pm In 2014 in the Netherlands summer fell in the spring and autumn fell in the summer, with temperatures on average 5C below average, and double the rainfall. Bad weather matching the bad news. I passed the time playing a lot of Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/) and where Havannah lured me into inventing abstract games, half a lifetime ago, PoP released me from the blessing or curse (depending on how it worked out). It's autumn now, which is my usual time, but there's nothing to indicate an impending outburst of creativity. I've finally reached immunity! Here's why. After a couple of month of investigating PoP's unique strategical dilemma (which I will leave you to encounter yourself) I was convinced that the chances to ever top it were extremely low. It made any ambition to even try vanish. To go through yet another wave and coming out with a couple of tactical small affairs with no guarantee of striking a significant one, suddenly looked like a silly prospect. I've always felt that my final game should be a major strategy game, and here I am, playing just such a game. At 67 it seems the right time to call it a day. As far as abstract strategy games are concerned, I love playing games at LG and Mindsports (currently Havannah, Symple, Ayu, Stapeldammen, Rotary and of course PoP) and I'm afraid I'll keep on haunting the halls of BGG too, as Rey put it so eloquently. I'll try to catch up on my reading, go fishing (got a large pond nearby, next to a coffee bar - a real coffee bar, not a 'Dutch' one, but I have my own weed), enjoy the wheather (if applicable) and suffer a general lack of problems. And, of course, care for the animals. Five of them, barring the yearly litter of raccoon doggies. Last summer Lyme knocked out my left knee (among other temporary inconveniences) which made carrying Kobus down the stairs somewhat problematic. He very well manages going back up the stairs, to his room, but refuses to go down. Since he's 40k+ I figured weight might be a factor so I lost 20k in about six month using a revolutionary concept: eating less. Moreover my knee slowly improved so I can move like Jagger nowadays and carrying Kobus is no longer a problem. http://i58.tinypic.com/2e4af6t.jpg For the time being at least and hopefully for several years to come. He's currently catching up on sunshine because we got a gorgeous Indian summer to make up for the lost Dutch one. I've had to move Snowy, a white raccoon dog that I've had for four years, to a zoo in Germany (Solinger Vogel- und Tierpark (http://wordpress.solinger-vogelpark.de)) because his father (the white one below) suddenly saw him as a rival. Raccoon dogs are exceptionally silent creatures, except when they fight. Then they're worse than cats, I can assure you, and fights are inevitable once the relation is hostile. To fill the gap I kept a wild coloured one of this years litter. He's already bigger than his parents now and always keeps his distance, which suits me fine because he's otherwise unproblematic. He's the one in the background. http://i61.tinypic.com/qpla3q.jpg Since this is both an update and an afterword of sorts, I'll include Flurry for completeness: http://i61.tinypic.com/nf05rc.jpg I found him some four years ago while walking the dogs on a wood path nearby. The first two days he could only fly at a 45 degrees angle downwards, but eventually he managed longer flights. He's lived in my living room ever since but has never landed on me. Nor do I invite him to. You see him here at base camp, a bird cage that he's never seen from the inside. He commutes to an outpost, a bookshelf at the other end of the room. He never lands anywhere else, which is convenient, guano wise. The pile in his cage is too fascinating to remove anyway. So if and when I fade away into the background and someone asks, know that I'm busy living happily ever after, till the time comes that time stops and I'm bound to face the same problems I had before I was born. I'm not at all in a hurry to get there, but I've chosen Afterhours (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRrZD6HZAto) for just such an occasion. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 16th, 2014, 11:55am As I write, four players have played more than 10 Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars) games, Ed van Zon, Jos Dekker, Tjalling Goedemoed and yours truly. That's not bad, considering PoP has a high threshold for beginners. It is one of those games where you can get no insight whatsoever into its inner workings, its tactics and the peculiar strategy dilemma surrounding its tipping point towards the endgame, by merely reading the rules. So you'd have to trust me if I say it's worth the effort. If you care to do so, you have two options: challenging a beginner or challenging a more seasoned player. The first option will slowly lead both to a deeper understanding of PoP's rather unique endgame dilemma. The second will do it fast, but at the price of losing n-in-a-row. Fortunately most posters here would realise the game is not to blame. In trying to understand the dilemma in the course of some 50 games against Ed (quite unsuccessfully in terms of wins/losses) I always realised that the way the object is phrased - absence of a players colour on the board means a loss, disregarding any reserves - is at the core of it. But making the capture of a mono-coloured stack by entering impossible also seemed to play a role. That was a rule I added on a whim because it seemed to fit nicely. I apologise for the absence of any deeper consideration, but that's the way rules sometimes present themselves. Anyway, it does play a role. It does change the endgame to a degree, but to a minor degree. In most endgame positions that did tip one way or the other, it seems to favour the überdog. So statistically, omitting it would provide some negative feedback to that. Whether or not that is desirable is actually not my call. I'm more interested in what the simplest implementation may have to offer. The fact that I added the rule right away and on impulse testifies to my freedom as an inventor and my "whatever that is" intuition. And while it doesn't in any way hamper the game, it alters it slightly in a way that I cannot see as better or worse than when it were omitted. So as in Catchup (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/620-catchup), where I favour Luis simpler implementation despite the fact that it alters the game, I've asked Ed to implement a optional version of Pit of Pillars without the restriction on capturing a mono coloured stack by entering. I'm fairly sure that this leaves the unique endgame dilemma unaffected. And a rule less is a rule less. We've not seen a draw yet, by the way, and barring a cooperative cycle I don't think it's possible. In the game we just finished (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1412503414.html) the issue was the subject of the commentary. Don't mind the short dutch commentary, it's about the Essen weekend (which promises glorious weather on Sunday!). Edit: Quote:
Actually there's another feature at its core. A capture in PoP always concerns a mixed stack: you capture one or more opponent's men and get one or more reserves yourself. More often than not such a capture involves two of your own stacks, so you then lose two stacks in the process. Experience shows that being down to about four stacks brings you in the danger zone where capture with on-the-board pieces becomes a severe liability. Take it a step further and soon any capture is a no go! The negative feedback of one capture too many may surprise you by its swiftness and decisiveness. No game I know has anything like it. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 19th, 2014, 3:44am Spielmessen in Essen >:( &*#%+$!!! In the Netherlands we have the "NS" (Nederlandse Spoorwegen - Dutch Railways). As a rule they don't strike because they have plenty of other means to annoy travellers, like herding them into busses because of "work on the track" or föcked up signals, or whatever. Germany of course is more "gründlich", and Enschede Station is part of their network. There's a German ticket machine there that after a chat session in German and accompanying payment will provide you with tickets to, say, Essen Hbf: http://i57.tinypic.com/2i8dh5v.jpg So everything seemed in good order - till I arrived at the station to take the 7.56 to Dülmen and then the 9.33 to Essen, where I was supposed to arrive at the Hauptbahnhof at 10.17. But the DB turned out to be on a strike. No German train to be seen. A sign informed me of the circumstance, saying that the NS gave a "negative travel advisory" for Germany. "A negative travel advisory". That seemed to imply there's still a choice. But they wouldn't give a negative travel advisory for cars, now would they, so if no trains are running, what's the choice? I put this before an employee and got back the zombie like incomprehensive stare of one who faces the challenge of explaining whatever in the name of the company he works for. To get my money back, if at all, requires me to go to Germany. It all fits! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 19th, 2014, 4:26am Of course, in a parallel universe the train might have derailed, or a suicide bomber might have visited the Spielmesse because God doesn't like games, or whatever. I should count myself lucky! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 21st, 2014, 8:14am on 10/16/14 at 11:55:25, christianF wrote:
This has been done. If you start a game now, you'll be given the option to choose either version. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Nov 6th, 2014, 11:28am on 10/21/14 at 08:14:19, christianF wrote:
Not anymore actually. The rule proved to be at best insignificant to the game so it has been omitted. Simplification rules. |
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Title: Chess variants on the fly Post by christianF on Jan 22nd, 2015, 6:48am Recently I made physical copies of my chess variants. It took me longer than inventing them. I thought I'd show you the result. I also thought it might be a good occasion for a crash course in inventing two-player ones. You need: - A justification for the result (not for the effort). - A board fitting the requirements. - An absolute piece as ultimate target for the opponent. - Pieces that can capture it. That about sums it up. Considering that there are literally thousands of published chess variants, the first one is obviously the hardest. Regarding the second one anything goes (though not always 'equally well' I fear). You can't do without the third and defining one. The last one knows at least one subset: pawns. Pawns are weaker, forwards oriented slow paced pieces that often have the ability to be promoted to something stronger. The choice of pieces is immensely larger than the choice of pawns. You can do without pawns and you can do without 'regular' pieces, but not without both. You may encounter generic problems inherent in the structure: - Forced cycles. - Stalemate. "3-fold" is a draw is a generally accepted solution for the first one, but only if appeals to it do not emerge too frequently. Stalemate is a complication of the stylish circumvention of capture called 'checkmate'. Is this circumvention worth it? Decide for yourself. We like checkmate because in the old days we liked the musketeer to get his rapier at the villain's throat and then start a moralistic monologue rather than finishing him/her off. I've used it off and on. The Atlantis Triplets Shakti (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/550-shakti) Caïssa (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/519-caissa) Cyclix (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/580-cyclix) http://i62.tinypic.com/2vbvbyd.jpg I found Shakti (photo, the six pieces under the board complete the full Atlantis set) purely by accident, so all justifications are retrospective. Here they are: - It is unusually small for a non-trivial chess game. - It has no pawns, nor any relation between its two regular pieces (except that they block one another and can't occupy the same space). - It features the 'Atlantis' principle: the playing area shrinks progressively, leading to diminishing refuges for the king. This is a generic principle. For Caïssa: - Much of the above, but here the Atlantis effect is situated in the absolute piece rather than in the pieces. - The relation between the pieces, 'capture' by exchange, is quite unique (if not indeed wholly unique). For Cyclix: - 'The Atlantis Triplets' had a nice ring to it and I encountered a 'capture and recycle' principle that made it fit in perfectly. Loonybird (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/537-loonybird) http://i61.tinypic.com/10d8jew.jpg For Loonybird: - It resulted from the question "What if all pieces except the king would go different from the way they capture?". This leads to a surprisingly loonyless variant. Since it features the dropping of captured pieces, a double set of pieces is required. Since pieces are composite, the making of one piece requires two chess pieces to be sacrificed. So I had to demolish four chess sets to get a complete set of pieces. Great fun! Dragonfly (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/dragonfly) http://i61.tinypic.com/fkxpxh.jpg For Dragonfly: - It's an afterthought of Loonybird, but its reason for being is that it leads 'chess' in a direction proposed by Bobby Fischer with his deplorable Chess960 (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/522-chess960): less room for opening analysis and memorising, more room for tactical decisions. I don't feel that this is the direction Chess should take, but if so, then Dragonfly is the better game. The absence of a queen is compensated by the increased branching factor caused by introducing the dropping of captured pieces. It also serves completeness because 'completeness' including the queen would imply the inclusion of the other two composite pieces. Yari Shogi (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/yari-shogi) http://i60.tinypic.com/wqo6m9.jpg For Yari Shogi: - Shogi variants testify of the boundless imagination of their creators, but they're all completely arbitrary. There's no implied value judgement: if it works just fine, who cares. Yet, in this unlikely environment, I still felt the need to eliminate the 'inventor' as much as possible and to create a less than arbitrary variant based on a couple of basic assumptions. Yari Shogi is a 'western' shogi with a more or less logical structure, and considering its presence on the web (https://www.google.nl/?gws_rd=ssl#q=yari+shogi) it doesn't do all that bad. Chakra (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/521-chakra) http://i57.tinypic.com/14v06lx.jpg For Chakra: Chakra started as a chess variant with choices based orthogonal/diagonal movement, boolean 'and/or' and 'one step/full range. That worked out to something similar to chess, but not as good. It landed on the shelf. Then Ed and I dreamed up a generic piece consisting of two mobile squares, allowing pieces to use them as a means of getting from one place to another in an unusual way. The piece can be adapted for use in any game with moving pieces and it thus became Chakra's reason for being. A bit fairy, but it's for fun, right? Rotary (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/rotary) http://i62.tinypic.com/wvznlz.jpg For Rotary: Rotary was assembled after I encountered the abominable Ploy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploy_(board_game)). Ploy had a small number of pathetically weak pieces amid an abundance of stronger ones. Like going hunting with five dobermanns and two chihuahuas. It illustrates one of the very few mistakes you can make in assembling a chess variant: internal imbalance. Grand Chess (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/grand-chess) http://i59.tinypic.com/2r6mnvo.jpg For Grand Chess: The structure of Chess is arbitrary but established and as a sport weapon it still succeeds to deliver. However, even within the arbitrary, Chess is not complete. There's one composite piece where three are possible. José Raúl Capablanca and Edward Lasker strived for completeness in Capablanca Chess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capablanca_chess), but though great players, they were poor 'assemblers'. Grand Chess is inherently justified. Chad (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/chad) http://i59.tinypic.com/hrfwci.jpg For Chad: Chad was an attempt to eliminate everything that wasn't really necessary in a chess game, a quest for simplicity. Later I found Shakti by accident, and it beats Chad in these terms. Coincidence beating a considered plan, I like that. Meanwhile Chad is a very modern game with a link to chess' earliest history, when it emerged as a representation of actual warfare between two camps. Thus, like Xiangqi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi), it has a 'castle', where the king resides. Its army consists of rooks only, though their interaction is mostly limited to blocking one another. Rooks are promoted to queens upon ending a move inside the opponent's castle. The mutual right to capture only exists between an attacker on the opponent's wall and a defender inside the castle. A fast and modern variant with an excellent balance between strategic planning and sophisticated tactics. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by omar on Jan 29th, 2015, 8:28am Wow, very cool. Thanks for sharing this with us Christian. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 30th, 2015, 1:39pm My plan to stop inventing failed but at least it happened accidentally. I was considering Othello's mechanical move protocol and its somewhat unsatisfactory pass solution of positions that don't have a capturing move available for the moving player. If one were allowed to make placements at will, then corners would be so obvious to start with, that one might as well turn them into an initial position. But then what? That's how the center emerged as a starting point, and the rigid move protocol makes that you have to work your way towards them. So far so good, and the game didn't do too bad so whoever markets it is probably pleased with it. But I'm not. While this short analysis ran the one-bound-one-free move protocol popped up, not so much as a solution, but just to see if it would generate viable starting positions. Free moves inherently can't capture, but bound moves can, I figured, so unlike any other game using it, the number of black and white stones at the end of the first phase might not be the same. To make a long story short, it became a much freer, much more 'organic' game in which players must make a placement, but are not obliged to capture. The protocol allowed the 'corner problem' to be solved by a nice little restriction in the first phase. It means that at the moment corners become available, the position in terms of priorities holds competing placements. Io (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/689-io) http://mindsports.nl/images/stories/sidedishes/moregamesbycf/io_d01.gif The diagram shows a board position at the end of the first phase. "Adjacent" means both straight and diagonal. White's last free move was at C1. Black's bound reply was at B2 to keep E1 for free placement. Thus White is forced to make a bound move (F2) and leave the first move in the next phase to Black. If Black had chosen D1 or D2 for his bound placement, there would have been no place for a free placement, and White would have had the first move of the next phase. From this point on it's one placement per turn for each player. Here black starts and there are 49 cells left, so after 25 black and 24 white moves the board is full and there's a winner. I'm sure that non-capturing moves will find their way into strategy and tactics and almost sure that this is a better game than its parent. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 3rd, 2015, 12:31pm It's getting worse. After an approach (and one that didn't start deliberately at that) that was deplorably hampered by my own stupidity, I managed to get away with a slighly damaged ego and, eventually, a nice little game. Sort iof a childrens' game suited for grown ups. It's called Knightfall (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/690-knightfall). |
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Title: Re: Chess variants on the fly Post by harvestsnow on Feb 3rd, 2015, 4:24pm on 01/22/15 at 06:48:59, christianF wrote:
Is Chad really played on a map of Seine-et-Marne? Bishop to Crèvecoeur, check! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 4th, 2015, 5:49am http://soswebsvc.com/websvc/images/towns/Creve-Coeur-MO-63141.png :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by harvestsnow on Feb 4th, 2015, 7:13am The link led to a different image yesterday, I can't find it anymore. Maybe a bored router wanted to make a joke. Beautiful sets! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 4th, 2015, 9:07am I actually looked at a map of Seine-et-Marne but failed to recognise any similarity. I nevertheless welcomed the 'check'. I was well prepared! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 12th, 2015, 1:14pm It's spring again and to my surprise I'm not quite dead, so I feel almost compelled to give a sign of life. Last fall I managed to redirect oncoming creativity to actually creating boards and pieces for the bulk of my games, the same way I did for the chess variants. Come March, with three quarters of the work done, I ran out of fuel, but I happened to have almost a gallon of green wood-dye, because it was the only transparent green I could get for Hanniball: http://i58.tinypic.com/2qkjllx.jpg So I figured I'd need a fence to put it on, and the one of Kobus' outdoors enclosure needed replacement: http://i59.tinypic.com/2ii7jid.jpg That done, I started my run-up to warmth and sunshine. A bit like in a movie where someone tries to reach the end of a corridor that keeps getting longer. Really tiring that was. Meanwhile Daisy's delivery of the pups had some kind of a complication that didn't exactly kill her, but it stalled milk production so the pups died. They didn't care all that much, so why should I. I'm just glad she came trough it all all right. I'm now starting on the last couple of games, and then - in a few weeks - I'll post pics of my winterly (springly) efforts. P.S. We also played a lot of Pit of Pillars (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/pit-of-pillars/). Ed usually wins but I got the last one (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=PitOfPillars1429640722.html). |
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Title: Emergo game Post by christianF on Jul 13th, 2015, 10:13am Emergo is both a placement and a movement game, a true bridge between different sides of the abstract community's preferences. Since both aspects, stages actually, have different strategies, it helps to understand the rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/emergo/88-rules), in particular the generic entering restriction and its function. I'll lead you through my move to move considerations as the game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Emergo1436553843.html) progresses. 1.d5 f5 http://i59.tinypic.com/2ibf6sj.jpg White (Ed) moved adjacent to e5 to prevent Black (me) from playing there. Black moved f5 to make the centre square accessible for both. Black would like White to move there because simply allowing the capture and entering elsewhere would 'virtually' give him the first move after the entering stage. 2.e6 e4 But White moved e6, denying Black access to it again, and Black restored it again with e4. White would prefer to refrain from capture sequences and thus have the first move after the entering stage, in a flat lay-out. Black prefers captures because for him it is an advantage if the number of captures of both sides don't even out, regardless of who makes the most. 3.c7 e5 http://i62.tinypic.com/2vlmoaq.jpg So Black attacks. Now I had expected Ed to move 4.f6 giving me a choice of captures, but no way to prevent him from evening out the number of them: White would 'virtually' keep the first move of the next stage. The line I envisioned was 4… f5x7 5.dxf5 d5, opening more options to attack. But Ed moved 4.d7, accepting a 'capture without reply' that 'virtually' gives me a shadowpiece of two at the end of the entering stage. Of course he still has the first move. But being a careful player, a shadowpiece of two is enough of a compensation in my book. 4.d7 exc5 http://i61.tinypic.com/2jfem4h.jpg You can see that here: White must enter and now has one man less in hand. 5.g7 b6 6.d6 c6 c6 was already accessible for Black, but b6 provided cover first. After 6.d6 the square is also accessible for White, and I didn't want him there. That is because a white placement at c6 could not be countered by an exchange, at least not with an equal number of captures by each side. If, after a black move elsewhere, Black 'covers' White's 7.c6 by for instance 7… b4, the sequence continues with 7.c6x4 bxd4 8.c5x3 and Black has lost his shadowpiece of two. Simply blocking by 7… c4 leaves the weak black piece on c5 too vulnarable to being dragged into a combination in which it may be forced to capture 3 or 4 extra men before being decapitated, leaving a white column of 4 or 5. I considered it too risky to not take c6 myself. http://i62.tinypic.com/oh0h35.jpg 7.h6 d4 After 7… d4 the center squares d5 and e5 are both accessible for Black, but as long as I don't attack any white stack, not for White. That's not to say I won't attack, but probably not until I have to enter the last piece, the two-high shadowpiece. And in that case White enters the movement phase and isn't bothered by any placement restriction anymore. Not that he would be if I would attack earlier, because attacking in the entering stage implicitly releases the opponent from placement restrictions. I'll have to keep an eye on ef6 as a possible first move of the movement stage because of the majority capture cxg6. White might want to weave a trick or two around that move. 8.g6 b4 After g6 the possible danger of ef6 as a first move in the next stage is gone and the focus from my (black) point of view shifts to d65. But I still got time to enter at d5 because White can't. Same for f6. Both nice squares to enter a double, though I can't make any promises. 9.e8 f4 http://i57.tinypic.com/2q16kb5.jpg In this position d65 as White's possible first move after the entering stage is a strong incentive to prevent it. It opens a choice of 3-captures, as yet without the possibility of decapping the fed piece. But White isn't done yet. 9… f4 is a compromise of sorts. I still got 2 men and a shadowpiece of two to enter, and f6 isn't out of the equation yet. On the other hand, I need an anchor of sorts on the left side - just don't know where to put it yet. And I'll probably have to plug d5 with the shadowpiece (no promise implied). 10.g3 d5 http://i61.tinypic.com/2dgonyv.jpg As I said, no promise implied. White is bringing the option g34 fxh4 h65 h4xf6 into the mix as a first move squence after the entering stage, and the number of possibilities for a White feeding combination is growing disturbingly. Entering at h4 slightly reduces the danger, but h4 is a bit off side for my taste. I may have to use the shadowpiece for another purpose than plugging d5, so I plugged d5. 11.f2 e3 E3 serves to keep f2 and g3 from working together. The downside is that I don't have many squares covered by men on the edge. But White is spreading his position a bit wide and may have some initial trouble in getting pieces to cooperate. 12.d8 … http://i57.tinypic.com/2zokm09.jpg Decision time. There are two squares that beg for the shadowpiece, e5 and f6. I've spend the best part of an afternoon to investigate white's options for a feeding combination to build a large piece and decided for the former, immediately attacking White to limit his options. 12… e5 The other interesting square is f6 and here I found a nice combination for White to build a piece of 7 … at a price. There were many other lines to investigate, and most players wouldn't find them all sitting behind a board with a ticking clock, but this is turn based play and anything goes. So here's how a piece of 7 is build after 12...f6, and why one should always carefully consider the result, however desirable the result may appear! Quote:
I've added a link to Variant lines in Emergo1436553843.html (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/655) at the bottom of the first one (12…f6 instead of the actual 12…e5), so that you can actually see the combinations happening. The link will appear at the bottom of every new variant line. This marked the end of the entering stage - time for an intermezzo Here's is what I said about strategy in the entering stage: Quote:
I feel that this should be considered intruiging at least, but I sincerely wonder who actually understands this. Emergo harbours more combinatory miracles and more drama than any game I know. Its drama is rooted in a kind of 'butterfly effect'. A slight oversight may turn a captured column of say 3 or 4 into a liberated column of 4, 5, 6 … creating havoc where everything seemed under control just a few moves back. To understand Emergo at all, without the feeling of facing chaotic proceedings, one should understand the basics of its strategy. Fortunately strategy in the now beginning movement phase is fairly simple, often compressed into "feed, decapitate, bury", that is: feed a number men to an opponents weak piece (a cap of one or two, preferably already carrying prisoners), but make sure you can capture the guard(s), thereby liberating a large column. Next try to bury opponent's men under it. Obviously the piece changes in the interaction. It may grow larger or get smaller, but if the number of captures it makes equals the number of times it jumped by the opponent, then it remains the same height and only changes composition. Now 5 is a strong piece. 4 over 1 may be even stronger. 3 over 2 is still strong and effective in the sense that it withdraws 2 opponent's men from the action. On average 2 over 3 begins to show signs of liability and should be in retreat mode. A 1 over 4 should be in a safe position lest the guard should be captured, liberating an opponent's piece of 5. That's the 'cycle' of an Emergo piece. There's another thing, implicitly: if a piece cannot be saved it should be sacrificed as soon as possible, before it is forced to capture even more men before falling to the opponent. Now this is all fairly simple, but then, it's the movement phase. To scare off beginners, the strategy of the entering stage isn't quite that simple. Not that this should surprise anyone: strategy games implicitly have a threshold and to get beyond it there's no other way than to study, require experience and trusting the game to deliver. And since many 'the best thing since Chess' games fail to do so, players are usually and rightfully armed with a fair amount of scepticism. Which brings me back to the question: who actually understands why White and Black have different strategic goals in the entering stage? Why White wants to avoid capturing sequences whereas Black seeks them? Why Black wants the number of captures by either side to differ, regardless of who makes the most, and what role the shadowpiece plays in all this? Of course I'm quite willing and able to answer these questions, but for the moment were past the entering stage so let's see what White has done with the freedom to initiate a feeding combination. The movement stage - end of the intermezzo In the game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Emergo1436553843.html) Black's last move was entering the shadowpiece of two at E5. 13.e67 cxe6 14.ef8 e6x8 15.c76 c5xc7xe7 16.g34 fxh4 17.gf6 f5x7 18.f8x6 … http://i57.tinypic.com/14ukwlj.jpg To a beginner this may seem odd: White has 1 prisoner and Black has 6, some combination! But the two single guards that hold 5 prisoners are both under attack in white territory and cannot be saved. Now surely Ed did not miss 18…d56, a majority capture putting 4 black men under a single guard, and the prospect to follow up with ef4, adding two more (f3xf5xd5) before capturing the guard (exc5). So let's see what happens after 18…d56: Quote:
So back to the game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Emergo1436553843.html) itself. If e8 gets out of the way, to e9 or f8, then Black can perform basically the same combination without being bothered by a white choice of capture. But which one is best? Well, 18…ef8 has a surprising White riposte: Quote:
In the game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Emergo1436553843.html) Black's last move was 18.f8x6. 18…e89 19.fxd7 d56 20.d7xd5xd3xf3 ef4 21.f3xf5xd5 exc5 And this is how the position looks from behind my computer. http://i62.tinypic.com/119oymd.jpg Of course you need a board to understand Emergo, and a 9x9 checkered board with dark corners does well enough, but this is nice too, don't you think? :) White has proceeded: 22.h65 h4x6 23.fg6 hxf6 24.g7x5 Black chooses the simple line: 24…fe6 25.e7x5 d5xf5xh5 http://i60.tinypic.com/5155l3.jpg This puts two white prisoners under a solid six black ones at the price of some positional disadvantages. The variants after 24…f65 25.gxe5 are more complicated with no guarantee of a better outcome. In the current position White must get the 2-on-1 at e5 out of the way. I'll show you what happens if he doesn't and decides for instance to get the red piece on e9 first, to ensure some reinforcements: they'll be too late: Quote:
26.ed5 c5xe5xe7 27.e6x8 gf5 http://i57.tinypic.com/2zgzrth.jpg Ed's away for the weekend so this gives me time to explain why I think Black has a won position here. Ed might not quite agree yet, but in this world, contrary to a parallel universe called 'the real world' (where I'm supposed to 'get a life'), everyone must eventually succumb to the truth. The key was finding the one way to make the particular feeding combination that was on offer at move 18 and avoid the other two (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/655#line2). White's rearrangement afterwards allowed me to capture two men under a cap of six. This is what it says on our homepage (http://mindsports.nl/): Quote:
One of those 'calculable signposts' in Emergo is to have opponents' men deeply buried. White has prisoners too, three of them if you count the cap of e9, but they're all under small caps so you can't 'work' with them all that much. But the piece on h5 can eat a few and still have them safe. That's a strategic advantage. Note that White cannot feed with 28.e76 e9xe7xe5xc5 because he can't decapitate the piece on c5 afterwards. Meanwhile Black threatens to drag the piece on d5 within reach of the big one, resulting in a 5-on-3 and a 3 in front of it, increasing the strategic advantage. If White liberates e9 with 28. ed7 or ef7, then d5 remains in place and under the same threat. So there's no way to delay that trouble comin' every day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBhHtJkZE0), except maybe the retreat of the piece on d5. None of the above, really … That is, Ed isn't away for the weekend and he didn't retract the piece on d5 but rather sacrificed it. Sacrificing a piece to prevent the opponent from feeding it is not unusual in Emergo, but more often than not it's a means to an end. 28.de5 fxd5 29.ed7 e9xe7xc7 30.ef8 cxe7 31.dxf7 hg5 http://i59.tinypic.com/2hous7m.jpg Of course Black shouldn't feed anything to the big white one voluntarily. As it happens 32. e76 is the only move to engage Black immediately, so I've spend some time studying the consequences. Or I wouldn't have moved hg5 in the first place of course. 32.ed7 Totally what I expected, which doesn't make it any easier. I could withdraw the weak piece on d5 and prevent immediate interaction … well, maybe I will. Meanwhile I'll give a main line of immediate interaction on White's behalf, showing why Ed politely declined. Quote:
So ed7 it was. White's plan obviously involves building a big piece by getting rid of the smaller stuff, preferably burying a few prisoners in the process, and wearing down the big one on f5. Now the weak black piece on d5 is a nice primary target, but retracting it isn't really my style. I've had a quick glance at bc6 but gf5 seems better in terms of strategy. It centralises the big one while threatening the weak white pieces on the f-line. After 33.d76 d5x7 the White four on d6 has three different ways to proceed feeding, each leading to a labyrinth of forced sequences and each sequence splitting up by choices of capture. I spent the best part of the afternoon exploring them, with Kobus sunbathing in the garden, and I found that White can succeed, in several ways, to get good counter play, but never quite sufficient to tip the scales. 32…gf5 33.d76 d5x7 White is on a three forked road here. 34.de6 e5xe7xg7 35.f8xf6xf4 f5x3 is complex and most lines brings him in uncomfortable Zugzwang situations, so I'm not surprised White didn't go into that. But 34.dc6 appears straightforward enough and leads to a position that at first glance seems better than the actual position resulting from 34.d65. This means that I'll have to take a very good look at the actual position to see if Ed saw something I didn't see. For comparison, here's the line after 34.dc6. Quote:
White may have concluded that Black can go and get the pieces on f2 and f8 after which the prospect of keeping the piece on d2 safe are grim. But the actual position on the face of it does not look less grim. 34.d65 exc5 35.d8x6 cxe5 36.fg7 exc5 37.dxb5 In this position I decided for the simple 37…bc4 to keep White from building a piece of 5. On 37…f56 or fe5 he could do so, albeit without much of a prospect to keep Black from winning. But it's an instructive combination that I won't deny you. The different lines lead to variations around the basic goal, so I'll take 37…f56 to illustrate it. Quote:
37…bc4 38.c5x3 b6x4 Here's the actual position after 38…b6x4. http://i60.tinypic.com/4qfmdl.jpg 39.dc6 fe5 We're at move 40 … and you can see that the big one on e5 isn't very popular among the white forces. In fact 39…fe5 prevents White from initiating immediate interaction with 40.c34 or 40.c65. Since Ed will come to the same conclusion, I might as well show that in advance. Quote:
Quote:
40.de7 - I had analysed 40.d76 e56 41.dxf6 exg6 42.fxh6 ba5! after which both lines appear to lose for Black, but the lines are very tricky indeed. This is more straightforward. 40…bc5 41.c6x4 bxd4 42.c3x5 c4x6 43.c5x7 e56 44.e7x5 e6x4 45.e5x3 e4x2 46.fxd2 ef3 47.d2xf2xf4 f3x5 http://i62.tinypic.com/1z1u1xw.jpg Here White resigned, but we'll play it out for the gallery. 48.cd7 fe4 49.g76 f54 50.c65 d43 51.d76 d32 52.g65 - comment: Off to H for the weekend again. You may finish the game as you see fit, just don't make me look stupid (i reserve that for myself ;-) ). 52…e45 - comment: Well, the game is more than a third of a century old so I feel the gallery can afford to wait a few days more to see what they could see right away in the first place. For now I can't have you dragging f4 to f6 of course. http://i62.tinypic.com/k55rw2.jpg Hey, wait a minute … White can drag the piece on f4 to f6 and then - the point of course - play de6 and liberate a piece of 3, if he can get the black 3 out of the way. And he can of course … Yes he can, and in that sense the goal can be achieved. But Emergo combinations are subject to compulsory capture and do not end till they've run their course completely. I'll show you: Quote:
Another plan is to attack the black 3 with d65: Quote:
The two lines I illustrated were the only ones that still had a shimmer of a plan about them, so White resigned. http://i61.tinypic.com/264tmab.jpg Here's the final position in the game (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Emergo1436553843.html) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 5th, 2015, 11:39am This post is copied from BGG (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1413132/about-game-emergo) and adresses the community there, but it has some useful information. I remember, in a generic sort of way, occasional requests to cover games more in deep, with comments on strategy and examples of basic tactics and games to demonstrate the various points. Wasn't that at one time or another put forward by you, Nick? So I thought I'd comply with a game of Emergo (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1399823/game-emergo). There have been two reactions so far, one by Corey Clark, demonstrating his perceptiveness and one by Chris Huntoon that read: "How intrinsic do you see columns to gameplay? Does it simply add another dimension or do you consider it essential?" Considering the effort, though gladly made, I feel this is a bit meagre and I wonder why that is. Maybe the key is found in the comments that were made. Checkers is boring and drawish This is a viewpoint put forward by a number of inventors, including Corey Clark and Mark Steere, who feel they are beyond Checkers, and maybe Nick Bentley too. I don't feel that at all. I don't consider these opinions to be sophisticated, I consider them to be ignorant. They are held by people who usually don't know much about Checkers in the generic sense, and not about International Draughts in particular. Few of them would be bothered by their claim of drawishness if they were to play against an average Dutch club player. They would lose ten out of ten, if not hundred out of hundred. Opinions are difficult you see, because they're too d-amn easy. Columns and gameplay Regarding Chris' question I wonder if it may have been rhetorical. I'm not sure what "Does it simply add another dimension or do you consider it essential?" does try to convey. Are the two mutually exclusive? Isn't "adding another dimension" often considered "essential", and a justification of a rule change? But the fundamental uneasiness I perceive is in the "add". Add to what? Isn't the premiss for this question the opinion that column checkers should be viewed in comparison with a parental checkers game? That's where I began to wonder about the question being rhetorical in the first place. If one starts from the premiss that checkers is boring and drawish it's easy to ridicule column checker for adding "chaotic" to that mix. Some inventors don't like stacking games to begin with. They probably encountered Focus or Lasca and generalised their findings for convenience. That's inductive thinking. I like inductive thinking. It's is easy and may lead to interesting points of view and my work as an inventor relied heavily on it. I also know it's usually wrong and in that capacity it may as well deny you interesting points of view. There's nothing wrong with it except that, as a rule, eveything is wrong with it. How to judge an Emergo position First of all, get rid of the checkers viewfinder. Emergo is a pit, not a track, and the number of pieces is far less significant than their position and composition. You can't evaluate the latter without the context provided by the former. A 6-on-6 may be winning in almost all cases, because it's all but impossible to liberate the six prisoners with the six men left. But nothing is ever certain in Emergo, at least not till the fat lady sings, and I can create a position in which a game is lost despite the presence of a 6-on-6. A 1-on-6 may be the last nail in one's coffin, or the key to a glorious victory. Context is everything in judging the strength of a piece. How to play and what you get 1) Play against another beginner. 2) Play turn based. You'll have time to explore various lines of combinations and discover the surprises they harbour. If you play over a board, a 9x9 checkers board with dark corners will do excellently, but for beginners I recommend 7x7 with 8 men each. Make sure you use very flat men for pieces. Emergo is an adventure in which you explore a world governed by a very simple movement- and capture protocol but filled with tactical discoveries the like of which you've never seen. There's no end to them. I've encountered new and unseen intricacies and finesses in the very game we're playing now. Though dominated by tactics, this world is yet governed by strategy, and a not too difficult to understand strategy either. Once familiar with it, strategies for the entering stage will implicitly start to form, and you'll have to experiment your way to a deeper understanding of that stage. The game that triggered this post (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Emergo1436553843.html) does not have any obvious mistakes because it is played turn based. In an over the board game this would not be the case. Emergo combinations are often so complex that oversights are inevitable, and then they suddenly appear to have a say in their own outcome. It's like holding six balls in the air on a unicycle. But it's great fun and very rewarding. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 22nd, 2015, 11:26am The discussions at BGG became a bit spicier and several interesting concepts emerged, 'occupation' as a goal being the main one. Here's a game on the theme that wrapped itself up in an evening and the next morning. It's called Storisende because I really should stop, but I couldn't resist the challenge of implementing one with this goal. Quote:
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 22nd, 2015, 10:55am Since I promised it in Chess variants on the fly, here are the games I finished 'materialising' after the summer interval. Not all of them though. I noticed that the more interesting games tend to have the less interesting boards. Not that I find basic grids uninteresting (I can't imagine any inventer would), but barring positional differences Symple or Sygo look just like Go and Dameo or Bushka look just like Draughts and the presentation is already sufficiently unrestrained and self promoting as it is. So in no particular order: http://i59.tinypic.com/rupuhd.jpg Hanniball. http://i57.tinypic.com/2zqwx8x.jpg Rondo. http://i58.tinypic.com/2pyunhj.jpg I highlighted the edge cells of the Storisende board to also allow for a base-5 game. Actually that seems quite enough. http://i61.tinypic.com/15r12tc.jpg Swish & Squeeze. http://i58.tinypic.com/30259o6.jpg MacBeth. http://i62.tinypic.com/2qa8k1k.jpg The Glass Bead Game without glass beads. http://i61.tinypic.com/10xwxnc.jpg Medusa's support act Lotus. http://i59.tinypic.com/ztfbbt.jpg And Medusa itself. The stones are also used for Sygo. I bought 6 Othello sets for good measure. They're 25 mm. and my maximum board size is 50x50 cm. (for compulsive disorderly reasons). Both games require a straight row of 19 so it's a precise fit. http://i62.tinypic.com/2zi3p8g.jpg Pit of Pillars and two raccoon dogs caught in a bird cage. http://i62.tinypic.com/168ey60.jpg Scware. http://i59.tinypic.com/htxzxt.jpg For fun: I made an 'orthogonised' 10x10 Draughts board and this is a famous miniature called 'le Tahitien'. White (moving up the board) to move and win in three moves. A program wouldn't need a second, but you might need a bit more. http://i57.tinypic.com/2w2j9f8.jpg Crossfire. http://i59.tinypic.com/20ab15h.jpg Io at the end of the placement stage. Notice two corners have been taken with 'bound' moves (because both were next to the two last free placements). From here on it is "free Othello": you must make a placement, but the only condition is that the square is vacant. http://i60.tinypic.com/11ch5cg.jpg Mu. You can find the rules in the Arena (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena) and the Pit (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by aaaa on Oct 24th, 2015, 9:36pm Have you ever considered designing games that are not necessarily practical to play with any physical set, i.e. have to be played behind the computer? Video games with real-time gameplay are probably outside your interest, but I could imagine (turn-based) games that are spiritually part of the abstract strategy family, but are simply not limited by any physically practical consideration. For example, imagine a game in which the squares can change between several different types (as indicated by different colors), à la Q*bert (but would still be turn-based of course). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 26th, 2015, 11:39am on 10/24/15 at 21:36:39, aaaa wrote:
Well, Mu (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/mu/), Dominions (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/526-dominions) and Stapeldammen (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/stapeldammen/) are not very convenient in over the board play, but they all have applets. Other games like Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple/) or Sygo (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/sygo/) do profit from and applet, though they are certainly playable over the board. Of course your question covers more than that. I truly feel beautiful abstracts can be found in a realm that is not bound by the practical limitations of physical boards. But that's for a new generation of inventors. I'm going the way of the dinosaurs. Clueless, but happy while it lasts. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 6th, 2016, 8:33am Vol. 1, no. 2, 2015 (http://www.gapdjournal.com/issues) of the Game and Puzzle Design Journal has been out for a week now. It features and article on Dameo. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 8th, 2016, 3:17pm Dameo has also been implemented at Little Golem (http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/games/gamedetail.jsp?gtid=draughts) now. Since the rules section isn't complete yet - there are several Draughts variants - I'll give links here. Dameo rules (wiki) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dameo) Dameo rules (mindsports) (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/on-the-evolution-of-draughts-variants/draughts-variants/509-dameo) Dameo rules (iggc) (http://www.iggamecenter.com/info/en/dameo.html) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 28th, 2016, 2:27am There's a class of Draughts problems labeled "Incroyable mais vrai" - here's a Dameo miniature that complies. http://i63.tinypic.com/nzj2vs.jpg As usual in Draughts problems it is 'White to move and win' and there is one key move. I've opened a poll at BGG (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/21630597#21630597), feel free to partake! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 4th, 2016, 3:36am Here's Dameo problem #5 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/21708029#21708029) and the solution of #4. http://i67.tinypic.com/261cgib.jpg |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 11th, 2016, 3:29am Here's Dameo problem #6 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1523793/dameo-problem-6-solution-5) and the solution of #5. http://i68.tinypic.com/2mrb6l1.jpg |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 18th, 2016, 4:32am I've moved the weekly Dameo problem (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/21855657#21855657) to the Dameo Forum (and renumbered it). http://i64.tinypic.com/wb3zuc.jpg (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/21855657#21855657) Dameo problem 3 - White to move and win. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 25th, 2016, 5:59am the weekly Dameo problem (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1532206/dameo-problem-4-solution-3). http://i63.tinypic.com/29apr91.jpg (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1532206/dameo-problem-4-solution-3) Dameo problem 4 - White to move and win. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 3rd, 2016, 10:31am the weekly Dameo problem (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1536387/dameo-problem-5-solution-4). http://i63.tinypic.com/2w6vxjb.jpg (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1536387/dameo-problem-5-solution-4) Dameo problem 5 - White to move and win. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 10th, 2016, 6:21am the weekly Dameo problem (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1540332/dameo-problem-6-solution-5). http://i63.tinypic.com/v7z49c.jpg (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1540332/dameo-problem-6-solution-5) Dameo problem 6 - White to move and win. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 21st, 2016, 8:01am Dameo problem 7 (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/22165080#22165080) http://i66.tinypic.com/msncc1.jpg (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/22165080#22165080) As usual: White to move and win. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 28th, 2016, 4:44am Dameo problem 8 (solution 7) http://i67.tinypic.com/23vl1zs.jpg (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1550001/dameo-problem-8-solution-7) As usual: White to move and win. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 20th, 2017, 9:47am It's been some ten months since my last post. My pet snake Kobus died suddenly, last February, but I got a couple of new burmese. Carolientje makes up half of their weight with 4+ m. and some 45k. http://i68.tinypic.com/23rv3b9.jpg Last April my old white male raccoon dog refused to keep the litter together so I could save only one pup, bottlefeeding it. It's a white male called Snowy, and he's actually bonded with me. Besides being more than twice as old as the average life expectancy in nature, his father also suffered from epilepsy and three weeks ago he had a fatal attack. His son being around made it easier for the mother to cope with the loss. You can see them, occasionally, at wasbeerhonden.nl. What about games? I play at LG and mindsports but, fortunately I might say (so might some others :) ) I felt no inclination at all to invent a new one and even ditched about ten of them because they had lost significance. I also overhauled mindsports.nl. Nothing spectacular, more a matter of deferred maintenance. In the near future I'll look back at the games I made and what, if anything, may be significant about them. Have a happy 2017! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 10th, 2017, 4:58am In winter I'm not particularly suited for the great outdoors so I need something indoors to get me through. This year it was overhauling mindsports.nl but it failed to get me through. So I started an inquisitive thread (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1715885/balancing-protocols) at BGG and turned it into an article called "Balancing protocols in symmetric 2-player games (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/735-balancing-protocols)". http://i66.tinypic.com/2luckr9.jpg It also failed to get to through winter. :-[ |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 3rd, 2017, 10:59am on 01/20/17 at 09:47:43, christianF wrote:
So here it is, my obituary except that I'm not quite dead yet. Moving forward looking back (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/moving-forward-looking-back) Thank you all for a curious 40-year run! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 2nd, 2017, 10:21am So I play a bit of Dameo at LG and I post the odd reply at BGG and in an unguarded moment a thought emerged that happened to constitute a game. Despite my retired status I see no reason not to publish it. The Starpoints board has 18 corners, 12 outward and 6 inward ones. http://i63.tinypic.com/2i6zxwo.gif The game starts with a pie and the players, black and white, take turns to place one stone on a vacant cell. Like coloured connected stones form a group. A group containing n corners is worth "sigma n" points. (I can't enter the symbol but it's 'n+(n-1)+...+1' which equals n(n+1)/2. It means that the first corner is worth 1 point, a second corner 2 points, a third one 3 points and so on.) A player may pass without losing the right to move next turn. The game ends when both players pass on successive turns. The winner is the player with the highest score. If scores are equal, the player who placed the second stone on the board wins. P.S. Here's the BGG thread about the game (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1805320/starpoints). Edit: I've renamed the game Starweb (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1809330/starweb). http://i68.tinypic.com/2pt4bbo.jpg Here's my homemade board. I've indulged in a litte frivolity by highlighting the corners. |
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Title: On "connective scoring" Post by christianF on Jul 12th, 2017, 7:02am Recently I found Starweb (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1809330/starweb), an extremely simple game that features 'connective scoring'. The fact that it was so simple while I had wrestled with the idea for so long in the past was surpising, but not really surprising. It showed once again that forcing an idea to work will not earn you the gratitude of the result. Simple solutions need some room to appear and chasing an idea down one particular alley doesn't leave much room. The bare bones Connective scoring is a means of getting points, in games where the object is to score more points than the opponent, by connecting 'groups'. Groups have an independent value, and their existence is axiomatic. One might imagine placement games with territory as the main object, but the first implementation I know of was Star (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194969/star), which is a connection based game, although edge play is arguably territorial. History Star is designed by Ea Ea (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/1664/ea-ea) and eventually evolved into *Star (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11997/star), while my wrestling resulted in Superstar and YvY. They worked, but I knew they weren't what I had been looking for. For the purpose of this thread I've provided links at the bottom, but they're no longer featured at MindSports. Then Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple/) appeared (BGG entry (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/106341/symple)) because Benedikt Rosenau (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/zickzack) had dragged me into the chase for 'a deeper simpler implementation' of connective scoring. Symple was definitely what I had been looking for - it actually is one of five of my games (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/moving-forward-looking-back#symple) that I consider significant - but it didn't much resemble my preconception of what I had been looking for. That preconception suddenly materialised recently as Starweb. Let me summarise the similarities and the differences. - All games mentioned feature precisely defined groups. - In all games but Symple, groups basically consist of two type of stones, those that provide value and those that provide connections. Symple thanks to its move protocol needs no such distiction. It is a territory game with a connection twist, the others are connection games with a territorial twist. - In all games but Starweb, connective scoring is based on 'group penalty' which is a kind of original sin: every group that emerges is penalised for doing just that. The penalty for 'being there' may differ from game to game and in Symple it is justifiably variable, but in any one actual game it is fixed. Thus connecting two groups gets rid of one penalty. In Starweb the incentive to connect groups is based on a variable reward that results from awarding n*(n+1)/2 points to a group containing 'n' corners. It implies that 'connective scoring' increases with the number of corners that the involved groups occupy. The irony is that the satisfying games, Symple and Starweb, both emerged in seconds, literally, while the less than satisfactory ones took weeks of plodding on in Tinkertown. I've learned to seriously distrust prolongued meddling with old stuff to get something new. Or thinking it may help one to become a better inventor. Basics - The object has great affinity with placement games. Groups are axiomatic for it, and in placement games groups grow, which eventually guarantees termination. Movement is not wholly excluded, but since it renders no growth, a change in score could only result from a change in connections. Regarding capture, only 'flip capture' features simultaneous growth, other kinds of capture seem less likely to be of any use. - Incentive to connect can be provided by a group penalty or by rewarding a group that has 'n' value cells with something like 'n*(n+1)/2' or 'n^2' or '2^n' or 'n!' points. - Boards are arbitrary especially if there's a difference between 'value cells' and regular cells. Any grid that allows a clear definition of groups should be worth considering. I feel the whole idea is worth considering. Part of the reason of this piece is to untangle my own thoughts, the other part is to point it out to inventors who might have a go at it. The fact that *Star, Symple and Starweb are very different implementations suggests that there must be more. But I'm satisfied for now. Superstar (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/552) YvY (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/555) (with David Bush (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/twixter)) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 21st, 2017, 5:00am Guess what, Cameron Browne (http://www.cameronius.com/index.html) sent me a Starweb AI by return! A great surprise and much appreciated. It runs on Java on any OS and you can download it from the mindsports homepage (http://mindsports.nl). There's a link to the rules at BGG because the game hasn't even been implemented at mindsports yet. Getting older, the need of hurrying (worrying, anything) becomes less of a priority. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 22nd, 2017, 5:28am Michael Howe on Starweb at BGG: Quote:
I've put it to the test under the most favourable conditions for the AI: small board, first player (white) and the maximum possible thinking time (or 'trying time' actually) of 64 seconds. To be fair, I lost the first two games by 2 or 3 points, but I won the third one and it is quite illustrative of the idea. Here's the position after 10 moves for both: http://i63.tinypic.com/21juplv.gif I declined a corner with black-18, using 16 as the anchor. AI took the corner (19) and I blocked an isolated corner with 20 (at the same time connecting 4 and 10). This is how the strategy panned out (and mind, the AI isn't so weak under these conditions): http://i67.tinypic.com/vzhedz.gif White still has a 3-points connection at the bottom (between 5 and 19) but that's it. (it's a 3-points connection because it adds a fourth corner to the group, but the 1-corner group disappears) Ten to eight corners but the minority wins with 4 points. Indeed a viable strategy! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by clyring on Jul 22nd, 2017, 11:41am Some thoughts: The net value of merging two groups with m and n scoring cells is always m*n. This might make estimating the size of a threat easier in the endgame, compared to explicitly counting the local score before and after. (Though I suppose the latter isn't a bad habit...) If it's currently hard to win with a minority of the scoring cells and this is seen as a problem, one slight tweak could be to change the score for a group with n scoring cells from n*(n+1)/2 to n*(n-1)/2 == n choose 2. This is actually just a re-indexing of the same triangular numbers sequence, and wouldn't change the m*n value of a connection from above, but would mean a singleton is worth 0 instead of 1. Thus this change would not affect play after every scoring cell is taken, but would make declining a scoring cell somewhat easier. (This indexing of the triangular numbers is often preferred by computer scientists and mathematicians, especially those who consider zero a natural number.) I just played through the game- pretty interesting. I did find myself really wondering about a few of white's endgame plays, though I could just be miscalculating. I do not pretend expertise in connection games. The 49-50 exchange looks like a pure loss for white to me. The possibility of playing one space below and to the right of 50 seems to be enough to connect 15 with 1 and 7, since playing at 54 makes a big threat. The 49-50 exchange destroys this possibility for no compensation I can see. Is 55 locally necessary? I'm not totally convinced the fight started by move 56 had to end badly for white, but playing 55 at 56 seems to lead to a comfortable draw for white, to my eyes. Can white achieve a draw by playing move 61 at 70? It seems to me that black cannot achieve anything by trying to push through on the bottom, and it looks like on the right side, white can isolate either 6 or 14 with the sequence 62 at 62, 63 at 63, 64 at 69, 65 at 66, 66 at 78, 67 at 65. (In this light, move 40 might be a mistake, creating the weakness exploited by this sequence.) EDIT: I hadn't read the rules carefully enough the last time- black is winning on tied scores, which makes my thought of missed 'draws' less meaningful, I suppose. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 22nd, 2017, 1:13pm on 07/22/17 at 11:41:19, clyring wrote:
Hi Clyring, I'll answer your post tomorrow, but a pie in combination with the second player win in case of an equal score, also implicitly puts an end to symmetric play. That fitted nicely. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 23rd, 2017, 3:31am on 07/22/17 at 11:41:19, clyring wrote:
If I connect a 2-group (3 points) with a 3-group ( 6points) I get a 5-group (15 points - net increase 6 points). Yeah, that comes in handy. on 07/22/17 at 11:41:19, clyring wrote:
I don't, actually, but apart from that the premiss may be questionable. I continued my strategic quest and find it easier now to beat the AI on the small board, playing second and allowing it maximum 'trying time'. A smaller board gives MC evaluation more tries. Here's my latest example: http://i67.tinypic.com/34z11ew.png I declined with 18, AI took the extra corner (19) and I cut through the middle with 20. This is how it panned out: http://i67.tinypic.com/2s9zqfa.png Of course there were the usual 'unhuman' moves such as trying to cut where a cut isn't possible, moves that nevertheless require an immediate reply, and the game is clearly played out beyond what humans would do. But that illustrates the point: minority strategy has its qualities and my feeling is that it may well be applicable to the regular board. on 07/22/17 at 11:41:19, clyring wrote:
I can't speak for the AI of course. Cameron sent it by return and emphasised that it played far from perfect. So do I, so my considerations regarding strategy and tactics are pretty immature. Hopefully the game will find a modest player base so that we can get to a better judgement. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 23rd, 2017, 8:42am So I applied 'minority strategy to the regular board. AI goes first, maximum 'trying time' of 64 sec. per move. http://i64.tinypic.com/2cngwog.png With 18 I declined the last corner and AI took it. I next cut through the middle of the white position. This is how it panned out: http://i68.tinypic.com/qstp1t.png There are a number of unnecessary cut attempts by AI in the endgame, but that actually makes the position clearer. I get an extra 5 points by connecting stone 12 at the bottom. AI gets an extra point by connecting stone 7 top right. So 'minority strategy' won 23-12. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by clyring on Jul 24th, 2017, 4:49pm on 07/22/17 at 11:41:19, clyring wrote:
on 07/23/17 at 03:31:56, christianF wrote:
It occurs to me also that n²-style scoring, where (m+n)² = m² + n² + 2mn can be verified by most with even less thinking, would also lead to de facto identical play after the corners are taken, and would be strategically halfway in-between the 0-indexed style of triangular numbers and that currently in use. The nice thing about a conditional statement is that I can say such a thing with confidence without making up my mind on whether or not the premise holds. :) In any case, as you've pointed out yourself, fighting over connections or lack thereof doesn't bear fruit unless the groups (dis-)connected claim corners. on 07/23/17 at 03:31:56, christianF wrote:
This game has the look of a complete demolition. I suspect white can make things much closer with more resistance in the center on or around moves 41-47, but may have given up after move 46, thinking there weren't real chances. I'd guess a black win by around 1.5 points with best play after move 44? Nevertheless a nice game. Intuitively I'd guess the biggest effect of increasing board edge length will be that it is easier to isolate a lonely corner stone, because the other corners are not as close. More generally it is in the nature of the hexboard that at least one player will have large-scale connecting structure, but when the ratio of edge to corner is increased, it makes sense that more of these structures might end on edges rather than corners. Still, one scoring cell per three total edge cells isn't too terribly sparse. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 26th, 2017, 5:35am on 07/24/17 at 16:49:01, clyring wrote:
I've thought about the difference between triangular and square scoring (or 2^n for that matter) and decided that for the moment it doesn't matter much - only a couple of games use 'super additive scoring' and Starweb is the only one using the triangular variant. If there are differences in strategic consequences they're as yet opaque to me. on 07/24/17 at 16:49:01, clyring wrote:
At the moment one can isolate a cornerstone by a single stone 'on top' of it, if it is at an outward corner flanked by one's own corners . The value of such a move may depend on the position (i.e. are there more pressing matters elsewhere on the board). The isolated corner adds one point to the opponent, but it may eventually turn out that it took one corner of a bigger group, say a 4-group, so that it inflicted some 5 points damage. The AI, like me, is far from perfect. Playing first I can get to a 7/11 division of corners, cutting deep and playing anchors in the center to escape, and just about get away with it. I'm sure a seasoned human player would refute the strategy without much trouble. But I think occupying 8 corners and following the same strategy will turn out to be a viable strategy. I also feel that's important because it is a strategic dilemma (or rather a strategic choice) that emerges early on. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 27th, 2017, 9:14am I've played around with Cameron's program for a while now and I hope to show here what I actually did see right from the start, that Starweb is a strategy game, as opposed to a tactical one. It's not surprising that members who so far have shown some real interest in the game are all very familiar with the peculiarities of the hex grid. In my case the source of this intuition is that the building blocks of the game and the way they interact are very similar to Havannah. Now instead of deviating to a popular subject like the difference between a strategy game and a tactical one, I'm going to show you strategy. Michael Howe already pointed out the significance of 'minority strategy' (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/26428905#26428905) in Starweb at BGG. Minority strategy means that you sacrifice a corner to get more influence in the center and to create cutting options in the opponent's position. Cameron's program certainly benefits from the smaller board, the more so if it's given maximum 'trying time', so I played a fair number of games trying to stretch minority strategy beyond its sensible limits by sacrificing two corners. I lost a couple of games and quickly learned some of the program's shrewd cutting tactics, and how to guard against them. So here I have a very clear example of how to go about it ... against an AI. I'm sure sacrificing two corners is not a good strategy against a clever human player. For that we have to scale back a bit: sacrificing one corner has all the hallmarks of a lasting strategy. So here we are. I tried to secure a large group (the first 3 stones of both lent themselves for that) while AI was grabbing corners. 15, 17 and 21 secured cutting points in AI's position and 19 and 23 provisionally secured the 7-group. http://i68.tinypic.com/1zoyyjr.png It's a position that clearly illustrates my plan: a 7-group counts 28 points, while two 4-groups and a 3-group make it to 26. My two plans are: secure the big one and prevent AI from connecting anything beyond the 4,4,3 division. http://i65.tinypic.com/33peexd.png This is how it panned out. Note that 27 can connect in two ways and that I still have a cutting option from 49 down. But AI can close it and it doesn't matter much because I win with 2 points. As said, don't try a 7/11 division against a strong human player, and come to think of it, not against a strong AI either. ;) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by clyring on Jul 27th, 2017, 2:40pm Intuitively I'd expect a natural strategy for a player with a large lead in the number of groups to be mutual damage, since it will be hard for the opponent to win without getting a huge group. Even though white has the strength of a titan on the left after move 23, it still seems it should be possible for black to cut off at least one group. In that direction, black playing 24 at 41 clearly locally cuts 5 off from the other white corners, though it does have to be able to escape to the rest of the board later on to do so. Trying for an internal cut with the game move 24 might be okay as well, but the followups should be played immediately rather than left waiting, since there's no reason to play the 24-25 exchange except to cut off a white corner. Playing 26 (or even 34) at 35 in the game line isolates 9 due to the abundance of internal forcing moves, but maybe better practical advice for black is to not allow both 19 and 23 without a clear way to make a huge-scoring group of his own. More generally, moves that affect the size or existence of a large group are intrinsically worth more, so in some sense what white is doing on the left naturally increases in priority after white invests move 19 to secure some connections, and what black is doing on the right naturally decreases in priority when white prepares cutting stones. on 07/26/17 at 05:35:22, christianF wrote:
The substance of my earlier comment is that, mathematically, the strategic differences between triangular and square scoring are exactly predictable. Another way of summarizing triangular scoring is to say that taking a single is worth 1 point, and merging groups of size m and n is worth m*n points. Another way of summarizing square scoring is to say that taking a single is worth 1 point, and merging groups of size m and n is worth 2*m*n points. So, when only connections are left to fight over, the two are identical (up to a factor of two), but when a tradeoff between taking additional corners and making additional connections is relevant, taking additional corners becomes less important using square scoring. 2^n scoring isn't algebraically related in the same way, and would differ in more complex ways. I'd suspect that, due to the fast growth of 2^n for large n, 2^n scoring would more closely resemble largest-group scoring, at least when the number of scoring cells on each side is not very uneven. 5+1+1+1 beats 4+4+2 by a margin of 38 to 36 under 2^n scoring, but loses by 28 to 36 under square scoring, and by the even more decisive 18 to 23 margin under triangular scoring. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 28th, 2017, 12:02pm on 07/27/17 at 14:40:33, clyring wrote:
24 at 41 seems better indeed and the 26 follow up wasn't the strongest either. I suppose Cameron has a generic AI for 'Monte Carlo friendly' games. I got the Starweb AI after I mailed him about it. I assumed he might be interested because it's up his alley, but I never expected a working AI by return. I think the program could be made much stronger by implementing game specific heuristics. But I have no clear idea of how programs evolve since the Monte Carlo method got on the scene. on 07/27/17 at 14:40:33, clyring wrote:
Right, and it is indicative of the existence of very tricky strategic choices early on. on 07/27/17 at 14:40:33, clyring wrote:
Because you eventually end up with more cuts and smaller groups. It's nice to have someone with a clear deductive view around. Ed has always fulfilled that role at mindsports. on 07/27/17 at 14:40:33, clyring wrote:
Yep, not immediately interesting but nice to keep in mind till it fits somewhere. Like Dieter (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/spielstein) having a 'polarity' idea on the shelf and suddenly seeing it adapting triangular scoring and finding a great game (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1819637/new-game-polar). It's really hard to retire. :P |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 6th, 2017, 3:55am We've dedicated a thread (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1809482/name-object) on what by consensus has been coined 'superadditive scoring'. Before Starweb, there were a couple of games featuring it. I mention Star (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194969/star), *Star (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11997/star) and Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple/). Star is the ancestor and the other two came in its wake. All are homogeneous placement games and all feature groups. At least the latter two claim to be strategy games, as opposed to games that are basically tactical. All have superadditive scoring based on 'group penalty'. This penalty may differ betweem games, or even be variable as in Symple, but it is always the same in any particular game. The score obtained by joining groups is therefore always the same too. Starweb's scoring is based on the 'triangular' score. This has an important consequence for the 'strategic landscape' of the game: Considerations regarding group connections suddenly not only focus on the bare act of connecting, but on how to connect, in other words on which groups are most advantageous and which connections should be sacrificed. Is this behaviour and its strategic consequences at all known in the realm of homogeneous placement games or is it new? In either case I advise you to encounter it. Cameron's program (downloadable from the mindsports homepage (http://mindsports.nl) - java required) gives the opportunity for a limited time, because posters here should be able to get too strong for it very fast. Edit: The behaviour is mirrored in Dieter Stein's Polar (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1819637/new-game-polar) in a somewhat different way, namely in the decision which groups should engage in immediate conflict and which ones should be sacrificed. That's the beauty of generic principles: they may pan out in different ways by simply adapting to the mechanism. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by clyring on Aug 9th, 2017, 12:55pm Being reminded of Symple led me to thinking again on its group penalty metaparameter. While I still question the necessity of it as opposed to a 'fewest groups' scoring, I thought about possible ways of integrating metaparameters into gameplay in other contexts. My first idea is probably a pretty general mutator- Allow the parameter to be set by a player later in the game, for a price. I don't have high hopes for its application to Symple's group penalty, but it did lead me rather immediately to what might be an interesting Hex variant, where the parameter is whether black is connecting vertically or horizontally, and let the price is one stone. In the resulting game, black and white (after your favorite pie) alternately take turns either placing one stone of their respective color on the board, or, once only, declining to place a stone in favor of deciding which player wins by a vertical connection, and hence which player wins by a horizontal connection. Strategically, then, prior to the assignment of directions, each player must constantly (try to) threaten both a left-right connection and a top-bottom connection, for fear that the other player will choose to pay the price of not placing a stone, but still win by blocking in the non-threatened direction. This seems neat and simple, to the point where I must wonder if it already exists and has a name, though I couldn't quickly find a reference for it. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 10th, 2017, 5:53am on 08/09/17 at 12:55:08, clyring wrote:
Symple is actually one of the games that materialised before the rules had been made explicit. Like Starweb for that matter. I never really considered a 'fewest groups' scoring or the difference it would make but on the face of it I'd say it constitutes a choice rather than 'a necessity as opposed to'. on 08/09/17 at 12:55:08, clyring wrote:
Regarding my 'favourite pie', it's the quick and dirty solution and it does fit some games excellently. But I'm very glad that the Symple move protocol harboured something better. I am not aware of having ever seen anything like your (favourite) parameter and it does strike me as a simple and very interesting variant. I can't advise you what to do with it but you might want to try the BGG forum (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/743500/abstract-games/general). On a related issue, Benedikt Rosenau (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/Zickzack) has invented a variant based on the Symple move protocol called symple Hex (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/649-symple-hex). It was preceded by my own square connection game Scware (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/scware/). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 30th, 2017, 3:56am Experience suggests that the community usually prefers to see a more objective indication of a game's qualities than the inventor's assurance. So forget that I saw Starweb (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/starweb/) as being a strategy game right from the start and consider this. Michael Howe raised the question at BGG whether a 'minority strategy' would be viable: Quote:
The latter is important because in beating Cameron's AI it even proved a viable strategy when playing second with a 7-11 minority. Doubtlessly that would change against a stronger AI. The viability of a minority strategy is important because it largely increases the diversity of strategic planning. It means that it's not all 'corners first and see what happens'. Note also that the pie rule in itself already begs the question whether or not to take a corner. Starweb strategy is all its own and just as different from Hex or Havannah as these two differ themselves. Tactics on the other hand are strangely familiar, like the taste of a new kind of citrus fruit: it's different from the known ones but it's citrus, no doubt. I found worthy opponent in Tony van der Valk (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/Tony%20van%20der%20Valk). His current ratings at LG (https://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/player.jsp?plid=19214) for Hex and Havannah are 2144 and 2162 respectively and he dedicates a significant part of his life to promoting Hex at hexboard.com. In terms of familiarity with hex connection games his status is beyond argument. If your browser supports java, here's the 'minority strategy' test game: Christian Freeling - Tony van der Valk (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section/Serve.cgi?file=Starweb1502106536.html) http://i64.tinypic.com/90u4no.png I opened at Q14 and Tony declined a swap and took White. This is the position after Black sacrificed a corner with L17 and White took it at M19. Black's stone cuts through White's '6-group' and this will be the opening theme. White did also decline a corner with Q12 and Black replied with R14, connecting and defending the top left group. Black's strategy is to unite the six corners on the left. White goes into the centre by threathening to connect the two '3-groups' on the right. http://i65.tinypic.com/2hwjn9h.png White's threat has given him a 4-group on the right, provisionally isolated by the defending black group that has connected with the bottom 2-group. White now aims to connect the top and bottom 2-groups and black's big one on the left is not yet safe. http://i65.tinypic.com/210n3w5.png So here White has provisionally connected his two 2-groups, but with two 4-groups and two singles his score adds to 22. Black with a 6-group and a 2-group would get to 24, so a cut attempt was required. Because of the leftmost white stone a connection there had to be secured at the cost of a white escape to the centre, threathening to cut off the D1 corner. And that's a 5-points reduction of White's score, quite enough to tip the balance. Obviously Black's reply will be at K9 (a 'cup' in Havannah) and White can push either up or down the long file. A 'tight' push leads white to a black 'triangle', either at M10 or H5, so upward Black must immediately deviate diagonally to prevent a cut. Downward it's more complicated. Ton told me that on at least three occasions he had played the wrong move and this adventure may hold one of them. http://i67.tinypic.com/1z6uu54.png Here Black moves into a white triangle. Allowing to connect to the D1 stone means nothing has changed and it's still 24-22 for Black. So White connects his bottom 2-group to the G1 single and allows a cut in his central 4-group. But now that D1 is cut off, Black has a 5-group, a 2-group and a single. That's 19 points. However ... http://i67.tinypic.com/2qnvdy0.png Black's cut allows him to connect the 5-group to A7 at the cost of having his 2-group cut. Starweb connections are not equivalent! In the final diagram Black has the 6-group that he aimed for and two singles. That's 23 points. White has a single, a 2-group, a 3-group and a 4-group. That's 20 points. This is one game, and I'm quite sure it was played 'reasonably well' on both sides. It doesn't prove Starweb is a strategy game, but the success of the here employed minority strategy would at least suggest it is. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Nov 26th, 2017, 12:32pm On 'inside out' inventing (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/on-inside-out-inventing). A little essay I wrote, here's the declaration of intent: Quote:
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Dec 12th, 2017, 6:38am Here's another thing. In writing the essay mentioned above I had to revisit the primal vision that led to Mu (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/mu/): the core behaviour of the board. That vision came in the context of a weirdly flawed game called Atlantis (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18105/atlantis) that employed an 'explosion' mechanism. Mu straightened out the concept but the mechanism retained the inherent chain reactions that make it feel like something between a strategy game and a pinball machine. So when I revisited that primal vision I had a fleeting moment where I thought "isn't there another mechanism to clear the top layer, create the wall and grow reinforcements in the process"? And it stuck. The game is called Stiles (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1898927/stiles-game-concept-emerging-inside-out) and I will not publish the formal rules till in 2018 (because it's nice to have one in 2018 and because I've other things to do) but the rules now published at BGG are basically complete. But they are written 'inside out', starting from the core behaviour, as they developed in my mind. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Dec 23rd, 2017, 6:35am I've renamed Stiles as Storisende. I had a game called Storisende (it's here (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/696)) but ditched it about a year ago along with a couple of others. Nice name though and appropriate for a last game. Because whether or not another one drops out of the blue, this should remain the last one. I'll officially publish it in January but here are the provisional rules (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/747), not yet public. They're no different from those in the Stiles thread (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1898927/stiles-game-concept-emerging-inside-out), but now hopefully more clear and concise (without overdoing the latter). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 11th, 2018, 11:07am Recently Markus Hagenauer (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/Markus%20Hagenauer) launced the BEST COMBINATORIAL 2-PLAYER GAME OF 2017 - NOMINATIONS (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/236531/best-combinatorial-2-player-game-2017-nominations) page at the abstract strategy forum at BGG and I entered Starweb (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/starweb). In the context of the contest Stephen Tavener (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/mrraow) has set out to program as many of the entries as possible in his java based generic AI program, and Starweb is now included. The program plays a fairly mean game and you will need a good strategy and clever tactics to beat it. Enjoy! :) Download Stephen's AI program (http://mrraow.com/index.php/aiai-home/) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 4th, 2018, 7:49am Stephen Tavener (https://boardgamegeek.com/user/mrraow)'s AI AI now includes four of my games in two more or less related pairs, Havannah (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/havannah/) & Starweb (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/starweb/) and Symple (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/symple/) & Sygo (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/sygo/). The last couple of days I had to necessarily brush up my Sygo play because I got beaten four times in a row on an 11x11 board. Come on! Then I had a narrow loss and a narrow win on 15x15. I should maybe mention at this point that AI AI's thinking time was set to 1 minute per placement. Sygo may well have positions that allow some ten placements per turn. So I had to sit it out a bit, sometimes. Anyway, then came 19x19 and here are images of a position and the subsequent position in the first game: http://i65.tinypic.com/os7512.png http://i67.tinypic.com/fngysy.png AI AI played black and his last placement is indicated. The group involved is dead of course, as is the black group in the top left corner. As are, alas, the two white groups top right. The bottom diagram shows the position after I grew six groups, capturing the black group bottom right in the process. But I lost the game because I lost the centre. The next game I had my revenge and more or less obliterated my opponent. This version is extremely aware of life and death and creating eye space, but as it turned out a little nearsighted. So sneakily circumfencing a target and then trapping it in an ambush turned out to be quite successful. I'm extremely happy with the implementation! Time perhaps to remind the community that Sygo is a flip capture variant that: - Has no cycles. - Has an embedded and totally fair balancing mechanism, so it needs no komi. - Is the only flip capture Go variant that needs no additional mechanism or rule to ensure life. Now understandably Sygo was never played all that much but Stephen's AI AI plays a very good game, so if you want to learn to play it well, I can't at the moment imagine a better way to do that. Download Stephen's AI AI (http://mrraow.com/index.php/aiai-home/) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 12th, 2018, 12:00pm I'm very happy to announce the release of Storisende by Stephen Tavener (http://mrraow.com/index.php/aiai-home/) in his AI AI: Download AI AI (http://mrraow.com/index.php/aiai-home/aiai/) Storisende has not yet been relased at mindsports.nl and has not yet been added to the BGGdatabase. I'm glad to reassure everyone that it has been played :) You can find the rules here (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/747) (for now). I'm especially glad about the graphics Stephen provided. The "only couples can breed" angle that is at the the core of the game, actually materialised! The program has 5 playing levels, a time setting of 1/10 of a second to an hour, and is better on smaller boards. I suggest convex boards for beginners. I play max strength and 1 minute per move on 14 modules in a convex layout and now I can win thanks to a couple of new tactics I learned from the AI. http://i65.tinypic.com/555l4n.png A hint: Storisende is a territory game, but only if you manage to survive in the first place. So look at this. http://i64.tinypic.com/2j3h24z.png Material is still equal, but the distribution is very different. White controls the Wall and Black gets suffocated. http://i67.tinypic.com/w06lco.png In a territorial context the game was already over, but the image is to show that growth (or options thereto) and extermination play a key role and that controlling the Wall beats 'controlling' territory. Black is stuck in a couple of patches, White has free range. I'm aware of the fact that my 'last game' has become something of a running gag at BGG and indeed, I can't quite exclude a game coming out of the blue like Starweb (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/starweb/) last year, but lately I prefer thinking about inventing rather than engaging in it. Dieter Stein (https://spielstein.com) made Polar (https://spielstein.com/games/polar) and then Urbino (https://spielstein.com/games/urbino). Polar is a game based on core behaviour that almost inherently points to its rules. The invention process is inside out (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/on-inside-out-inventing). Urbino is assembled and the core behaviour of Polar is one of its parts. The invention process is outside in, not starting with core behaviour but with external requirements not only for a good game, which is still a first requirement for Dieter, I'm sure, but also for a good product. I notice that a natural game with high organicity, like Polar, is considered to be less likely to be succesful as a product than a far less organic but more interesting looking game like Urbino. To overexpose what I'm saying: If we didn't know that Go was such a great game, it would look rather dull, especially if compared to Chess. I'm quite sure that for the average onlooker the initial behaviour of Urbino is far more interesting than that of Polar and that this makes it a better product. It's what the buyers want so it makes perfect sense. But it often obscures discussions about what makes a good game. I trust Dieter to have made Urbino a good game, but I could immediately see that Polar was a very good game. But a game whose behaviour you slowly have to learn. A game that might eventually turn into a 'sport weapon'. But not a game that behaves interestingly from scratch. This, in short, is what I'm focussing on lately, and one of the reasons is practical: inside out inventing is far less bothered by rule changes, modifications, bugs, 'special' rules and the like than outside in. Starweb emerged in seconds and the one rule that solved both decisiveness and symmetric play followed the next day. Storisende is based on two kinds of core behaviour, the organic emergence of the Wall and the Focus way of moving stacks, with capture by replacement so that they all remain one colour. So when a birdie whispered "only doubles can breed" the whole thing became self explanatory and I've played it in my head for weeks on end because Ed was otherwise occupied. But nothing changed of course and nothing has changed since. It's a great organic game incorporating about every aspect of abstract strategy. Its goal is territorial but its sub-goals include elimination, connection, race, blockade, general fights, local fights, invasions, careful manoeuvring and a host of specific tactics, some of which I'm sure are yet to be discovered. Although I've done my best to make it recreational, it turned out to be a game of deep strategy. That's why I can beat the AI, long term planning and an increasing awareness of the role and use of tactics, some of which I was taught by the AI itself. Thing is: you have to slowly learn its behaviour before it gives something in return. I'm extremely happy with it because I couldn't have wished for a better game to be my last. P.S. Being able to beat the AI is relative. On a 7-modules convex board (max strength, one minute) I've lost more games than I've won. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 14th, 2018, 5:00am I've finally played a fairly balanced game against the AI (maximum stregth, one minute thinking time) and thus I've finally seen it to the end. Storisende is a territory game but its goal can only be reached by winning the fight on the Wall, and this is basically an elimination game. The interaction between the two goals, one formal and one inherent, is so far as I know new in the realm of abstract strategy games. That's why I wrestled so long with visualising the endgame when I wasn't able to play yet. I knew all the time how it should end, but its nice to see it acted out. The final count according to the AI was Black 9, White 8. That's because Stephen went from the premiss that 'areas of territory never merge' which is totally true, but only during the game. After the game tiled cells, if any, count as territory as if the tiles weren't there. I've clarified that in the rules (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/747) now and Stephen will adapt the AI shortly. http://i66.tinypic.com/skx35h.png Considering the above it will be clear that Black will not move the man on the tiled cell at the top. As it is it claims 5 cells, should it move then it would result in two 2-cell territories with only one of them claimed. For the same reason the black man in the center claims 3 cells: the tile is considered to be absent. That being said it will be clear that White has 16 cells and Black has 8. The black man on the Wall is able to claim the last unclaimed cell. As it is that's totally unnecessary, but suppose the score were 12-12 instead of 16-8. In a strategic sense I went for a slight majority on the Wall. I always do but this time it worked out. Fights on the Wall have a a lot of 'trapping tactics' to support them. Exchanging is one thing, but isolating a man in one of the numerous niches, attacking it while simultaneously covering its escape cells is better and requires very delicate manoeuvring. This allowed me eventually to eliminate White on the Wall and use the survivors to claim enough territory. And if it had been 12-12 with one black man still on the Wall and one territory cell still unclaimed, now that would have been the way a balanced game should end (of course after the last man on the Wall has claimed the last cell). But this was near enough :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jun 20th, 2018, 11:19am Storisende has been published at mindsports: Storisende (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/storisende/). I've also written a little essay: Organicity in Abstract Strategy Games (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/organicity-in-abstract-strategy-games) that was previously published at Nick Bentley Games (https://nickbentley.games). Also, Moving Forward Looking Back (http://www.mindsports.nl/index.php/moving-forward-looking-back) now includes Storisende, although for a different reason. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by aaaa on Jun 21st, 2018, 10:24am What's your take on this attempt at a playable go variant on a hex board? https://nickbentley.games/2018/03/14/blooms-rules/ & https://nickbentley.games/2018/05/31/life-in-blooms/ |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jun 21st, 2018, 12:05pm on 06/21/18 at 10:24:49, aaaa wrote:
I think Nick would agree that Blooms is quite exemplary for an inside out invention with a matching organic behaviour. The basic idea was to reduce the large number of liberties on a hex grid and Nick's solution is brilliantly simple. Characteristically the implications of Blooms' behaviour are, while still under investigation, surprising already, as the article shows. A great find! |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 7th, 2018, 12:17pm Summer in the Netherlands started in May and barring the first three weeks of June it has been unrelenting. I enjoyed it but it has been going on a bit so I'm glad we're bound to go normal. Meanwhile my main occupation has been to keep an eye on the snakes, sunbathing in the garden. Big beach umbrella, lots of coffee and marihuana and good music (optional). No games except for playing Dameo and Storisende (now playable at mindsports) online. However, I'd like to introduce you to a provisional Grand Chess program (http://www.ericjoycefilm.com/wastesoftime/boardgames/grandchess/) made by Eric Joyce. It looks great and it's provisional because he plans to implement considerable improvements. At the moment the program is rather slow. Here's a quote from the accompanying mail: Quote:
Enjoy :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 1st, 2018, 10:33am Luctor et Submergo - playing Emergo against Stephen Tavener's AiAi Stephen Tavener has implemented Emergo (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/emergo/) in his AiAi. It's the square version on a 7x7 and a 9x9 board (if played on the dark squares of a checkered board, the actual boards are 'orthogonalised'). http://i64.tinypic.com/2lw7r00.gif I've always maintained that you don't need a neural network to make an Emergo AI with superhuman capabilities, and indeed, Stephen didn't. In the last three days I've played more than a hundred 7x7 games against it, giving the AI 5 seconds for a move and needing on avarage about a minute myself. I won barely ten. On two occasions when I thought victory was mine, it managed a combination that resulted in self blocking (and thus a draw). The program is ruthless but it is a great teacher. It shows the efficiency of the game by not wasting any time in wiping you off the board (while you actually remain on the board). For beginners it looks like chaos, but there's order in it. It requires a form of visualisation that is very familiar for Draughts players. Although Emergo knows a placement stage (exellently handled by the AI) it is by all means a movement game. I'd almost say the ultimate movement game. Here you are, and a few plies down you're in a totally different position. I highly recommend the progam. You won't believe the tricks it can show on a 25 cells board with 2x8 men. If you don't think it is possible to have a game that in human terms is inexhaustible, with such limited material, then you might want to reconsider. You can download the program here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LhaBBzUMwvXFqGD7uAVi7z7VMyXI5IBD/view). It would be nice for interested posters to announce their first victory against the AI in this very thread. For me it will count as a proof that you actually understand the game. P.S. As always, 'legal' is implemented perfectly. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 12th, 2019, 6:07am Chess+ Nick Bentley and yours truly designed a new entrance to "The old Lady's Castle", with much the same arguments that Fischer gave for Chess960: better balance and a strongly reduced impact of accumulated opening theory. However, Chess960 is unsatisfactory in terms of architecture. I'll leave that without comment at this time. Nick and I feel Chess+ is better, simpler and more integrated, because the entering protocol and the normal move protocol are interwoven. But feelings are for hippies. This is quite new and whether it delivers what it is intended to deliver remains to be seen. There is a chance Stephen Tavener will include it in his AiAi engine, and if and when that happens, test procedures over large numbers of Ai vs Ai games will be possible. 'Nuff said, here are the rules: Quote:
P.S. If you wonder about bishops, so did we. :) Edit: There's a thread running at BGG (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2128692/chess) about the protocol and in it is a reference to this article by Frederic Friedel (https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-problem-with-chess960). In the article the author mentions a problem of Chess960 players who, confronted with a set-up neither did choose, sometimes start a game in a state bordering on catatonia. May I add this consideration regarding the difference of both protocols. Chess960 confronts players with an opening arrangement that they didn't choose and that didn't evolve. And that's a big deal! A Chess+ opening evolves in every single game, so the typical cases of catatonia that are mentioned in the article will never occur: players grow into the game and an initial position doesn't have to be decided upon. We consider that another significant advantage. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 13th, 2019, 9:01am And now for something completely different, Stephen Tavener's AiAi (http://mrraow.com/index.php/aiai-home/) now supports online play, either live or turnbased, without a browser. The program is java based and free. It features a lot of games including a couple of mine, in particular Storisende (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/storisende/), a game I'm quite taken to, not because I haven't lost a game in it (I played maybe six or seven games) but because of its merger of a formal territorial goal and an embedded existential one, that dominate strategic thinking at different stages. I'm willing to play against anyone who enjoys a game with a wide array of strategies and tactics. But be warned, it's not a short game. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Mar 8th, 2019, 7:37am I've written a little piece on Storisende strategy called Strategic fundamentals (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2163644/storisende-strategic-fundamentals). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 9th, 2019, 8:04am The winners of the BGG Best Combinatorial 2-Player Game 2018 (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/31931485#31931485) are: 1 Blooms and Hermetica (ex aequo) 12 points 3 Storisende 11 points Nick Bentley's Blooms has been extensively discussed at BGG and has been played quite a lot during that time. Hermetica has been marketed and is visually very attractive. It seems like a good game to me but I haven't played it. I feel these were rather strong competitors so I'm very happy to see Storisende following so closely. :) I hadn't quite expected it because it's a game with an unusual strategic storyline that really takes some time to grasp. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 17th, 2019, 5:16am I'm eternally grateful for all the work Ed did, completely voluntary, by creating mindsports (http://mindsports.nl/) to support my games. So with java applets going the way of the dinosaur I really thought it was just a matter of time before mindsports would follow suit. Of course I wasn't happy about it, but starting all over again in html5, I thought, would be a bit to much to ask. So although we discussed the possibility occasionally, I never asked. That's why I was elated to hear him say "I've had it with java" and that he intends to rebuild the site in html5. I was quick to say that so far as I'm concerned 'the Pit' merely contains collateral damage and that only ArenA games would need the option of online play, and maybe not even all of them. It's a lot of work nevertheless and for Ed it's a hobby in between a job and other hobbies, so it'll start when it starts and progress gradually. The first games will be the more simple ones, implementation wise, like Symple and Havannah. It's great to realise we're still alive! :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jun 25th, 2019, 11:35am http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz It's a start :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by clyring on Jun 30th, 2019, 12:28pm Exciting. The interface technology, while certainly not the only factor, has definitely been an impediment to my occasionally stepping back onto my old mindsports.nl account. It looks like the new Dameo board has an issue wherein a piece reaching its promotion rank via capture immediately promotes and then continues capturing as a king, rather than promotion only occurring at turn's end. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jun 30th, 2019, 2:11pm on 06/30/19 at 12:28:41, clyring wrote:
Thanks, we'll look into it (or, more precisely, Ed will). All beginnings are a bit shaky but we expect the transition to be completed before year's end. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jul 13th, 2019, 11:28am Ed considers javascript a nice language with a certain amount of freedom that stimulates creativity. I wouldn't know of course but the results are not bad: http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz There's a couple of more games now. The main focus is not AI but rather making a good way for players to engage in human vs human games and these implementations will be the backbone. Meanwhile Aleh Tapalnitski from Belarus is writing a very good Dameo tutor called "Meet Dameo". It is some 50+ pages now and I do some language editing and proofreading. The content is impressive to say the least. Aleh has a great talent for examples and problems of high quality and a particularly ingenious character. I'll keep you posted. David Ploog's book on abstract games is getting along fine and I'm doing some of the proofreading there too. There are several threads about it running at BGG. Abundance of Abstracts (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2185116/abundance-abstracts) is one of them. Although I had planned it, the weather doesn't support apathy. I need more sunshine for that. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 18th, 2019, 7:04am Ed will be off on a holiday shortly but look where we are (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz). Today Explocus (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/527-explocus) was added with an AI that was already invincible back in the eighties. That makes twenty games so far that can be played without java. Eight of them feature AI's. However, the column checkers AI's don't have the obligation of 'maximal capture' implemented yet and in human vs. human play they don't expect it to be followed, so in that case players should look to it. The 'undo' feature may come in handy in such a case. The regular draughts games (Draughts, Dameo, Hexdame) do have maximal capture implemented. The ploblem with column checkers (Emergo, Hexemergo, Stapeldammen) is that a piece can be jumped more than once in the same turn. It's in the pipeline. Meanwhile Hexemergo is crazy enough to feature the AI for the fun of it: it will usually capture maximally anyway and it's not hard to beat by players who understand the game. Not so with Explocus, equally crazy if not more. You can't beat it because there are no players yet who understand the game. The rules yes, no problem, but not the game. :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Aug 27th, 2019, 10:44am Just when I was beginning to wonder if Ed would be back from his holiday he mailed that he going on it, end of the week. But in the meantime 30 games have been disenjavaed by now (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz), Go being the latest. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Sep 23rd, 2019, 5:20am Meet Dameo (http://mindsports.nl/images/stories/arena/damvar/Dameo.pdf) I'm very happy to announce that Aleh Tapalnitski has finished his labour of love and the result is a great introduction in the game, with a lot of basic tactics and problems as well as example games with ample in-depth commentaries and clear diagrams. I love it! :) |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Oct 23rd, 2019, 12:58pm There are 32 games that can be played java-free (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz) at mindsports, while Dameo (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/dameo) and Hexdame (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/hexdame) have now been completely disenjavaed. Emergo is next. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Nov 6th, 2019, 3:23pm MindSports is progressively java free (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz) and the latest additions are Grand Chess, Chess and Chess+. Of the first two we have example games and problems, now all java free, but we don't have any Chess+ games yet. Our request to the good Chess players at Arimaa is to come to mindsports.nl and play Chess+ (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/chess-plus) and have a chance to have your game immortalised as an example game. Consider 'legal' to be fully tailored to the entering stage. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 18th, 2020, 3:05pm MindSports (http://mindsports.nl/) is completely java free now. You can play 70+ games, almost half of them against the AI. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 27th, 2020, 9:12am We added Medusa (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz/982-medusa) and its support act Lotus (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz/983-lotus). They've been out of the limelight for a long time so both as yet lack an example game. I hope to remedy that by I've registering for both games in our Player Section (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/players-section) and I'd love to see you there. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Feb 13th, 2020, 5:45am A couple of new games, Query (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz/985-query), Pylyx (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz/986-pylyx) and Hanniball (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/dagaz/988-hanniball). |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on May 23rd, 2020, 5:36am MindSports (http://mindsports.nl/) is completely java free now. It took about a year and the bulk of the work has been done by Ed van Zon. It was a great run! Personally I've been mostly involved in Storisende (http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/storisende/) and this is a base-7 game (http://mindsports.nl/cgi-bin/Arena/Serve.cgi?file=Storisende1588464694.html) that I play against Kerry Handscomb of Abstract Games Magazine (https://www.abstractgames.org/). I'll leave you to it and only say that Storisende's scenario has a unique division consisting of different stages and that it has great narrative power. |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by christianF on Jan 10th, 2021, 4:00am So I've not been here since May 2020. Storisende, my intended last game, is from April 2018 and I managed almost two years to not invent another game. Quite commendable I would say, but alas, all good intentions must pass. I may be excused for Chess+ (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/chess-plus/) (Nov. 2019), a cooperative effort with Nick Bentley and not really an invention. But in July 2020 a casual remark by Stephen Tavener (of AiAi (http://mrraow.com/index.php/aiai-home/)) led to a Loca (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/1062-loca), a Draughts funny based on a hybrid king/man piece. It's a capture roller coaster towards and endgame. Collateral damage of course, but playable with generic material, so why not. But it was the start of a new wave and before the end of the year there was: Qascade (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/1077-qascade) King's Castle (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/696-kings-castle) XiaGo (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/1091-xiago) DropZone (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/1095-dropzone) WedgeLock (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/1096-wedgelock) and Migong (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/the-pit/1097-migong), a cooperative effort with Luis Bolaños Mures (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/luigi87). It went so fast that none of these have an app yet, but they all will have one shortly. The first one wil be of Cannons & Bullets (https://mindsports.nl/index.php/how-i-invented-games-and-why-not/late-arrivals-a-final-whispers?start=27), my first 2021 game. It's a mixed bag but it seems I'm still alive 8) . |
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Title: Re: Christian Freeling on inventing games (part 2) Post by omar on Jan 31st, 2021, 2:19am Wow, you've been quite busy in 2020. I read your interview in Abstract Games recently. https://www.abstractgames.org/uploads/1/1/6/4/116462923/abstract_games_issue_18.pdf Good to see this magazine is back. |
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