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Topic: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games (Read 522436 times) |
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #300 on: Oct 28th, 2010, 6:01pm » |
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on Oct 28th, 2010, 5:34pm, christianF wrote:
But delicate sensitivities are anybody's prerogative, so be my guest. |
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Man, ease up on clojure  He gets out of bed, takes a bath, and he's baffled before breakfast.
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ocmiente
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #301 on: Oct 28th, 2010, 7:53pm » |
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Quote:Now try Symple. The best strategy for my critics, I suggest, is showing that it's not a great game.
Or keep your silence.
But then, you're doing that already  . |
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Symple is not a great game because it hasn't been around long enough, not many people have played it, there are no strategy books about it, there's no evidence that the first or second player doesn't have some huge advantage, and the best penalty value for extra groups is still not well understood.
Quote:| But delicate sensitivities are anybody's prerogative, so be my guest. |
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Yes, quite true.
Given time, Symple might turn out to be a great game - but it's nowhere close yet.
For me personally, I thought it was an interesting rule set. It's not the kind of game that appeals to me though. I think Go is a truly great game - but I don't play it very much. Any game that requires adding things up to determine the winner doesn't excite me as much as games like Chess or Arimaa. Maybe that's why you're not getting as much feedback about Symple as you did for Hanniball? That is, HanniBall is more Chess like than Symple is - and Arimaa players in general might be more interested in games that have more Chess-like qualities? I don't know.
For myself, I'm wrapped up in understanding Arimaa, and don't have a lot of time to spend learning about all of the new ones that come out - but I do enjoy reading about new games.
So, yes, thanks very much for creating the game. Looks interesting. Might be a lot of fun.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 28th, 2010, 7:55pm by ocmiente » |
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #302 on: Oct 28th, 2010, 8:32pm » |
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on Oct 28th, 2010, 7:53pm, ocmiente wrote:
Any game that requires adding things up to determine the winner doesn't excite me as much as games like Chess or Arimaa. |
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Precisely. Thank you. The need for a calculator in a game is an aesthetic Hiroshima.
on Oct 28th, 2010, 7:53pm, ocmiente wrote:
Maybe that's why you're not getting as much feedback about Symple as you did for Hanniball? |
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Yes, and if I may speak for the readership, I think we all need a little breather after our last euphoric celebration of prophetic claims come true.
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #303 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 1:55am » |
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on Oct 28th, 2010, 8:32pm, MarkSteere wrote:| The need for a calculator in a game is an aesthetic Hiroshima. |
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I hadn't anticipated you'd need one .
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #304 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 2:08am » |
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on Oct 28th, 2010, 7:53pm, ocmiente wrote:| Symple is not a great game because it hasn't been around long enough, not many people have played it, there are no strategy books about it ... |
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Yes precisely what most people need to come to a conclusion, and I don't, that's the point of my claim isn't it?
on Oct 28th, 2010, 7:53pm, ocmiente wrote:| ...there's no evidence that the first or second player doesn't have some huge advantage, and the best penalty value for extra groups is still not well understood. |
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Not understanding the implicit balancing effect of black's conditional privilige, and not understanding the reasoning in About a parameter, may have the same cause .
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #305 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 2:20am » |
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on Oct 28th, 2010, 6:01pm, MarkSteere wrote:
Man, ease up on clojure He gets out of bed, takes a bath, and he's baffled before breakfast. |
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The hallmark of mediocrity is to always shift the focus from the content of a message to discontent about the manner in which it is delivered.
It's not bad to be mediocre, it's implicit in the existence of different levels of skill in whatever man does, and all of us excell at it one way or the other.
But its bad to feel that mediocrity should be the measure of all things.
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #306 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 2:34am » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 2:08am, christianF wrote:
Yes precisely what most people need to come to a conclusion, and I don't, that's the point of my claim isn't it? |
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"I'm great enough to know when my claims of greatness are valid."
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #307 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 2:46am » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 2:34am, MarkSteere wrote:
"I'm great enough to know when my claims of greatness are valid."
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Ah, 'no sarcasm implied' eh? I thought I'd lost you .
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| « Last Edit: Oct 29th, 2010, 4:44am by christianF » |
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #308 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 3:34pm » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 2:20am, christianF wrote:
The hallmark of mediocrity... |
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Looking back I think the Baffled One may have gotten short changed here. His dashed circle suggestion for the Flume rule sheet was very helpful. Flume is an important game in my portfolio, and just in a general sense. Way too many people were having trouble with the rule sheet. Clojure's dashed circle is much more intuitive than the green check that it replaced.
The fact that clojure formulated a complaint against Symple with an alleged incomplete understanding of the game does not subtract from his credibility for me. *I* don't have a thorough understanding of Symple.
Christian, here's what happened. Nobody responded about your game, and you ran out of patience and demanded to know what the problem was, essentially. Then, when people reluctantly came forward to accommodate your request, you berated them.
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #309 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 4:03pm » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 3:34pm, MarkSteere wrote:| Christian, here's what happened. Nobody responded about your game, and you ran out of patience and demanded to know what the problem was, essentially. Then, when people reluctantly came forward to accommodate your request, you berated them. |
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Yes, quite so. It's a bit annoying that when I honestly explain how I invent games, I encounter loads of scepticism and disbelief for doing so. Then, when I find a game off the top of my sleepy head, without so much as touching a stone, and present it, I would think it makes a good case. Of course the game must still prove itself, but some things are as easy to predict, game technical, as predicting Hex will have a winner. Like Hex, Symple is strategically deep by the nature of the organism. Predicting its general behaviour is as easy as predicting Hex's general behaviour. It is also balanced. What more does it take?
It seems that my honesty is taken for arrogance. Know then that I'd rather seem arrogant than be hypocritical.
Obviously too, the Arimaa forum tends to favor Arimaa type games, so this thread has become a bit of an anachronism. And Clojure is right, it's getting to personal, being about inventors rather than games. That's getting a bit boring so let's call it a day.
Thanks all for contributing and have a good life .
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #310 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 5:55pm » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 4:03pm, christianF wrote:
Like Hex, Symple is strategically deep by the nature of the organism. Predicting its general behaviour is as easy as predicting Hex's general behaviour. It is also balanced. What more does it take? |
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Ok, without discussing inventors or whatever, I'll try to specifically answer your question. Primarily it takes being robust and I believe that's what's missing from Symple. I believe there's a false premise in your question, What *more* does it take. Yes the game is balanced between beginners who've played the game like ten times. What happens when it turns into 100 times or 1000 times. The "balancing rule" will no longer be adequate to balance the game. Now it'll be a complex tweakfest like Go Moku. That's my suspicion anyway, based on the fact that it needs a balancing rule in the first place. What simple mechanism that now balances the game soon will not.
Sometimes people won't like your game as much as you anticipated. And some other times people will like it more than you expected. I was, and still am, really enthused about Cage but I perceived a lukewarm reaction to it initially based on one or two comments from people. Now, I'm getting some positive feedback. Some people elect not to play it again. One guy said I should consider a variant where the outer two rows (shells) should already be vacant since that would speed things up quite a bit, not a bad idea at all.
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #311 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 7:58pm » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 7:40pm, SpeedRazor wrote:
Good night to this thread. |
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Good night
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #312 on: Oct 29th, 2010, 11:38pm » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 10:47pm, SpeedRazor wrote:
Neither one of these trolls EVEN KNOWS THE RULES OF ARIMAA |
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That's patently false. I know for a fact that Christian knows the rules of Arimaa.
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megajester
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #313 on: Oct 30th, 2010, 2:37am » |
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on Oct 29th, 2010, 11:38pm, MarkSteere wrote:
That's patently false. I know for a fact that Christian knows the rules of Arimaa. |
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LOL very witty
I know what you're trying to say SpeedRazor, but seeing as Christian has already indicated he's not going to be pursuing this thread any further, I vote we just let it die peacefully and give it a decent burial.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #314 on: Oct 30th, 2010, 11:59am » |
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on Oct 28th, 2010, 1:05pm, christianF wrote:On another note, this thread started around my claim to sometimes be able to perceive a new game and see what it holds for a hypothetical future in a world where it would be played extensively. Obviously this is not a claim that takes its commercial success or lack thereof into account, as some posters assumed.
There was a lot of scepticism and general disbelief, and among the best argued answers was one of Fritzlein that I quote here in part:
[...]
This was more of a 'benefit of the doubt' than I got from most other posters. I was somewhat surpised, therefore, by the agressive answer I got from the same source after posting the freshly conceived rules of Symple.
[...]
Does anyone say "hey thanks, we love games and this appears to be a great game"?
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I am glad that you have clarified that you are not merely "surprised", but in fact offended that the Arimaa community is not engaging with Symple, and that you feel we owe it to you to take up your latest game in order to see how great it is. I see that I wasn't misinterpreting your tone when I responded aggressively. In fact I was right on the money in inferring that you thought the Arimaa community was not giving you the respect you deserve for inventing another brilliant game. Thank you for making it explicit what you think you are due.
Quote:| No I'm treated agressively or annoyingly and none or my critics has the greatness of mind to say that Symple may well be an example of how I sometimes perceive games - as I said I did. |
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In the case of Hanniball, you demonstrated in full view of everyone that you can't perceive how a game will play until you have playtested it, and specifically that a major rule change may be required on the basis of playtesting. If you could do what you claim, you would never have to do more than introduce minor tweaks, but for Hanniball you had to fundamentally change the mechanic, and that after engagement by a relatively small group of people for a relatively short period of time. It was good of you to have the courage and candor to reveal the process to everyone. Unfortunately, at the conclusion of the process, you blithely concluded that you had proved your claims about your own abilities, when in fact the opposite had occurred. In this context it is highly ironic to fault others for lacking "greatness of mind".
My opinion of Symple, which you may think justified or unjustified as you choose, is that it might be a far superior game to Hanniball, and indeed might be a superior game to Arimaa. I don't know. I haven't investigated it and I am not qualified to comment on it. I did, however, take the time observe the evolution of Hanniball closely. Because of that experience I am quite convinced that you, Christian, also do not know whether or not Symple is a great game. My opinion of you, which you my think justified or unjustified as you choose, is that you do not know in advance of playtesting. If Symple is taken up seriously by a large community of players, it might be busted by the community, after which it would become unplayable without a major rule change.
I am not saying that you are not the greatest abstract strategy game designer of all time. I am not saying that Symple is not the greatest abstract strategy game of all time. What I am saying is that your inflated claims of your own powers are tiresome. Furthermore, your feeling that the Arimaa community owes you something with respect to Symple that it is failing to give you is manipulative and unjust. The more you assert that we must pay attention to you, the more you can expect that the attention you do get from us will be negative attention, particularly since you are not offering to support Arimaa in any way.
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