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NickBentley
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1035 on: Nov 26th, 2012, 4:18pm »

Quote:

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.

 
Ok, I think this is clarifying the difference of approach for me, although I emphasize that I too feel that certain games are discovered rather than designed. The ideal that I'm always pursuing is a game that is both completely organic and also wildly addictive/engaging (for me), and I believe that these two don't always correlate (though they often do). So, for example, Hex is more organic than Slither, but Slither is more addictive/engaging than Hex.  
 
In practice, it means that I sometimes compromise one or the other virtue in order to find the "best" overall ruleset. I also sometimes feel that one way to find organic rulesets is to start from some non-organic ruleset in nearby design space, and to understand it well enough that you can find the more organic stuff nearby. Ketchup was designed this way, for example. The rules for the first version of Ketchup were three times as long as they are now.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1036 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 6:07am »

on Nov 26th, 2012, 4:18pm, NickBentley wrote:
Ok, I think this is clarifying the difference of approach for me, although I emphasize that I too feel that certain games are discovered rather than designed. The ideal that I'm always pursuing is a game that is both completely organic and also wildly addictive/engaging (for me), and I believe that these two don't always correlate (though they often do). So, for example, Hex is more organic than Slither, but Slither is more addictive/engaging than Hex.

Well, you said it, "for me". That would include your view of Hex and Slither. Others might feel otherwise, or indeed have a completely opposite view. For me Hex and Y are diamonds, simple, organic, self-explanatory and awfully deep. But I don't play them all that much. However, I can easily imagine how someone could be totally fascinated by them. As for Slither, I wouldn't argue that it is less organic, and you're the living testimony to the fact that it is capable of casting a spell on someone Wink . I suck at it (25 won out of 75 at LG), but that doesn't affect my high opinion of the game. Taste is inherently subjective, but simplicity and structural elegance are not.
 
on Nov 26th, 2012, 4:18pm, NickBentley wrote:
In practice, it means that I sometimes compromise one or the other virtue in order to find the "best" overall ruleset. I also sometimes feel that one way to find organic rulesets is to start from some non-organic ruleset in nearby design space, and to understand it well enough that you can find the more organic stuff nearby. Ketchup was designed this way, for example. The rules for the first version of Ketchup were three times as long as they are now.

As long as one gets there, the route isn't all that important, and I do understand self-chosen restrictions (and even see the advantages). I fail to understand however why games outside the realm to which the Church restricts itself, should be left unconsidered altogether.
 
Glorieta
You posted it at rga, got 20 views and no replies yet in 5 days, and are currently being overrun by Rampart, Shuffle & Squinch of Cyclophobia Incorporated. Shuffle seems the most interesting, a kind of "Mad Queens" in slomo. Squinch has already been disqualified by its inventor, and Rampart shows that CC is still a dedicated follower of the Church. It's the kind of game you might design if you contemplate Tanbo long enough. Like two years.
 
I found your evaluation of Glorieta at rga:
Quote:
While a revision of a game isn't usually a notable event, this one is more noteworthy than other revisions I've posted, because in more or less completely restructuring this game, I employed mechanics which I believe are a) new; and importantly b) have broad potential for application beyond this particular game.  
 
Two novel mechanisms:  
 
1. The use of neutral stones to make loop formation inevitable. The interest here is that the same mechanism can make a wide range of other patterns viable as game goals that aren't possible by any other mechanism I know of.  
 
2. The employment of a “hand” of stones. While “hands” of items like cards are among the oldest game mechanics, I’ve not seen the concept applied to a no-luck, perfect-info, abstract game. It strikes me that there’s great scope for innovation here. "Hands" allow you to enforce variety of turn/move types, of many different kinds, in an intuitive way. For example, you can force players to make sequences of hot and cold moves, as is the case in Glorieta: flipping a stone is a cold move, but placing stones are hot moves, and in Glorieta you have a hand of stones to ensure you make a cold move on a certain percentage of your turns. The concept of “hands” is such a general and generally unused idea in abstract games that I plan explore it heavily in future games.

The use of neutral stone isn't all that new, even in this particular way. In your own game Shello they're fixed, but I've seen Othello based games using 'active' neutral stones too. So you're right about application in other games, but it isn't a novelty.
The "stack" is interesting as a means to movetype distribution, and the implementation in Glorieta is particularly interesting because if its flexible 'timing' of compulsory reversals. I see a slight cause for possible confusion in the wording:
  • 3. ... If you run out of stones in your hand, your turn is over.
  • 4. You must choose to flip a stone at least once for each handful of stones. You can do so after you’ve used all the stones from your hand, ...
I know that a compulsory reversal that still may be part of the 6-cylcle (sorry Wink ) that just ended, is a new turn, but I misinterpreted it at first.
 
I'm curious how you proved that "the game will always end with a loop and there will never be a draw". Not that I doubt it, and the proof may be quite simple, but I suck at deductive thinking Tongue .
 
Edit: Sorry, don't bother, flipping to neutral, you can't escape ring formation. Imagine, that took me half a day Smiley .
« Last Edit: Nov 28th, 2012, 10:29am by christianF » IP Logged
NickBentley
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1037 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 10:55am »

Quote:
As long as one gets there, the route isn't all that important, and I do understand self-chosen restrictions (and even see the advantages). I fail to understand however why games outside the realm to which the Church restricts itself, should be left unconsidered altogether.

 
To be clear, I don't think they should be left unconsidered, just that I'm not the one to consider them. Trying to explore just a tiny part of drawless game space is more than I can handle. The most exciting thing about being a game designer is just how vast the design spaces are compared to my minds puny ability to contemplate them.  
 
Quote:
Rampart shows that CC is still a dedicated follower of the Church. It's the kind of game you might design if you contemplate Tanbo long enough. Like two years.

 
I haven't tried Mark's new game yet, but I've played Rampart and my first impression of it could hardly have been better. Corey put a ton of thought into it and it seems to have paid off. (for the record I don't like Tanbo all that much to play, even though I think the core idea is interesting and Corey seems to have proved that with Rampart- the devil is in the details).
 
Quote:
The use of neutral stone isn't all that new

 
I *didn't* mean to say that the use of neutral stones generally is new. Rather what's new is the use of neutral stones to make *any stone pattern goal* inevitable in a game. I mention this because I thought it might be useful for game designers to contemplate.  
 
This goes back to why loop-formation is inevitable in Glorieta, so I'll tackle that question while answering this one.  
 
In Glorieta, on a turn you either drop stones or flip a stone. When the board is full, you can no longer drop stones, which means you must proceed by flipping. If you kept flipping for as many turns as possible, you'd end up with a board full of neutrals and nothing else.  
 
At some point prior, a loop would have formed, containing neutrals and at least one stone owned by just one player. That player wins. In practice, you want the game to end long before that, because the game is rather too cold at that point, but that's a simple matter of forcing players to create neutrals in the proper proportion to their own stones throughout the game.  
 
But back to the inevitability of a loop: just as a loop is inevitable, so is any other pattern of stones you can think of. I found this worth noting because their are hoards of games that choose some pattern of stones as the winning condition (every n-in-a-row game, and every connection game, just to name two large genres), and the choice of pattern goal is always constrained by the fact that the goal can't be too hard. If it's too hard to achieve, then neither player will and the game will always end in a draw. This is why there are no games with a goal of "10-in-a-row" or "connect to all six sides of a hex board with one group".  
 
This mechanism allows you set *any* stone pattern as a goal (as long as you don't define empty spaces as part of the pattern) and to create a game where one player will inevitably create that pattern and win. There are millions to try, and the vast majority won't be good, but maybe there are some in there worth trying.  
 
I think Glorieta is one. The reason I've been fascinated by the idea of making a game where the winning condition is a loop on a hex board, is that loops on hex boards have the potential to act as both tactical and strategic goals. A six stone loop is a very tactical goal, but loops can also be these huge winding things that can only be established over the course of a whole game. There aren't very many win conditions that work on both levels: connection goals are typically mostly strategic, n-in-a-row are typically highly tactical, etc.  
 
One thing I love about Havannah is that it addresses the issue in this beautifully simple way: just have multiple goals that sit at different points along the tactics/strategy spectrum. Voila! A great game. But pondering Havannah, many years ago, it occurred to me that if loops were easier to form, loops would actually be all you need, because different sized loops sit all over the tactics/strategy spectrum. And that's when I began trying to figure out how to make it  happen. That's lead to this very long exploration that has resulted in Glorieta.  Not to say that Glorieta is better than Havannah or anything: the cost of imposing the unified win condition is a more complicated turn structure. I just think it's cool that it turned out to be possible at all. It probably seems rather more cool to me than to anyone else, simply because I've spent an embarrassing amount of time working on it. I've known the general solution with neutrals for something like three years now, but creating a fun (for me) game out of it turned out to be hard.  
 
Quote:
I see a slight cause for possible confusion in the wording:
  • 3. ... If you run out of stones in your hand, your turn is over.
  • 4. You must choose to flip a stone at least once for each handful of stones. You can do so after you’ve used all the stones from your hand, ...
I know that a compulsory reversal that still may be part of the 6-cylcle (sorry Wink ) that just ended, is a new turn, but I misinterpreted it at first.

 
Yeah, I need to refine the wording
 
One more thing: still strying to characterize the differences our approach. It seems like it comes down to simple differences in tastes: for you, the most "organic" game is always (or an any case almost always) the most interesting to play (eg for you, Hex is more interesting to play than Slither), so it makes sense for you to pursue the most organic mechanisms, and you'll end up with games you like. Whereas the correlation isn't as strong to me, so I'm more willing to veer away from organic games. Does this sound accurate?
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NickBentley
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1038 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 11:05am »

One more thing: although indeed, nobody seems to care about Glorieta at R.G.A. it's gotten more traffic than my other game design posts overall. Most posts get 300-500 visitors on the day of the post, but Glorieta got 800, so someone seems interested (even if I'm not exactly sure who!), and that is some small consolation. It's always hard being interested in things that other people aren't.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1039 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 12:24pm »

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

having Ketchup climb the ladder up to 5.0 before settling on 4.0 almost suggests indulgence.

You can't be serious.  The only difference between Nick's perpetual tweakfest and yours is that Nick is honest about his.  When you regret your most recent update, you give it a unique name and let it fade into obscurity.  
 
One has to note the sheer volume of tweaks.  Nothing could rival the perfect tweakstorm culminating in Hanniball 15.0.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1040 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 1:18pm »

on Nov 28th, 2012, 10:55am, NickBentley wrote:
To be clear, I don't think they should be left unconsidered, just that I'm not the one to consider them.

I mean not only as a design goal but in general. If a game has cycles it's usually hammered down. Thus introducing some nuance in the realm of cycles is difficult. For some "to be caught in an endless game cycle" is to horrific to even contemplate. Others say "ok, a draw, have some coffee?", and start the next game.
 
on Nov 28th, 2012, 10:55am, NickBentley wrote:
I haven't tried Mark's new game yet, but I've played Rampart and my first impression of it could hardly have been better. Corey put a ton of thought into it and it seems to have paid off. (for the record I don't like Tanbo all that much to play, even though I think the core idea is interesting and Corey seems to have proved that with Rampart - the devil is in the details).

Mark's game could hardly be more blunt. Strategically it will probably remain opaque in the opening but there's room for emerging clarity of tactics toward the endgame.
Corey certainly had enough time to put into it so maybe I should have a more careful look at it.
 
on Nov 28th, 2012, 10:55am, NickBentley wrote:
If you kept flipping for as many turns as possible, you'd end up with a board full of neutrals and nothing else. At some point prior, a loop would have formed, containing neutrals and at least one stone owned by just one player.

Yes, I figured that out way too slow Smiley
 
on Nov 28th, 2012, 10:55am, NickBentley wrote:
But back to the inevitability of a loop: just as a loop is inevitable, so is any other pattern of stones you can think of.
...
This mechanism allows you set *any* stone pattern as a goal (as long as you don't define empty spaces as part of the pattern) and to create a game where one player will inevitably create that pattern and win. There are millions to try, and the vast majority won't be good, but maybe there are some in there worth trying.

That's an interesting aspect of it, and there are quite a few game principles that might be considered in that light. One for the toolbox.
 
on Nov 28th, 2012, 10:55am, NickBentley wrote:
Not to say that Glorieta is better than Havannah or anything: the cost of imposing the unified win condition is a more complicated turn structure. I just think it's cool that it turned out to be possible at all. It probably seems rather more cool to me than to anyone else, simply because I've spent an embarrassing amount of time working on it. I've known the general solution with neutrals for something like three years now, but creating a fun (for me) game out of it turned out to be hard.

I think its a good game indeed. And Havannah was just a lucky merger, nothing 'innovative' about it.
 
on Nov 28th, 2012, 10:55am, NickBentley wrote:
One more thing: still strying to characterize the differences our approach. It seems like it comes down to simple differences in tastes: for you, the most "organic" game is always (or an any case almost always) the most interesting to play (eg for you, Hex is more interesting to play than Slither), so it makes sense for you to pursue the most organic mechanisms, and you'll end up with games you like. Whereas the correlation isn't as strong to me, so I'm more willing to veer away from organic games. Does this sound accurate?

I like to think in terms of what an organism would 'want' and I like it to pursue its object with means that are both necessary and sufficient. You cannot always avoid arbitrary decisions, but that's what I strive for: to eliminate the inventor from the process! That's the deepest motivation I have, and that's also the reason that I don't care too much about 'taste': if a game is self explanatory, then that is what you get, like it or not.
In practice, if you've got the mechanics and the object aligned, half the job is done. If you have one without the other, you're nowhere yet. Mu behaves very complicated yet I could 'discover' it on a nightly bikeride because I had both the mechanics (and very simple ones at that) and the object. There's very little arbitrary in Mu. There are slightly different move protocols for levis and velox, and the capacity of cells of the wall differs from the rest of the cells. That's about as much choices as I had to make, and even these suggested themselves naturally. Mu_velox turned out as Pinball meeting Risk in an abstract no-luck perfect-information environment. I find that fascinating. And despite expectations to the contrary (come on guys, be honest Smiley ) it is rock solid in it's behaviour. But it is what it is. I found it, it explained itself and I respect that.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1041 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 1:22pm »

on Nov 28th, 2012, 12:24pm, MillyOatfish wrote:
You can't be serious.

No, but I can recommend one who is. You might even know him, or rather 'them', fairly intimately.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1042 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 3:26pm »

on Nov 24th, 2012, 5:15am, christianF wrote:
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 .
It's hard to say, Christian, because the level of Havannah play is still quite low. As far as I can tell, there aren't opening books, tactical problems, or anything else similar.  
 
Not that I expect Havannah to be overcome by draws, but it's going out on a limb to judge what will happen.  
 
I'm not particularly worried. If it happens, it happens, and we all find new games to play.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1043 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 3:55pm »

on Nov 28th, 2012, 3:26pm, hyperpape wrote:

 It's hard to say, Christian, because the level of Havannah play is still quite low. As far as I can tell, there aren't opening books, tactical problems, or anything else similar.  
 
Not that I expect Havannah to be overcome by draws, but it's going out on a limb to judge what will happen.  

Exactly.  For me it's about pride of craftsmanship.  If my finite game were to grow to the extent that Chess has, academic since that'll never happen to any modern game, there wouldn't be a cycling issue.  It's also more challenging to design with the imperative of finitude.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1044 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 3:58pm »

on Nov 28th, 2012, 3:26pm, hyperpape wrote:
I'm not particularly worried. If it happens, it happens, and we all find new games to play.

By that time I guess I won't be thinking outside my box, and neither will you Grin .
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1045 on: Nov 28th, 2012, 4:30pm »

on Nov 28th, 2012, 3:58pm, christianF wrote:

By that time I guess I won't be thinking outside my box,

You'll be thinking inside a box.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1046 on: Nov 29th, 2012, 2:36am »

on Nov 28th, 2012, 4:30pm, MillyOatfish wrote:

You'll be thinking inside a box.

Yes, Milly, that was my point, didn't you notice?
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1047 on: Nov 29th, 2012, 4:30am »

Some thirteen billion years ago the universe was still in dipers. Actually it didn't 'exist' because there was no smartass who thought "hey, I think, therefore I am, therefore that funny stuff surrounding me must also 'be'.
 
Some thirty or forty billion years from now the universe will have expanded till the point of evaporating black holes and ripping atoms apart. Actually it won't 'exist' because there won't be a smartass to think "hey, I think, therefore I am, therefore that funny stuff surrounding me must also 'be'.
 
In between there was a sudden pop and light and sound and smell and taste and touch poured in and they told me that I was a boy named Chris and this was Enschede, the Netherlands, and World War 2 was just over. A nanosecond later, against that timescale, I'll pop back into that unproblematic state of non-existence that got me through World War 2 without even noticing.
 
Is there a clue? Not really I'm afraid. "Life is fundamentally futile, and great games are a tribute to precisely that" it says on the mindsports homepage. My quest for excellence is rooted in dealing with futility.
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1048 on: Nov 29th, 2012, 9:45am »

on Nov 29th, 2012, 2:36am, christianF wrote:

didn't you notice?

Oops, didn't realize we'd entered the Mt. Doom zone again.  
 
The shadow of Mt.Doom is long
You'll miss me when I'm gone
I'll sing this song from dusk till dawn
You'll miss me when I'm gone
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #1049 on: Nov 30th, 2012, 2:18pm »

Our latest game of Mu_velox shows an interesting strategical twist. Ed starts growing in two places, a tube at the top, which was till now considered the obvious strategy, and a 'reverse tube' in the center (around move_17). You usually pick a concave shape to start, but this game shows that starting around a convex shape works just as well, IF you position it well. In this case Ed succeeded in cutting me off in only a few turns.
 
Mu_velox is like riding the bull: it takes a while to adapt to its wild behaviour. But once you can keep your balance, strategy and tactics open up. Small misjudgements are amplified quickly and the sumo syndrome is invariably present, but there's a lot to learn.
 
However, something has come up that'll keep Ed busy for one or two weeks, so we'll take a break.
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