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NickBentley
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1020 on: Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:35pm »

I don't envision them, but I figure if we're really designing games to last for the long haul, we're designing them to be played at a level of which we're mostly ignorant (or at least I am; I don't want to be presumptive). Anyway that's what I try to aim for.  
 
Once players start to see how draws are possible, players can increasingly "play for the draw" to avoid losses, and this can compound the draw problem way beyond what one might expect it to be. See Chess.  
 
So, it may be that a single drawn Havannah game creates new ways of looking and new opportunities for players who want to play competitively, and a few years down the road, draws are way more common than we ever expected. For this reason, it's important to me to find out whether forced draws are possible.  
 
Don't get me wrong though: I really like Ayu and Havannah. It's just that my admiration is conditional, as it is for my own games that carry the same risk.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1021 on: Nov 22nd, 2012, 10:30pm »

Very concise, elegant, and poignant - (shouldn't this be 3 of the x criterion for an abstract game?).  Thnx Nick.
 
Should games be bequeathed to the World before they are completely evolved / vetted?  I say yes ... show us your [current] best stuff.  Otherwise there never would have been a 'chess', for instance.  Chess is a conglomerated consesus from myriad geniuses from around the world through the millennia, and it ain't even done....
 
Put the game out now, but continue to fine-tune - "envision" /  troubleshoot - problems.  I could be wrong, here, though...  (I'm not a game designer.)
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1022 on: Nov 23rd, 2012, 7:07am »

on Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:35pm, NickBentley wrote:
I don't envision them, but I figure if we're really designing games to last for the long haul, we're designing them to be played at a level of which we're mostly ignorant (or at least I am; I don't want to be presumptive). Anyway that's what I try to aim for.

That's an inherent problem of game design. It is hard to look into the future behaviour of new games. Yet some are easier to predict than others because they've got "nowhere to go but deeper". I'd include Ketchup for that matter.
 
on Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:35pm, NickBentley wrote:
Once players start to see how draws are possible, players can increasingly "play for the draw" to avoid losses, and this can compound the draw problem way beyond what one might expect it to be. See Chess.

I agree on Chess. It has the same problems as International Draughts, though as yet to a lighter degree. But Draughts , as a sport, is indeed terminal, where it was very alive just half a century ago. Chess may well go in the same direction. Actually it is hard to see how it could not.
 
on Nov 22nd, 2012, 4:35pm, NickBentley wrote:
So, it may be that a single drawn Havannah game creates new ways of looking and new opportunities for players who want to play competitively, and a few years down the road, draws are way more common than we ever expected. For this reason, it's important to me to find out whether forced draws are possible.  
 
Don't get me wrong though: I really like Ayu and Havannah. It's just that my admiration is conditional, as it is for my own games that carry the same risk.

We're getting somewhere, I can almost see you now Smiley . I suspect that our different points of view may result from different points of departure. I don't know much about how you got involved in abstract game design, only that your criteria aren't all that different. The main difference seems to me that I never had an a priori generic framework. I did never care about specific criteria a game should answer to. I had certain general preferences. For instance, I like completeness and concistency, and dislike arbitraryness. I also dislike absolutism in the application. You cannot look on the outside if you cage yourself in. Be absolute in the dislike of arbitraryness, and you'll never invent a Chess game (I know some might see this as an argument for absolutism).
Another example, Draughts was a great game but it grinded down to draws. Dameo has more or less the same structure. Let's for argument's sake assume it has at least the same to offer. Then it's fairly easy to argue that Dameo has a significantly smaller margin of draws. Sure, it can end in a draw, but it may well take another century before it does. That's disregarding the role of bots, but if bots become the strongest players in abstract games, then the games will become more recreational anyway, and any potential draw problem may never even become manifest. If one then looks at the stunning combinations these games allow, then I fear that excluding them because they can end in a draw, is throwing the baby away with the bathwater.
 
About Havannah, I can't argue against it, but I feel it is absolutism to say that any form of draw will eventually 'spread' and kill the game. I don't think it is that simple. My point of departure has always been the game itself, not the box it should fit in.  
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1023 on: Nov 23rd, 2012, 7:19am »

on Nov 22nd, 2012, 10:30pm, SpeedRazor wrote:
Very concise, elegant, and poignant - (shouldn't this be 3 of the x criterion for an abstract game?).  Thnx Nick.
 
Should games be bequeathed to the World before they are completely evolved / vetted?  I say yes ... show us your [current] best stuff.  Otherwise there never would have been a 'chess', for instance.  Chess is a conglomerated consesus from myriad geniuses from around the world through the millennia, and it ain't even done....
 
Put the game out now, but continue to fine-tune - "envision" /  troubleshoot - problems.  I could be wrong, here, though...  (I'm not a game designer.)

Actually you pinpoint a common source of misunderstanding, loosely linked to whether a game is designed or discovered, mechanic or organic. In retrospect my arguments with Fritzlein on precisely that point, suffered from it. It is also a fairly general notion that time shapes a game.
 
Yet time had a hard time 'shaping' Hex or Othello, and I don't see Havannah being shaped any time soon. It's worth a discussion Smiley .
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1024 on: Nov 23rd, 2012, 10:38am »

The program B_ot by 'Bertrand Lunderer' ('blundrerer', a codecup nick) got to 3rd in the last test competition. Its programmer sent me a webstart version with these comments:
Quote:
I think you should be able to beat my engine, it isn't that strong. I believe I'm 50/50 with it right now, and I discovered the game when you posted about it on the L19 go forum I think, or maybe a bit before when codecup was advertised on the aichallenge board.
It's of course developped with a board of 15x15 with a penalty of 6, but it should also work with any size up to 19x19, and any penalty. It might be a bit weaker, though, but that would be interesting to see.

It also plays at mindsports.nl and I'm in sync with its engine author in that I'm 50/50 too now, with one game won and one game lost, both pretty close.
 
Edit: I'm 75/25 now, with one game won and another game won, the last one very close.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1025 on: Nov 23rd, 2012, 10:57am »

Since I've forgotten again how to do the quotes properly here, I'll just have to use actual quotes:
 
"We're getting somewhere, I can almost see you now. I suspect that our different points of view may result from different points of departure. I don't know much about how you got involved in abstract game design, only that your criteria aren't all that different. The main difference seems to me that I never had an a priori generic framework. I did never care about specific criteria a game should answer to. I had certain general preferences. For instance, I like completeness and concistency, and dislike arbitraryness. I also dislike absolutism in the application. You cannot look on the outside if you cage yourself in. Be absolute in the dislike of arbitraryness, and you'll never invent a Chess game (I know some might see this as an argument for absolutism)."
 
I've voluntarily lowered myself into this box over the last few years. I confess that it is a box. From my point of view, there are both downsides and benefits to the "no draws" box. The benefits are chiefly that it allows me to avoid the risk described above in my game designs, and it has turned out to be a good constraint to force me to be creative. A good example of this: I just published a new version of Glorieta. In the old version, you will recall, draws were possible, and besides the use of neutral stones, the game's mechanics were unoriginal. But in an attempt to eliminate draws, I was forced to invent a new mechanic, and the result, I think, is both a better game and an exploration of a more interesting and unexplored part design space than the older version:  
 
http://nickbentleygames.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/revised-game-glorieta-3 -0/
 
(You'll recall that the starting point for Glorieta was Havannah, which should indicate something about my admiration for Havannah)
 
The main downside is the one you point out: I can completely miss out on a huge swath of design space where surely amazing games lie. At the moment, I feel that the benefits outweigh the downsides, and there's one reason for that: the space of drawless games seems so huge and unexplored that it doesn't much matter that there's this other huge unexplored space I never enter.  
 
"About Havannah, I can't argue against it, but I feel it is absolutism to say that any form of draw will eventually 'spread' and kill the game. I don't think it is that simple."
 
I'm not saying I think it's inevitable. Just that it's a risk. My understanding of Havannah isn't nearly advanced as yours, so you're in a better position to say how much of a risk it is in this case.
 
When I'm designing a new game however, I necessarily start from a position of great ignorance, so I'm in a bad position to make predictions about whether possible draws will become inevitable. In that context, there's a real benefit to staying away, imo.  
 
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MarvinSpellbinder
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1026 on: Nov 23rd, 2012, 3:45pm »

on Nov 23rd, 2012, 10:57am, NickBentley wrote:

When I'm designing a new game however, I necessarily start from a position of great ignorance, so I'm in a bad position to make predictions about whether possible draws will become inevitable. In that context, there's a real benefit to staying away, imo.  

Exactly what I've been saying all along. I'll be long dead by the time my Church of Cyclophobia becomes the dominant religion.  
 
Some things were meant to be feared.
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1027 on: Nov 23rd, 2012, 4:36pm »

on Nov 23rd, 2012, 3:45pm, MarvinSpellbinder wrote:
Some things were meant to be feared.

Are we to understand that you actually fear draws?
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1028 on: Nov 23rd, 2012, 6:13pm »

Cyclophobia  - Morbid fear of getting caught in an endless game cycle.
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1029 on: Nov 24th, 2012, 5:15am »

on Nov 23rd, 2012, 10:57am, NickBentley wrote:
I've voluntarily lowered myself into this box over the last few years. I confess that it is a box. From my point of view, there are both downsides and benefits to the "no draws" box. The benefits are chiefly that it allows me to avoid the risk described above in my game designs, and it has turned out to be a good constraint to force me to be creative. A good example of this: I just published a new version of Glorieta.

Gimme some time on that one, I'm uncharacteristically and rather inexplicably involved in things requiring attention. I prefer the bicolored neutrals, by the way.
 
on Nov 23rd, 2012, 10:57am, NickBentley wrote:
I'm not saying I think it's inevitable. Just that it's a risk. My understanding of Havannah isn't nearly advanced as yours, so you're in a better position to say how much of a risk it is in this case.
 
When I'm designing a new game however, I necessarily start from a position of great ignorance, so I'm in a bad position to make predictions about whether possible draws will become inevitable. In that context, there's a real benefit to staying away, imo.

One documented base-8 draw in thirty years, in a game that has base-10 for its regular board size ... I don't feel it will be a trend any time soon Wink .
 
I agree that excluding draws is one problem gone. Whether that will make balance a more prominent problem may depend on the game. I wouldn't dare to generalize here.
 
On the second issue, despite our criteria being in alignment for the most part, I sense a deep divide in approach, no value judgement implied. It might be interesting to explore that a bit further, if you don't mind. I'll have to focus better to 'pinpoint' it, because such a discussion has all that's needed to diverge into side issues. So I'm in no hurry Smiley .
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1030 on: Nov 26th, 2012, 5:59am »

I've not yet digested Glorieta but I notice that it has "version n.0" (n= 1, 2, 3 ...) in common with several other games you designed. It not an unusual occurence in game inventing, but having Ketchup climb the ladder up to 5.0 before settling on 4.0 almost suggests indulgence. Here's how Glorieta 3.0 is introduced:
Quote:
This isn’t necessarily the last version of Glorieta (but it could be). I’ve made great progress on the game, using (for a second time) a mechanism that I’ve not seen anywhere else, so I’m reporting on it. But the more I design games, the more I’m convinced they’re never actually done. Every ruleset is just a launchpad for another, better ruleset, always in pursuit of a platonic ideal.

The trouble with platonic ideals is that they are based on 'inverse strategy'. That's a Christian's attitude towards God: to guarantee you can keep striving make the goal unattainable.  
 
You can never get it right: this could be the last version, but "the more I design games, the more I’m convinced they’re never actually done. Every ruleset is just a launchpad for another, better ruleset, always in pursuit of a platonic ideal".  
So I conclude that in your vision the last version can never be the final one.
 
I might agree for certain kinds of games that implicitly have an arbitrary basis, like chess variants. But I don't agree that this would hold for abstract games in general. You can tinker with Hex till kingdom come, even come up with interesting new variants, but Hex is Hex and will still be Hex in 2112.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1031 on: Nov 26th, 2012, 8:40am »

on Nov 26th, 2012, 5:59am, christianF wrote:

You can never get it right: this could be the last version, but "the more I design games, the more I’m convinced they’re never actually done. Every ruleset is just a launchpad for another, better ruleset, always in pursuit of a platonic ideal".  
So I conclude that in your vision the last version can never be the final one.
 
I might agree for certain kinds of games that implicitly have an arbitrary basis, like chess variants. But I don't agree that this would hold for abstract games in general. You can tinker with Hex till kingdom come, even come up with interesting new variants, but Hex is Hex and will still be Hex in 2112.

 
When I design a game, I'm trying to create something which is a) elegant; b) fun and stimulating to play. These two aren't the same thing, and I want both. Let's say that I'm Piet Hein/ John Nash and I invent Hex, but then I keep going, and think to myself, "how can I make this connection game more stimulating?"  
 
So I keep looking around in adjacent design space and I come up with Slither. To me, Slither is superior to Hex - it's a little less elegant but it is a lot more engaging to play. The difference between Glorieta 2.0 and Glorieta 3.0, ruleswise, is greater than the difference between Slither and Hex, so maybe you argue that it's confusing to call them by the same name. But they both are attempts to achieve the same goal, and I'm using the same name for all my attempts to achieve that goal.  
 
One reason this may seem like indulgence, I think, is that it's hard to see, just by looking at the rules, that there are (usually) real, and to me important, differences in how engaging the different versions are. And when that's not the case, there's a difference in the degree two which the different versions satisfy the goals I'd set for myself in designing the game.  
 
In Glorieta's case, it's both: the game is both more engaging than the last version, and it satisfies two constraints that the last version did not (drawlessness, and having the players decide where the neutrals go)
 
But about engagement: unless one actually plays the different versions, it's hard to see that there's a real progression, and so the different versions can end up looking like indulgence. But from my point of view, they're not. They're just a history of my progress in becoming a game designer.  
 
Not that I expect anyone to play my games. I'm just obsessed with trying to make the best games I possibly can, and that means constantly trying to do better than I did the last time. If I were publishing games commercially, then there would have to be "final" versions for expedience, but I'm not.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1032 on: Nov 26th, 2012, 9:56am »

on Nov 26th, 2012, 8:40am, NickBentley wrote:
When I design a game, I'm trying to create something which is a) elegant; b) fun and stimulating to play. These two aren't the same thing, and I want both. Let's say that I'm Piet Hein/ John Nash and I invent Hex, but then I keep going, and think to myself, "how can I make this connection game more stimulating?"  
 
So I keep looking around in adjacent design space and I come up with Slither. To me, Slither is superior to Hex - it's a little less elegant but it is a lot more engaging to play. The difference between Glorieta 2.0 and Glorieta 3.0, ruleswise, is greater than the difference between Slither and Hex, so maybe you argue that it's confusing to call them by the same name. But they both are attempts to achieve the same goal, and I'm using the same name for all my attempts to achieve that goal.

Now that you explain it, it makes more sense.
 
on Nov 26th, 2012, 8:40am, NickBentley wrote:
One reason this may seem like indulgence, I think, is that it's hard to see, just by looking at the rules, that there are (usually) real, and to me important, differences in how engaging the different versions are.

It wasn't meant negatively, but if you label different games under the same name, version such&such, people might naturally assume it to be versions of the same game, rather than provisional implementations of the same idea.
 
on Nov 26th, 2012, 8:40am, NickBentley wrote:
But about engagement: unless one actually plays the different versions, it's hard to see that there's a real progression, and so the different versions can end up looking like indulgence. But from my point of view, they're not. They're just a history of my progress in becoming a game designer.

Isn't there a subjective element? Different people like different games. You're not too fond of multiple moves per turn, I usually don't like to play chess type games. That's something else than "I don't like chess type games", because I do. I just suck at them. Likes and dislikes, like your preference for Slither, these things may be in the wiring. A game isn't bad just because you or I don't like it.
 
on Nov 26th, 2012, 8:40am, NickBentley wrote:
Not that I expect anyone to play my games. I'm just obsessed with trying to make the best games I possibly can, and that means constantly trying to do better than I did the last time. If I were publishing games commercially, then there would have to be "final" versions for expedience, but I'm not.

There's no need to avoid it either, unless the thought of a "final" version actually bothers you. But designing the best games you possibly can and not expecting anyone to play them, that's a bit weird, although it does align with you being the sole judge of your own games. But games implicitly need players to judge them, and if you need their feedback, you must throw it for the lions at some point.
Of course that's exactly what you do, so what am I trying to get to ... Smiley .
 
How about this. You called Redstone "viciously good". I'm not going to argue that because different people like different games. My point is that Redstone has conceptual simplicity and that, barring an initial hiccup pointed out by Luis, it 'froze' into its suggested implementation without effort. It 'became what it was', just following the idea. Now there's general agreement about the rules.
 
So if anyone wanted to 'explore' it further, say because you'd like more 'engagement', it must mean finding a new game, doesn't it? Redstone seems quite 'final' to me.
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NickBentley
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1033 on: Nov 26th, 2012, 2:15pm »

Quote:
It wasn't meant negatively, but if you label different games under the same name, version such&such, people might naturally assume it to be versions of the same game, rather than provisional implementations of the same idea.

 
Perhaps there's a better way to name my games. My choice is the result of looking to the future: a decade or two hence, I'll try to cultivate communities of play around my best games (with tournaments, bots, strategy articles, etc), and I know that I'm not going to pick two different attempts to achieve the same goal in the group; there's only going to be one Glorieta-like game in the lot, if there is one at all. This naming convention works in the light of this purpose.  
 
Quote:
Isn't there a subjective element? Different people like different games. You're not too fond of multiple moves per turn, I usually don't like to play chess type games. That's something else than "I don't like chess type games", because I do. I just suck at them. Likes and dislikes, like your preference for Slither, these things may be in the wiring. A game isn't bad just because you or I don't like it.

 
Very subjective. The vast majority of people don't even like this whole genre of games. But I follow my lights and create the things that satisfy me.  
 
Quote:
But designing the best games you possibly can and not expecting anyone to play them, that's a bit weird, although it does align with you being the sole judge of your own games. But games implicitly need players to judge them, and if you need their feedback, you must throw it for the lions at some point.
Of course that's exactly what you do, so what am I trying to get to ... Smiley

 
To be clear, I *want* people to play my games, I just don't expect them to, based on experience. Few people end up playing the games that I design, or any other non-commercial abstract games for that matter. So I need and want their feedback, but sometimes I just don't get it, or at least much of it. Examples: I'm pretty sure my second best design is a game of mine called Odd, but I don't know anyone who has played it lately. The only reason anyone knows about Ketchup is that I spent more time talking about it than I do most of my games. The only reason anyone knows about Slither is that I'm constantly telling people how good it is. Games are generally only known in proportion to how much they're promoted and I'm not promoting my games, so most people don't know about them, don't talk about them, and don't play them. That's fine, for now.  
 
Quote:
How about this. You called Redstone "viciously good". I'm not going to argue that because different people like different games. My point is that Redstone has conceptual simplicity and that, barring an initial hiccup pointed out by Luis, it 'froze' into its suggested implementation without effort. It 'became what it was', just following the idea. Now there's general agreement about the rules.

 
Sure, but again, this is a terminology thing. If had invented Go and Redstone both, they might be called Go 1.0 and Go 2.0, and if I later found an implemention of "surround capture" that I liked even more, I might call it Go 3.0. I would use those names looking forward to the fact that I'd eventually settle on one that I wanted to explore deeply and to promote.  
 
I guess for me, the thing that makes a game final isn't the rules themselves, but when a play community springs up around those rules. That's why Go deserves it's own specific name, separate from Redstone.
 
Someday I'll try to foster play communities around my own games, and then they'll have to have their own unique names, and then they will. But for this development stage of my game design career, the iterative names work better for me.  
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1034 on: Nov 26th, 2012, 2:57pm »

on Nov 26th, 2012, 2:15pm, NickBentley wrote:
I guess for me, the thing that makes a game final isn't the rules themselves, but when a play community springs up around those rules. That's why Go deserves it's own specific name, separate from Redstone.

So here's the divide. I start from a game being an 'organism' that exists even before someone dreams it up. If I get the smell I follow and try to find out how it behaves and what it 'wants'. Kind of a dialogue. If the game is self-explanatory and one keeps an eye on Occam's Razor (not intoducing what isn't necessary), then the result may end up quintessential. Emergo, for instance, is quintessential, and whether people play it or not isn't my business. We found it and published it and made an applet. What more can you do Smiley .
 
I know a game is no organism and doesn't want anything, but thinking that way is pleasant and patient and quite without effort, and it has paid off.
 
Also, only 'organic' games emerge that way. I can assemble a Chess variant in minutes. Organic games are usually 'uniform'. Games with different pieces are more a matter of a good choices and good 'assembly', finding your way through a wood of arbitraryness. Not that interesting.
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