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Topic: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games (Read 522319 times) |
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #690 on: Sep 14th, 2011, 6:46pm » |
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on Sep 14th, 2011, 12:45pm, christianF wrote:
I can't even [make outlandish claims] anywhere without you breaking in [and refuting them.] You've bothered me with [refuting my outlandish claims] for almost a year now [yet I continue to make outlandish claims. I don't know. I guess I just can't help it.] |
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That seems like a fair assessment.
Christian, I look at your "balancing" mechanism and it has "unbalanced" written all over it. Mainly, it's unequal goals. That jumps out at me like a beer can tossed onto my front lawn by a passerby.
You've created an oddball sente/gote apparatus that you wishfully believe is a balancing mechanism. What you've really got, at best, is a game salvaging mechanism - a very kludgy game salvaging mechanism.
It's an unbalanced Hiroshima - an aesthetic Armageddon that torched one half of the city worse than the other half.
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Sconibulus
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #691 on: Sep 15th, 2011, 10:40am » |
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on Sep 14th, 2011, 2:20pm, MarkSteere wrote:
If you had turn order advantage on any particular turn (and you had some way of knowing that) you sure wouldn't trade it for anything, such as "limited growth". Nothing in a game is worth more than turn order advantage. To assume otherwise would be phenomenally absurd. |
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Nothing in a game is worth more than turn order advantage? Several of our players will be glad to hear it, and see your evidence. Here we all were thinking it'd take years, probably decades to wrinkle out a color advantage.
(assuming your most recent post is directed at the most recent game, rather than another comment on Symple)
On a different note, how is this type of setup step in a movement game practically any different than a pie rule in a placement game?
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #692 on: Sep 15th, 2011, 11:44am » |
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on Sep 15th, 2011, 10:40am, Sconibulus wrote:
Nothing in a game is worth more than turn order advantage? Several of our players will be glad to hear it, and see your evidence. |
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It's a question of semantics. With TOA, you're winning simply because it's your turn (or not your turn). TOA is usually evaluated for the first turn of a game, such as Hex with pie, but TOA can be considered on any turn.
You're playing Game X, it's your turn, and you're winning. You have the advantage. What else do you want?
on Sep 15th, 2011, 10:40am, Sconibulus wrote:
On a different note, how is this type of setup step in a movement game practically any different than a pie rule in a placement game? |
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The pie rule works.
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #693 on: Sep 18th, 2011, 11:02am » |
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Got a strange letter, postmarked "The Hills". All it says is, "You're a coward!"
[Three weeks from now]
Christian: "As I was saying, the real beauty of my mechanism is players being blind to the 'truth'. This causes balance to take place...."
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #694 on: Sep 28th, 2011, 1:27pm » |
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Luis Bolaños Mures' game Yodd can now be played at mindsports.nl (Player Section, prefs).
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #695 on: Oct 1st, 2011, 12:04pm » |
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Don't worry 
Be happy 
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #696 on: Oct 2nd, 2011, 4:54pm » |
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Players are blind to the "truth", as defined by Christian, in every game. In Hex with pie for example, the best starting moves have been catalogued for various board sizes, so you do know the truth, that Player 2 has the advantage, for the first two turns. Depending on the quality of Player 2's first move (which may be simply invoking pie) Player 2 could lose his advantage immediately.
Unless you have a catalogue of first and second moves in Hex with pie, players are blind to the truth after the second turn.
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #697 on: Oct 3rd, 2011, 12:27pm » |
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There is a relationship between balance and hidden truth (i.e., the truth of which player currently has the advantage). Balance hides the truth. Not the other way around, Christian.
Hidden truth doesn't cause anything, never mind balance.
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #698 on: Oct 4th, 2011, 9:43am » |
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We've had the most glorious indian summer in the Netherlands, with the heat record for the warmest october day since measurements began. And it lasted for almost two weeks. I've taken my leisure, sitting in the sun in front of the house most of the day, with Kobus for an excuse. Basking in natural light stimulates his vitamin production and besides, he likes it. He's slithering in the enclosure in front of my house, surrounded by a 1 m. high wooden fence. Not exactly an obstacle for a 4 m. burmese of 30 k.
Mindful of dogs, cats, children and the like, I can't leave him unguarded. But he's a nice conversational item for whoever passes by, and the children love him, from a safe distance.
The most unusual thing happened. I lost all my belongings in the 2000 SE Fireworks disaster in Enschede, including genealogy documents (both copies of originals and digital ones) going back to a wedding of an ancestor in Amsterdam, 1691, and lines leading to the source of the name Freeling (named after a region around Brugge, Belgium, called the "Vrije" from which the "Vrijelingen" fled north to avoid the Spanish revenge after the Union of Utrecht had taken place).
Anyway, all gone, all gone, all gone ... or so I thought. But while cleaning the house before it was beyond the attempt, I stumbled over a dusty pack of CD roms that came, obviously, from Ed, while reinstalling stuff months after the disaster.
One of them contained a complete back-up of all data, including filenumbers and locations of all relevant documents, and the complete ancestry and decendancy as far as I had figured it out, in a program called Gene, running under Mac OS9. I still can run OS9 
All there, all there, all there, imagine that.
Then it occured to me that I was actually bored stiff playing the game inventor. So I quit.
I'll keep playing of course, and I look forward to the 2012 challenge. I'll also post houshold messages, such as that Jump Sturdy will shortly be available at mindsports. More games will be made available by and by.
I had one concept under consideration that I will try to complete, but not right now. Luis and Nick have seen a provisional implementation, and Luis confirmed my suspicion: it's not entirely what I am looking for yet, but the idea is worth to let it mature and reconsider later.
Much later as far as I can see now.
So, it was fun while it lasted, bye for now
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rbarreira
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #699 on: Oct 4th, 2011, 1:19pm » |
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on Oct 4th, 2011, 9:43am, christianF wrote:He's slithering in the enclosure in front of my house, surrounded by a 1 m. high wooden fence. Not exactly an obstacle for a 4 m. burmese of 30 k.
Mindful of dogs, cats, children and the like, I can't leave him unguarded. |
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Well let's hope you don't happen to faint while it's free and leave it a chance to escape...
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MarkSteere
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #700 on: Oct 4th, 2011, 1:41pm » |
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on Oct 4th, 2011, 9:43am, christianF wrote:
So, it was fun while it lasted, bye for now |
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No worries. See you in a couple weeks.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 4th, 2011, 7:21pm by MarkSteere » |
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #701 on: Oct 4th, 2011, 3:02pm » |
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on Oct 4th, 2011, 1:19pm, rbarreira wrote:
Well let's hope you don't happen to faint while it's free and leave it a chance to escape... |
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No-one ever fainted, although a slightly hysterical woman considered it for a moment, a couple of days ago. But other than the usual escapees, Kobus is well known and respected in the street where I live. He's lived here for seven years now and all neighbors know he's kind of hard to miss and easy to handle. Anyone could do it, although not anyone would . The danger isn't so much him getting out, and I actually let him sometimes, usually to return to his room.
The danger is more like a cat jumping in.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 4th, 2011, 4:03pm by christianF » |
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #702 on: Oct 6th, 2011, 9:53am » |
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The first Jump Sturdy game
We're not exactly head of the pack, appletwise, but Jump Sturdy will be the first of our applets to detect a formally won position and terminate the game automatically (because the criterion isn't all that difficult). Other applets will follow by and by, depending on the complexity of establishing a formal win.
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qswanger
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #703 on: Oct 7th, 2011, 9:36am » |
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After seeing all of these pics of snakes I'm reminded to ask Christian what he thinks of the relatively new game "Slither". It's been on iggamecenter for a while now and was just recently implemented on LittleGolem. I quite like it.
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christianF
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Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #704 on: Oct 7th, 2011, 11:14am » |
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on Oct 7th, 2011, 9:36am, qswanger wrote:| After seeing all of these pics of snakes I'm reminded to ask Christian what he thinks of the relatively new game "Slither". It's been on iggamecenter for a while now and was just recently implemented on LittleGolem. I quite like it. |
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That's a great game. When I first encountered it (as 'Particle Bond'), I misinterpreted the rules and filed it mentally as a dime a dozen square connection game (see a collection of those at my own dime a dozen game Query).
Then it became Slither, which is quite an improvement in itself, and Nick Bentley started flooding it with enthousiastic comments. So I considered it more carefully and saw the solution to the diagonal cross problem by a simple rule that in itself achieves much more than solving that particular problem. It creates a path for clever tactics and deep strategic planning. Brilliant indeed in its simplicity!
We feature it at mindsports but it is still awaiting an applet.
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