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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> A new arimaa variant
        
(Message started by: gatsby on Jul 18^th, 2008, 9:57am)

Title: A new arimaa variant
Post by gatsby on Jul 18^th, 2008, 9:57am

Why not? I have called it Torches Arimaa.

All the official arimaa rules apply, except in the following:

a) There are no traps.

b) In the setup phase, every player must place two "torches" of its colour on any squares belonging to his two nearest rows of the board. Two or more torches, or a torch and another piece, can coexist on the same square. Every player can only move his own torch. The torch can move one orthogonal square per step, exactly as every other piece, but only when the square it is on is occupied by a piece (not torch) of its colour. Torches don't go with pieces in their movements nor viceversa. If a torch moves to a square which is occupied by an enemy frozen piece, this piece is captured.

What do you think about it? I'd like to know your (positive or negative) opinions. :)

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by aaaa on Jul 18^th, 2008, 10:15am

Don't you find that concept a bit graphically disturbing, burning living creatures to their deaths? At least the trap squares leave things more up to the imagination.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by mistre on Jul 18^th, 2008, 11:29am

Sounds intriguing - kind of like moving traps.

I have a few questions:

1) Please clarify torch movement. Maybe provide some examples. Your brief description was hard to follow.

2) If a torch can only move to occupied squares with pieces of your own color then how can they move to a square occupied by an enemy frozen piece?

3) Does any enemy piece have to be frozen before it is torched?

4) Can an Elephant be torched?

General comment:
If I was playing this variant, I would keep the torches very near or on the same square as my Elephant and Camel since they can freeze the most enemy pieces. I also think this variant might be a tad too complicated, but only testing would prove that.

Maybe a simpler version would just allow players to move their own home traps around, with the rules that you can only move 1 trap 1 space per move (using 1 step, or maybe you have to use 2 steps) and you can't move traps directly on to enemy pieces.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by PMertens on Jul 19^th, 2008, 12:26am

I always imagined the opponent pieces would go to hell when killed in a trap. Naturally eternal torture awaits them there.
My own pieces went to heaven instead.

Just like some people believe in real life ;-)

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by gatsby on Jul 19^th, 2008, 2:54am

on 07/18/08 at 11:29:41, mistre wrote:

Thank you for your comments, mistre. I'll try to answer all your questions:

1) & 2) Torches can move to any orthogonally adjacent square at the cost of one step, just like any other piece. But they have some limitations: they can only move when the ORIGIN square is occupied by a piece of its colour, as if that piece picked the torch and throwed it to an adjacent square. Torches, unlike elephants, camels, etc., are not living beings, so they can't move on their own. ;) The DESTINATION square can be either empty or occupied by any piece (including torches). For example: imagine that there is a Gold elephant on e4 holding a Gold torch. There is a frozen Silver rabbit on f4, a non-frozen Silver rabbit on e5 and a Gold rabbit on d4. Gold could throw the torch to any of its four adjacent squares. If he throws it to f4, the frozen Silver rabbit is captured. If he throws it to e5 or e3, nothing happens, but the torch becomes immobile. If he throws it to d4, the torch can still be moved, at the cost of another step, to an adjacent square. I hope I have explained myself clearly, despite my bad English.

3) Yes. If it is not frozen, the torch movement is possible, but the enemy piece is not captured.

4) Yes.

Either way, I have been thinking a bit about my idea, and I believe that it can be more elegantly developed by adding this simple rule to the original ones: traps, when empty, can be pushed or pulled to an empty, orthogonally adjacent square by any piece (Gold or Silver) except by rabbits. However, though this is certainly simpler than my first proposal, I don't know whether it would work better or worse than that one...

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by omar on Jul 22^nd, 2008, 6:33pm

on 07/18/08 at 09:57:08, gatsby wrote:

What do you think about it? I'd like to know your (positive or negative) opinions. :)

It is really hard to tell what kind of dynamics a new rule introduces. I always play tested the rules against my self at first to get a little feel for it. Then if it still looked interesting I would try to get others to help me test it. So without actually trying it out I can't really give any opinion.

In Arimaa I tried to reduce the number of rules and keep the rules simple and intuitive as much as possible to minimize the hurdle of learning such a different game. In a variant though you might not be trying for simplicity and you do have the advantage of being able to start with the rules as Arimaa. If people already know what Arimaa is then it doesn't seem like much of a hurdle to learn a few more rules.

Please don't ask me to implement this. It's hard enough trying to keep up with just one version :-) You might want to try implementing it in Zillions-of-Games though. It really makes playing against yourself a lot easier. There is a Zillions rule file on the download page which might help you get started.

I also have a few ideas for Arimaa variants which I haven't actually tried out yet. I mentioned them to Karl during a commute once, but he discourages me from trying variants so that I stay focused on Arimaa. He is probably right; I do have a tendency to try and do too many things and dilute my energies.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by gatsby on Jul 24^th, 2008, 3:50am

on 07/22/08 at 18:33:49, omar wrote:

Please don't ask me to implement this.

Of course not! I am too grateful to you for having offered us such a great game. I can't ask you anymore.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by gatsby on Jul 24^th, 2008, 3:57am

on 07/22/08 at 18:33:49, omar wrote:

I also have a few ideas for Arimaa variants which I haven't actually tried out yet.

Could you tell us about some of them? I am really curious about it.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by omar on Jul 24^th, 2008, 9:01pm

Arimaa with a connection type goal. There are no trap squares and rabbits can move backwards. Goal is to create a chain with your pieces that connects your side of the board to the opponents. Pieces in the chain must be orthogonally adjacent. This variant may be even harder for computers. Aamir and I tried one game of this a few years back. It is possible this variant is flawed since there are no committal moves leading to irreversible states.

Arimaa with a dice. Some very early versions of Arimaa used a dice. I thought the uncertainty would make the game more difficult for computers. At some point I decided it wasn't needed and opted for a no chance game. In the dice variant you may not take more steps then the dice roll. If you roll a 5 or 6 you are still limited to 4 steps. Never tried this.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by mistre on Jul 25^th, 2008, 6:08am

Just thought of this one - might be interesting.

Rabbits are each assigned a number (1 through 4), two of each. Only the two #1 rabbits can goal until they are captured. Once captured, then only the two #2 rabbits can goal and so on. If a higher-numbered rabbit reaches the end of the board - it will just sit there until moved or all lower-numbered rabbits are captured.

I think this would add another layer of strategy to where you place each rabbit and WHICH rabbits you decide to advance without interfering with the basic gameplay of Arimaa.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 25^th, 2008, 9:34am

If I'm not mistaken, mistre, you heard about Arimaa via the Board Game Designer's Forum where the consensus among other game designers was that Arimaa didn't have much to offer. A couple of designers decided that Arimaa was not worth bothering with before they had even played a single game of it. Why? Because the rules are so boring! (By the way, I salute you, mistre, for thinking for yourself and not taking someone else's word that Arimaa is no good without investigating yourself.)

When I was on vacation this spring, I was introduced to Khet, the laser game, the award-winning game (Mensa Select 2006, et al). The experience crystallized for me something that is deeply wrong with the game industry. Yes, the game is cool. What is cooler than getting to shoot a real-live laser at the enemy? Yes, it's mind-bending to think about where deflected and reflected beam will land. But the game is broken. In my second game from a standard setup given in the rulebook, I realized I could make a defensive setup that could never be broken, regardless of whether I moved first or second. Did the designers not play the game themselves, or did they not think about strategy when playing? How can there be a game on the market, actually winning awards, that I can bust strategically on my second play?

It used to totally amaze me that Omar could design such a great game, even though he never invented a game before, and he doesn't know anything about game design. Is he an intuitive genius? Is he the luckiest man alive? How could he do better than hundreds of professionals?

In the context of Khet and the BGDF discussion, however, I am no longer amazed. I believe that Omar succeeded with Arimaa because he was not doing what game designers do, because most game designers are barking up the wrong tree. They are trying to invent a game with interesting rules, unqiue mechanics, or a cool theme. For Omar the animal theme was an afterthough, and it's a pretty thin theme anyway. The mechanics of Arimaa are simple, but even some of that minimal complexity (such as rabbits not being able to move backwards) Omar added only very reluctantly. In other words, he wanted the rules to be even more boring than they are. He was most definitely not trying to come up with the most imaginative set of rules he could brainstorm.

What Omar did do was play test. He changed the rules again and again and again, not because the rules he had were bad-sounding rules, but because the various games didn't play well. He started very simply, with only two kinds of pieces (pawns and rooks), no capture, no freezing. He gradually added rules and complexity, not because he wanted a complex game, but because he was forced to in order to fix what was not working. In every early version there was something broken that was going to make it boring to play. The rules he finally chose were not the ones that sounded best, they were the ones that worked best.

Any and all of the variant rule suggestions that have been tossed around in the Forum have the potential to make Arimaa a better game than it is. I'm skeptical, because I don't see what is broken in the current version that adding complexity will fix, so the motivation that drove Omar to keep tweaking is gone, but you never know what improvements a rule change might bring. I think it is likely that most changes will subtract more than they add, but you never know. You never know, and that's whole point. I believe Omar's post in this thread is his gentle way of trying to nudge folks toward the procedure that worked for him. If you ask what he thinks of Rule X, his wise and proven answer is, "I think you need to play test it." He's been there, and he's done the grunt work, and there's no short cut.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 25^th, 2008, 11:02am

on 07/24/08 at 03:57:04, gatsby wrote:

Could you tell us about some of them? I am really curious about it.

As a footnote, one day during the carpool I sarcastically suggested to Omar that Arimaa could have a suicide bomber bunny. At the beginning of the game each player could secretly mark one bunny as a suicide bomber, and then later use a turn to detonate it, killing any piece in the adjacent eight squares. To my horror, Omar sort of liked it, and started spending cycles thinking about how to implement it. :o Since then I only suggest things I actually want him to spend time on.

For folks who like game variants, I think the best thing would be to pair off and say, "I'll play a game with your rules if you play a game with my rules." Then we would learn something about both of them, and the discussion about variants would be less speculative. For example, I guess that no-capture Arimaa would be an unplayable stalemate, but one play test is worth ten guesses. Indeed, I suddenly recally that lose-Arimaa, where both players are trying to force the other to meet a winning criterion, was busted by actual play testing rather than discussion. It turned out that a player could kill all of his own rabbits faster than the other player could prevent it, thus the game was always drawn. Perhaps we should re-play test it now that the rabbit-elimination rule has gone into effect and draws are impossible.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by mistre on Jul 25^th, 2008, 1:30pm

on 07/25/08 at 09:34:36, Fritzlein wrote:

I have to admit, when I first tried Arimaa, I was skeptical. I thought it had too much of a connection with chess. I was also afraid that I wouldn't be able to process how the game worked and therefore I doubted it. But after I played a few games, that quickly went away and I found something that was truly original and amazing.

I went back and read all of the responses to the Arimaa thread - I don't think I read all of them after I made my post. Reading it now made be realize how close-minded those individuals were in regards to Arimaa. I believe it is a perception issue and not truly a game design issue. Once a game designer sees how Arimaa works, he can't not be impressed at the elegant simplicity of it. So what if it uses the same size board and the same piece count as Chess? It is NOT a chess variant, but a completely different game! I hope that when Zman starts marketing it that they don't even mention the word Chess and it can stand on its own merits.

on 07/25/08 at 09:34:36, Fritzlein wrote:

When I was on vacation this spring, I was introduced to Khet, the laser game, the award-winning game (Mensa Select 2006, et al). The experience crystallized for me something that is deeply wrong with the game industry. Yes, the game is cool. What is cooler than getting to shoot a real-live laser at the enemy? Yes, it's mind-bending to think about where deflected and reflected beam will land. But the game is broken. In my second game from a standard setup given in the rulebook, I realized I could make a defensive setup that could never be broken, regardless of whether I moved first or second. Did the designers not play the game themselves, or did they not think about strategy when playing? How can there be a game on the market, actually winning awards, that I can bust strategically on my second play?

I too have played Khet. Once and never again. I found it boring with no long term strategy. There was no ebb and flow to the game and the game could end abruptly on one false move. However, I would not equate the failure of this game to the game industry at large. There are many quality games being released today both themed and abstract. There is also a lot of junk being released, but you can say the same for any media type - books, movies, music, etc.

on 07/25/08 at 09:34:36, Fritzlein wrote:

It used to totally amaze me that Omar could design such a great game, even though he never invented a game before, and he doesn't know anything about game design. Is he an intuitive genius? Is he the luckiest man alive? How could he do better than hundreds of professionals?

In the context of Khet and the BGDF discussion, however, I am no longer amazed. For Omar the animal theme was an afterthough, and it's a pretty thin theme anyway. The mechanics of Arimaa are simple, but even some of that minimal complexity (such as rabbits not being able to move backwards) Omar added only very reluctantly. In other words, he wanted the rules to be even more boring than they are. He was most definitely not trying to come up with the most imaginative set of rules he could brainstorm.

I have to disagree with you here. If making a cool game was just about having minimal complexity, then any joe schmoe could design the next great game. The rules can be boring, but the game has to be interesting! I believe that Omar is either an intuitive genius or did get lucky to invent Arimaa - I will let him decide which!

On a personal level, I really like the animal theme and I think Arimaa would suffer without it. It gives the players a visual clue as to what is going on. Would Arimaa have the same appeal using various symbols for the pieces? Visual presentation is important to making a game easy to play and fun for the players.

on 07/25/08 at 09:34:36, Fritzlein wrote:

What Omar did do was play test. He changed the rules again and again and again, not because the rules he had were bad-sounding rules, but because the various games didn't play well. He started very simply, with only two kinds of pieces (pawns and rooks), no capture, no freezing. He gradually added rules and complexity, not because he wanted a complex game, but because he was forced to in order to fix what was not working. In every early version there was something broken that was going to make it boring to play. The rules he finally chose were not the ones that sounded best, they were the ones that worked best.

Here, I agree with you again. Playtesting is very very important and any game designer would agree with that if they have any experience designing a game.

I have to cut my post short as I have to go, but there is more I want to say in regards to game design and variants that I will get to later.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 25^th, 2008, 3:04pm

I'm very interested to hear the rest of your response, but I can't help replying already.

on 07/25/08 at 13:30:11, mistre wrote:

I have to disagree with you here. If making a cool game was just about having minimal complexity, then any joe schmoe could design the next great game.

A good game is certainly not just about having minimal complexity, although simpler is generally better in my mind, so that probably clouded my point. What I meant to emphasize is that nature of the rules per se should not be a driving force in game design, and ultimately playability is everything. I'm reacting against the sentiment that says, "Isn't X a cool rule?" when what matters is not the nature of the rule in itself but rather the rule's effect on how the game plays.

If I can use another example, people rave about the rule in Quarto that you get to choose which piece the other guy puts on the board. Sure, nifty, neato, original concept, and it's even simple like I prefer, but unfortunately the game is dead drawn. Interesting rule, boring game.

Quote:

There is also a lot of junk being released, but you can say the same for any media type - books, movies, music, etc.

That's quite true, and there is also much praise heaped on mediocre books and movies, and people get rich churning out shallow garbage. The game industry is not unique in this respect. If I had to pick on the single most discouraging thing about the game industry, I wouldn't blame the lame game designers so much. The root of evil is that Hasbro and Mattel make way more money on toys than on games, so the toy mindset infects the game industry. Toys are extremely faddish, and even some of the most successful are off the shelf in six months to a year. People get bored and want a new toy. But what I want from a game is precisely something that I don't get bored with, and don't have to replace with a new game every year because the old one is played out. That's what I get from Arimaa, at least so far! :)

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by mistre on Jul 25^th, 2008, 8:45pm

on 07/25/08 at 09:34:36, Fritzlein wrote:

I believe that Omar succeeded with Arimaa because he was not doing what game designers do, because most game designers are barking up the wrong tree. They are trying to invent a game with interesting rules, unique mechanics, or a cool theme.

This statement probably stung me the most of anything you said. Like I alluded to before, I think Omar was either very intuitive or very fortunate to come up with the concept of Arimaa and get it to where it is today. To me it truly stands out as a "Classic" game in the same vein as Chess and Go. However, I disagree with your statement that designers are barking up the wrong tree. Arimaa is a 2-player abstract game. While you can make the argument that this is the purest level of gaming, it is only one facet of all the kinds of games you can design. There are war games, eurogames, RPGs, card games, dice games, social games, kids games, dungeon crawlers, economic games, etc. The list goes on and on. For each of these type of genre, there are different goals and methods to making a good game. For example, a kid's game would need to have very simple rules. On the other hand, a complex war game might have a many rules as to better simulate an actual war. The complexity of a game all has to do with its audience, but there is an audience for all types of games in the spectrum.

I see nothing wrong with a designer "trying to invent a game with interesting rules, unique mechanics, or a cool theme." To me this is what designing is all about. Otherwise, you would be just creating something that has tedious rules, copy-cat mechanics, or a boring theme. To me, Arimaa fits all of the above qualities you stated to some extent, although that may not have been your intent.

Arimaa has minimalistic rules for sure, but that does not mean that every game invented should reach that level. Arimaa is a 2-player abstract game with no luck. If every game invented met that criteria there would be a definite dearth of variety out there! I would agree that in the 2-player pure abstract strategy world, that Arimaa stands out as one of the best game design achievements of all time. But not everyone's taste is for this type of game. Some people prefer multi-player games. I will attest that it is much much harder to playtest and balance games for multiple players then it is for 2-player games as you run into all kinds of problems such as runaway leaders, kingmaking, and turtling to name a few. Some people want games that require less brain power, more luck and are fun. I am not talking about the brain-dead side of things (mass market games), but many of the current eurogames combine strategy and luck in nice doses to create fun games (Settlers of Catan for example). Some people are into the rules-heavy cutthroat strategy games with lots of interaction. I guess my whole point is that game design is a very broad field and there is no one right way to design a game, but you need to know your audience.

In my own game design which is kind of like a light-medium eurostyle game - I initially started with too much complexity and have paired it down over time to make the game tighter. This is kind of the opposite approach as Arimaa. I don't think one way is necessarily better or worse than the other, just two different ways to hopefully achieve similar results. I think one major difference is the abstract vs themed issue - In a themed game you are more apt to try many more mechanics/approaches and add complexity to give the game a story arc, while in a abstract game you are only concerned with the mechanics and therefore can keep things simpler.

I have never attempted to design a pure abstract game, but I can imagine that the difficulty lies in making it interesting rather than making it have simple mechanics. Like I said before, I can have few rules, but that doesn't make it an interesting strategy game - instead it could be the next tic-tac-toe. If you haven't heard of them - you might want to look at the GIPF series of games - they are considered to be among the best abstract games designed in recent times.

on 07/25/08 at 09:34:36, Fritzlein wrote:

Any and all of the variant rule suggestions that have been tossed around in the Forum have the potential to make Arimaa a better game than it is. I'm skeptical, because I don't see what is broken in the current version that adding complexity will fix, so the motivation that drove Omar to keep tweaking is gone, but you never know what improvements a rule change might bring.

I don't think the idea of variants is to make Arimaa better than it is, at least not in my opinion. The idea of variants is to provide an alternate way to play a game for the sake of variety (kind of like an add-on). Arimaa is a rare game that really doesn't NEED a variant, it is endlessly replayable as it is. There is nothing broken about it and nothing that needs fixing. However, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be variants. I look at potential variants as just another fun concept to explore such as bot-bashing, handicap games, and contests. What intrigues me the most is Arimaa with different size boards/trap locations. This would provide new challenges and variety without even changing one rule. Any variants that involve randomness - rolling a die for number of steps or hidden suicide rabbits - is completely against the nature of a 2-player abstract pure strategy game and would just be annoying. Any variants that I suggest for Arimaa will not include randomness of any kind.

I hope that you can have an open-mind when you read this and realize that there is even more to game design then you realize. I really just scratched the surface of various games in this post and while I firmly believe that Arimaa will be a "Game for the Ages", it is by no means the only game I ever want to play again. For me, variety is the spice of life.

Mark (mistre) Mistretta

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 26^th, 2008, 7:00am

on 07/25/08 at 20:45:08, mistre wrote:

I hope that you can have an open-mind when you read this and realize that there is even more to game design then you realize.

I'm sorry, Mark. I'm sure there are lots of aspects to game design that I don't know anything about. Also you are right that there are lots of different kinds of games, and that different people will enjoy different things. Also variety has value for variety's sake; something can be good on the basis of being different without being "better".

I think that when I revisited the Board Game Designers' Forum thread, it made me angry all over again. There were self-declared experts asserting that their broad experience with board games was such that they didn't have to play Arimaa to know that it wasn't interesting. When someone stakes out an extreme and unfair position, I guess I am goaded to the opposite extreme, which is also unfair. Play testing isn't irrelevant, but also it isn't the only relevant thing.

I don't think it is just abstract games that need to be fun more than once. For example, there was the Mad Magazine board game, which was not exactly my kind of game in the first place, but my buddy's family bought it and loved it initially. Somewhere between the second and third play, however, the jokes they loved at first started to get old, and the game went on the shelf forever.

That said, I am sure I overdo my scorn for games that don't have replay value. I have to realistically accept that the average boxed game will be played less than a dozen times between the store shelf and the garage sale. In that context it is totally irrelevant whether a game will still be fun on the thousandth play. That's not what is foremost in the minds of game players, so it needn't be foremost in the minds of game designers.

For the first dozen plays especially, it is a part of the enjoyment of a game if the rules and mechanics are interesting in themselves. One thing people enjoy about games is the mind-bending aspect, i.e. the challenge to think in new ways, and the game mechanics can provide this challenge even if the game strategy ultimately does not. A game can be fun to learn how to play, and I shouldn't disparage that positive.

Also the theme can be very important at first, as one can get caught up imagining it really is a space battle, or power struggle in ancient Egypt, or whatever. People have an imagination, and it is arguably a defect of Arimaa that it basically leaves the imagination idling, and instead engages only a small part of who we are as people. I would argue that themes eventually wear out, and even folks who embrace them eventually start to see the skull beneath the skin, but not everyone actively tries for that perspective in the way that I do, and it is good that not everyone is like me.

Since there are different objectives in what a game should be, and different kinds of game that are "good", it is only natural that different approaches to game design should all be "right". It's a common sin to go beyond praising what one likes into the territory of bashing what one doesn't like, and I apologize for having fallen in to it. If the Arimaa variants proposed here don't float my boat, I should just shut up and stay out of the discussion rather than jumping in to say why I think they are likely to be worthless. Why should I rain on anyone's parade? I regret being so negative in my previous post.

Quote:

In my own game design which is kind of like a light-medium eurostyle game - I initially started with too much complexity and have paired it down over time to make the game tighter. This is kind of the opposite approach as Arimaa. I don't think one way is necessarily better or worse than the other, just two different ways to hopefully achieve similar results.

Absolutely. You response proves that I clouded my point about playability with my comments about simplicity. My apologies. While I value simple rules, that is not my primary yardstick. It is more important to me that I can't "bust" a game with a strategy that makes it boring to try to win from then on.

Quote:

I see nothing wrong with a designer "trying to invent a game with interesting rules, unique mechanics, or a cool theme." To me this is what designing is all about.

Interesting rules, unique mechanics, and a cool theme are all positives. They all do matter, and I shouldn't pretend they are irrelevant. The second sentence, however, embodies precisely the sentiment that I was objecting to. "To me this is what designing is all about." (emphasis added) That means that the BGDF critics were perfectly justified. The theme of Arimaa (ranked animals, traps, get a piece across) is taken straight from Shou Dou Qi. The equipment is taken straight from chess, as is the rule that pawns can't move backwards. Freezing and pushing pieces are not from chess or Shou Dou Qi, but those mechanics are well-known from other games. There's nothing new or interesting in the rules of Arimaa, and since that's what game design is all about, we can dismiss it as boring on that basis.

Of course, Arimaa doesn't play like chess or Shou Dou Qi or any other game I know of. But you can't tell from the rules how a game will play.

If I can restate my case less aggressively, let me say that play testing is consistently undervalued by game designers. I don't think it needs to become everyone's primary motivator in the way that it is mine, but I do think most game designers would do themselves a favor to raise its importance.

This is partly just my bias, but it is based on some experience as well. Here's one story I think I haven't told yet: I worked as a clerk at Games of Berkeley for a few months. While I was there a game designer came in with a game that he was trying to promote. He wasn't looking for tips on design; the design was already done. He was just asking questions about how to get a computer version to release at the same time as the boxed version. He had brought a prototype along, and I was curious to play it. After ten to fifteen minutes I proved that the second player had a forced win.

Quote:

I will attest that it is much much harder to playtest and balance games for multiple players then it is for 2-player games as you run into all kinds of problems such as runaway leaders, kingmaking, and turtling to name a few.

I agree. On the one hand, abstract strategy games have to deal with a more absolute cliff in being played out, so insuring replay value is touchy in a more extreme way. On the other hand, there are more different ways for multi-player games to be busted, so it is harder to make one than can never be busted, and will be fun to play forever. To my mind this just means that both kinds of game require playtesting, playtesting, and more playtesting.

I haven't seen any of your games, Mark, so I'm not trying to say that they aren't going to be fun on the hundredth play. Maybe they are. Moreover, even if they are "only" fun for twenty plays, that doesn't mean they aren't good games, or that they won't some day be best-selling games. The criterion to make it into my personal Hall of Fame is not everyone's criterion, nor should it be.

Although my personal preference is extreme, and I don't want to be forcing it on everyone, I'm not the only one who thinks game designers as a group pay too much attention to rules/theme/mechanics and too little attention to replay value. For example, you can read in this interview with Z-Man (http://brettspillguiden.no/begeret/?nid=35) that his bias is totally different than mine, because he tends to prefer themed games to abstracts and he praises wargames with lots of complexity and rules. Nevertheless, when he is asked here (http://www.thedicetower.com/misc/advice1.htm) what advice he has for game designers, he says nothing about theme, nothing about complexity, nothing about mechanics. Instead he says

Quote:

Know what's out there and do something different. Research your game, playtest it to death and with some groups who are not your friends or related to you. Research the companies you wish to present the game to, etc. Write a good proposal but don't include the lines "my friends/family love this game and ask me to play it with them all the time." Keep playtesting. And finally, don't give up if you really believe in it.

He basically says six things, and three of them are playtesting-related. Do you think maybe he gets a lot of submissions that (in his mind) haven't been adequately playtested? ;-)

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by PMertens on Jul 26^th, 2008, 7:09am

on 07/25/08 at 20:45:08, mistre wrote:

For me, variety is the spice of life.

You are not married, are you ?

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by omar on Jul 26^th, 2008, 4:32pm

I think I just got lucky. I am definitely not a genius; just look at all the blunders I make even in my postal games :-)

But definitely play testing is the key to making a good game. I don't think it takes genius to come up with a good game; I think it's more about persistence and luck.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by mistre on Jul 27^th, 2008, 1:09pm

on 07/26/08 at 07:00:11, Fritzlein wrote:

That said, I am sure I overdo my scorn for games that don't have replay value. I have to realistically accept that the average boxed game will be played less than a dozen times between the store shelf and the garage sale. In that context it is totally irrelevant whether a game will still be fun on the thousandth play. That's not what is foremost in the minds of game players, so it needn't be foremost in the minds of game designers.

I would definitely agree with your statements here. Many amateur game designers (designers who are kind of delving into game design as a hobby, like myself, are foremost trying to design games that work, are fun, and can't be broken). While replayability is always a concern of mine, you can't really start with making a game infinitely replayable before addressing the other issues. Many many games, even some of the best ones, will fall short of this lofty goal. And like you said, that fact is irrelevant to the game industry as a whole. There are some many different games to play, that it can't be expected that someone would want to play your game and your game only until they wore it out and didn't want to play it ever again. Designers and publishers are much more concerned with just getting noticed in the first place with all of the competition. Having said that, you definitely don't want to design a game that is fun once or twice or even 5 times and then it is either solved or just no fun anymore. I would hope that all game designers could elevate their design skills and playtest enough to avoid that scenario.

Another way to make a game "fun" and not solvable, is to introduce a healthy dose of randomness and risk taking. This can also lead to replayability as players can expect some surprises from the game and have to adjust what they do. But going too far into luck territory could make it feel like the game is playing you and not you playing the game and there are no interesting decisions to make therefore making the game boring for another reason. There is a fine line to draw here.

on 07/26/08 at 07:00:11, Fritzlein wrote:

There's nothing new or interesting in the rules of Arimaa, and since that's what game design is all about, we can dismiss it as boring on that basis.

This is an interesting point, because for the most part, I don't like or seek out abstract games in general. I am not really that big of a fan of Chess. I played Go a couple of times and it just didn't appeal to me. I tend to find abstracts either boring or lacking in flavor. Maybe I haven't actually tried enough different abstracts to form that opinion, but I have it none the less. So what attracted me to try Arimaa? First off, the game was free, there was a way to play online, and I was looking for a game to play during my lunch breaks at work. I didn't want something that was going to be too involved, I just wanted something quick that I could finish in one sitting.

What kept me coming back to Arimaa? Well, for an abstract game it has more flavor than most and it is visually appealing. The bot ladder was a fun challenge to start, but then playing human postal games and participating in the community through tournaments and this forum was also satisfying. And then there is the gameplay. Arimaa is equally deep and intuitive. I don't know of ANY other game approaching it's level of strategy. But also it is fun. The positions on the board are ever changing from move to move, but there is an enough of a theme and variety in the pieces to make it approachable and not cryptic like I feel some other abstracts can be. Arimaa has style.

I generally don't have the penchant for playing the same game over and over again. What tends to happen is that the game is either too complex/takes too long to play to enjoy on a regular basis or it lacks replay value. I also have a limited amount of time to play games face-to-face. But the fact of the matter is this - when I play Arimaa, I am NOT playing the same game over and over again! It always turns out different even after over 1,000 plays!

Going back to your original point that there is nothing interesting or new to Arimaa's rules - well, to me, they were interesting and new! So I can't really say that my statement was flawed at least coming from my perspective.

on 07/26/08 at 07:00:11, Fritzlein wrote:

He basically says six things, and three of them are playtesting-related. Do you think maybe he gets a lot of submissions that (in his mind) haven't been adequately playtested? ;-)

And one of them was mine ;-). I had playtested my game quite a bit up to the point, but I think I rushed it by sending it to Zman when I did. But on the other hand, he gave me some great feedback that helped me to see something that I didn't see before which enabled me to drastically improve the game. So without his feedback, I may not be at the point where I am today with the game. I think the tough thing for amateur game designers is getting quality playtesting, and playtesting amongst friends is not really that helpful as they are too kind. Big design companies do extensive playtesting in house which is something beyond the reach of the amateur game designer. But still I plug along, making every effort to get my game playtested enough before I attempt to send it to another publisher.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 27^th, 2008, 2:22pm

Mistre, I think your list of what attracted you to Arimaa is very illuminating. How could anyone know beforehand that Arimaa is a great game? But one does know that it is available for free on-line, one can play the first game through quickly, and the board looks nice. First impressions are very important for drawing a crowd.

I think I would call the bot ladder medium-term impression. For many games, I will never find out whether they are deep or not, because I can't find someone of my own level to play. The always-available, gradually-more-difficult opponents are a huge bonus for getting to know a game. This is where folks realize that there is more than one way to win Arimaa, and more than one way to lose. Apart from the interface, I think the bot ladder has been the most important factor in new-player retention.

I rave about Arimaa because it is still interesting after a thousand plays, but no one is ever going to play it that much without initial attraction and intermediate payoffs. Perhaps Omar was somewhat lucky that Arimaa has turned out to be so deep, because even his extensive playtesting couldn't have insured that, but building this great game site was all hard work, and that's what built a big enough community to verify Arimaa's depth.

I'm somewhat afraid that you are unusual in thinking Arimaa is nifty just from the rules. I'm afraid it will look boring at first glance to most people, and that the first impression will hold back Arimaa's wider acceptance when it is published for sale. If we can just get people playing, though, we have plenty of evidence that it is addictive and doesn't "run out" of variety in any obvious way.

Maybe the wisest thing after all is to focus on first impressions, because otherwise one doesn't get a chance to make a second impression. What do I know?

It sounds like you have the persistence Omar refers to as necessary for game design; I hope you also get the luck.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by Werner on Dec 2^nd, 2008, 1:36am

on 07/18/08 at 11:29:41, mistre wrote:

Sounds intriguing - kind of like moving traps.

"Moving trap" seems more challenging (and interesting) to manoeuver for players.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by pallab on Dec 9^th, 2008, 5:34pm

If any of you interested in trying out some arimaa variant, the best place to start with is Game Courier at chess variant web site http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/index.html. Using game courier one can customize the board as per their wish and can play a large of class of board and strategy games.

Title: Re: A new arimaa variant
Post by omar on Dec 10^th, 2008, 8:18am

If anyone is interested in making an Arimaa variant publicly available, please send me a message through the contact form. Since this has never been done before, I'll probably need to get more info from you about the variant and pass it on to the patent attorney to see what he advices.