The latest JSGC session report is up here. Games played: Cosmic Encounter, Colossal Arena, Taj Mahal, Quo Vadis, Zendo, Martian Chess, Magic: the Gathering, The Menorah Game x 2, Tarot, Hearts, Odds and Evens x 3.
Yehuda
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Update to previous
I was going to simply update the previous post, but I decided to add the following as a separate post instead:
From maibock on BGG comes this ridiculous video on a ... ahem ... board game. Verkisto even found a site for it. Thread here. More clues on this blog post.
louper on BGG notices that Moveable Type has added a stack of meeples into their logo!
Wellsian tries to reclassify the mechanics on BGG.
And lastly, a nice article on Serious Games about how the different purposes behind games allows different games to be measured by different standards.
Yehuda
From maibock on BGG comes this ridiculous video on a ... ahem ... board game. Verkisto even found a site for it. Thread here. More clues on this blog post.
louper on BGG notices that Moveable Type has added a stack of meeples into their logo!
Wellsian tries to reclassify the mechanics on BGG.
And lastly, a nice article on Serious Games about how the different purposes behind games allows different games to be measured by different standards.
Yehuda
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
More Game Videos
Last April I linked to a slew of retro game commercials.
For no particular reason, here are a few more that I happened to come across on Youtube. I'm really not looking for them; I fear I should find way too many more if I did.
Allan Sherman's Camp Granada Board Game - I would ask "What was he thinking?", but for Allan Sherman, that would not be a relevant question.
E.T. The Board Game - Cool bits.
Splat - How to make roll and move games more fun: let players squash their opponents' clay pieces.
Let's add to this one of many fake commercials for made up board games. Most are stupid. This one for a game called Stop and Wait is pretty funny.
Our last video is a serious amateur video short about good versus evil using the game of Abalone as it's main prop.
There are a number of vintage game sites on the web: Timewarp, Boardgames R Us, Alvin's, Darwin's, D'antiques, Kidd's, The Board Game Co., Games Gone By, and Vintage Board Games, to name a few. I like Nostalgia Game's site, and I can't help but notice on the "Double pack of Royal Visit to Nigeria" cards a familiar symbol (Jewish star) and I wonder how it got there.
Yehuda
For no particular reason, here are a few more that I happened to come across on Youtube. I'm really not looking for them; I fear I should find way too many more if I did.
Allan Sherman's Camp Granada Board Game - I would ask "What was he thinking?", but for Allan Sherman, that would not be a relevant question.
E.T. The Board Game - Cool bits.
Splat - How to make roll and move games more fun: let players squash their opponents' clay pieces.
Let's add to this one of many fake commercials for made up board games. Most are stupid. This one for a game called Stop and Wait is pretty funny.
Our last video is a serious amateur video short about good versus evil using the game of Abalone as it's main prop.
There are a number of vintage game sites on the web: Timewarp, Boardgames R Us, Alvin's, Darwin's, D'antiques, Kidd's, The Board Game Co., Games Gone By, and Vintage Board Games, to name a few. I like Nostalgia Game's site, and I can't help but notice on the "Double pack of Royal Visit to Nigeria" cards a familiar symbol (Jewish star) and I wonder how it got there.
Yehuda
Three Dimensional Go
Although I said in my last post that Go is probably the one game that really needs no variants, naturally there exist variants for the game:
Variations on Go: Including other rules, other boards, other pieces, and ways to include a third or fourth player.
Other variants
And even more variants at Sensei.
Before looking at these pages, my first thought was 3-D Go. I honestly don't know why.
The biggest problem was also obvious to me: a simple cubic board would have too many locations that each have six liberties, making capturing a veritable nightmare. I played around with the idea of using Tetrahedrons to solve this (d4's), but it didn't really work out.
I then thought about trying the cubic board, but simply eliminate some of the lines so that most of the locations still have only four liberties. Something like this:
By eliminating all of the z-axis lines, aside from those on the edge of the board, you end up with some intersections with five liberties, most with four, and corners with three. Further elimination of some lines on the faces allow us to limit any location to having only four liberties. Using this system you should choose the optimal board dimensions to have the board make structural sense (unlike my example):
Actually, if you simply play only on the faces of the cube, you end up with a close approximation of a plain Go board, with no more than four liberties from any location. While that is a step "up" from a traditional Go board, it doesn't give me the real feel of three dimensions.
(A variant for this would be to play on three nested but completely separated cubes. This would be like playing three games of Go simultaneously on three different sized boards, where you can decide on which board to move each time it is your play. While a tad more confusing, it doesn't really add anything to the experience.
Another very strange variant would be to play several dozen games of Go simultaneously, where each plane represents a different game, and a single stone is placed simultaneously on three boards.)
I then went on-line to see what had been done with 3-D Go already. There is a three dimensional Go game on Sourceforge, but it simply uses the 5x5x5 cube shape.
A more interesting approach is Diamond Go, which uses a strange crytalline latice structure in such a way that a true Go experience is recreated in three dimensions. Each location has four, three, or two liberties.
Ishihama Yoshiaki also examines several variations on three dimensional boards that produce playable experiences similar to the two dimentional version, including some really funky board shapes.
Funky.
Links:
Maksim points me to a report exploring games and health, including a game Glucoboy that helps you maintain the body's ideal blood sugar level for diabetics:
Speaking of games and the body, Columia University and the University of New Mexico have got DNA based computers playing and winning Tic Tac Toe.
Yehuda
Update: Bernie points to a Torus shaped Go board, no corners or sides.
Variations on Go: Including other rules, other boards, other pieces, and ways to include a third or fourth player.
Other variants
And even more variants at Sensei.
Before looking at these pages, my first thought was 3-D Go. I honestly don't know why.
The biggest problem was also obvious to me: a simple cubic board would have too many locations that each have six liberties, making capturing a veritable nightmare. I played around with the idea of using Tetrahedrons to solve this (d4's), but it didn't really work out.
I then thought about trying the cubic board, but simply eliminate some of the lines so that most of the locations still have only four liberties. Something like this:
By eliminating all of the z-axis lines, aside from those on the edge of the board, you end up with some intersections with five liberties, most with four, and corners with three. Further elimination of some lines on the faces allow us to limit any location to having only four liberties. Using this system you should choose the optimal board dimensions to have the board make structural sense (unlike my example):
Actually, if you simply play only on the faces of the cube, you end up with a close approximation of a plain Go board, with no more than four liberties from any location. While that is a step "up" from a traditional Go board, it doesn't give me the real feel of three dimensions.
(A variant for this would be to play on three nested but completely separated cubes. This would be like playing three games of Go simultaneously on three different sized boards, where you can decide on which board to move each time it is your play. While a tad more confusing, it doesn't really add anything to the experience.
Another very strange variant would be to play several dozen games of Go simultaneously, where each plane represents a different game, and a single stone is placed simultaneously on three boards.)
I then went on-line to see what had been done with 3-D Go already. There is a three dimensional Go game on Sourceforge, but it simply uses the 5x5x5 cube shape.
A more interesting approach is Diamond Go, which uses a strange crytalline latice structure in such a way that a true Go experience is recreated in three dimensions. Each location has four, three, or two liberties.
Ishihama Yoshiaki also examines several variations on three dimensional boards that produce playable experiences similar to the two dimentional version, including some really funky board shapes.
Funky.
Links:
Maksim points me to a report exploring games and health, including a game Glucoboy that helps you maintain the body's ideal blood sugar level for diabetics:
Glucoboy is a glucose meter that can be inserted into a Nintendo Gameboy. The product operates independent of the video game system but downloads video game programs that are contained within its circuitry into the Gameboy as a reward for maintaining good blood sugar control. With the patient being responsible for so much of proper diabetes management the Glucoboy carries an essential dual role, providing accurate medical diagnosis for the disease as well as an incentive delivery platform which serves as a key portal for obtaining patient-critical medical data; the foundation for fully automated, individualized, disease management program.There sure is a lot of new research going into how to marry games and health.
Speaking of games and the body, Columia University and the University of New Mexico have got DNA based computers playing and winning Tic Tac Toe.
Yehuda
Update: Bernie points to a Torus shaped Go board, no corners or sides.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Coffee, Go, and Pente [1]
What I could see of the sky was black polygons, edges fading into the yellow-pink glare of streetlights. These same lights poured gold into the Jerusalem stone on the sides of every building. I walked into The Coffee Bean, Tal in tow.
Since Rachel was going to be home late, and since Tal had a voice lesson, I asked her to meet me downtown so that we could go to the Go club together. Tal is not enthusiastic about Go; mostly because she's not very good at it. I hoped that she would be inspired to play, anyway, assuming she didn't have too much homework.
The Jerusalem Go club had been changing locations every few months. This was the second meeting in its new location, a coffee house on the corner of Jaffa road and Heleni Hamalka Street. It was a beautiful location.
However, it was also expensive, with coffees ranging from 15 to 25 NIS ($3.50 - $6.00). Rather steep. Nevertheless, I bought a vanilla coffee for myself and a "hot vanilla" for Tal. It was good; I'll grant them that.
We could see the Go players from the outside as we passed through security. An old friend/acquaintance Josh was instructing a group of others, running through a complete game that had been played recently at a tournament. This was well beyond my level. It's not that I didn't understand what he was saying; it's that I was so far from playing at that level, yet, that the techniques he was discussing simply didn't apply to me.
Altogether, there were around twelve club participants this evening, including myself and Tal, and not including two people who came only to watch. Others, including the waiting staff, gave occasional curious glances. To my surprise, one of the participants was Adam, a regular from my own club.
While Josh continued his teaching in preparation for several games to start [2], Adam and I played on an 11x11 grid. Adam and I knew that he was the stronger player, so I played first and Adam declined the bonus points for second.
When I play Chess, I don't mind losing, but I mind playing well and then forgetting somewhere in the middle of the game that my queen is under attack. Losing that way doesn't give me any lessons learned (other than to always watch for stupid oversights) nor satisfaction if it happens to my opponent. So when I play Go, I don't mind losing, but I want to take back a move if I do something that was obviously stupid. Adam, and Go players in general, wasn't used to that, but he let me.
I did it twice during the game, both times rolling back about three moves. So I don't mind saying that he won, because I took back my moves. After I took back those moves, I concentrated more carefully. The end result was my winning by about 18 points. Next game I hopefully won't make the same stupid mistakes, as I now know what to look for.
The 11x11 board is still largely tactical, as opposed to grandly strategic, but it's still more strategic than the 9x9 board. I was definitely getting into the spirit of the game. I began to look at each pattern and count the liberties, carefully considering different plays that I could do to extend my liberties by more than one, and carefully looking to see what plays my opponent could make to trap me against a wall or another one of his foundations.
I'm always amazed at the game. It's just so beautiful. Although there exist variations other than changing the board size, Go is probably the one game that really doesn't need any variations.
While I played, Josh managed to convince Tal to play a game of "elimination Go", where the winner is the first person to take one of the other player's pieces. Tal declined to play with any handicap, and lost, but she played well.
After my game with Adam, I figured we should split and play with other people. Adam played with someone and I challenged Josh to some Pente. This is a great tactic to use when playing with a Go player who can wipe the floor with you. I am a reasonable Pente player, and Josh had barely played. I won two games off of him, and he immensely enjoyed the games.
While I played Pente, Adam played Go with Tal, and Tal again declined a handicap. This time they played a regular game, and with Adam giving a few nudges here and there, Tal played to an impressive loss of only 15 to 8 (Japanese scoring). That's pretty impressive; it's about what I would expect to score against him.
I played two more games of Pente with someone else at the club (Eli) who had never played before, again winning both. And then Tal and I had to leave.
OK, so I really should have played another game of Go, but I'm not yet an expert at Pente, and it really is an enjoyable game, too. My respect for it goes up a bit each time I play, actually.
High on a great evening, and looking forward to game night tomorrow night, Tal and I left to catch the bus home.
Yehuda
[1] I wanted to use the heading "Coffee, Pente, and Go (Oh my!)", but Tal nixed it.
[2] Josh generally gives his opponents about a six stone advantage.
Since Rachel was going to be home late, and since Tal had a voice lesson, I asked her to meet me downtown so that we could go to the Go club together. Tal is not enthusiastic about Go; mostly because she's not very good at it. I hoped that she would be inspired to play, anyway, assuming she didn't have too much homework.
The Jerusalem Go club had been changing locations every few months. This was the second meeting in its new location, a coffee house on the corner of Jaffa road and Heleni Hamalka Street. It was a beautiful location.
However, it was also expensive, with coffees ranging from 15 to 25 NIS ($3.50 - $6.00). Rather steep. Nevertheless, I bought a vanilla coffee for myself and a "hot vanilla" for Tal. It was good; I'll grant them that.
We could see the Go players from the outside as we passed through security. An old friend/acquaintance Josh was instructing a group of others, running through a complete game that had been played recently at a tournament. This was well beyond my level. It's not that I didn't understand what he was saying; it's that I was so far from playing at that level, yet, that the techniques he was discussing simply didn't apply to me.
Altogether, there were around twelve club participants this evening, including myself and Tal, and not including two people who came only to watch. Others, including the waiting staff, gave occasional curious glances. To my surprise, one of the participants was Adam, a regular from my own club.
While Josh continued his teaching in preparation for several games to start [2], Adam and I played on an 11x11 grid. Adam and I knew that he was the stronger player, so I played first and Adam declined the bonus points for second.
When I play Chess, I don't mind losing, but I mind playing well and then forgetting somewhere in the middle of the game that my queen is under attack. Losing that way doesn't give me any lessons learned (other than to always watch for stupid oversights) nor satisfaction if it happens to my opponent. So when I play Go, I don't mind losing, but I want to take back a move if I do something that was obviously stupid. Adam, and Go players in general, wasn't used to that, but he let me.
I did it twice during the game, both times rolling back about three moves. So I don't mind saying that he won, because I took back my moves. After I took back those moves, I concentrated more carefully. The end result was my winning by about 18 points. Next game I hopefully won't make the same stupid mistakes, as I now know what to look for.
The 11x11 board is still largely tactical, as opposed to grandly strategic, but it's still more strategic than the 9x9 board. I was definitely getting into the spirit of the game. I began to look at each pattern and count the liberties, carefully considering different plays that I could do to extend my liberties by more than one, and carefully looking to see what plays my opponent could make to trap me against a wall or another one of his foundations.
I'm always amazed at the game. It's just so beautiful. Although there exist variations other than changing the board size, Go is probably the one game that really doesn't need any variations.
While I played, Josh managed to convince Tal to play a game of "elimination Go", where the winner is the first person to take one of the other player's pieces. Tal declined to play with any handicap, and lost, but she played well.
After my game with Adam, I figured we should split and play with other people. Adam played with someone and I challenged Josh to some Pente. This is a great tactic to use when playing with a Go player who can wipe the floor with you. I am a reasonable Pente player, and Josh had barely played. I won two games off of him, and he immensely enjoyed the games.
While I played Pente, Adam played Go with Tal, and Tal again declined a handicap. This time they played a regular game, and with Adam giving a few nudges here and there, Tal played to an impressive loss of only 15 to 8 (Japanese scoring). That's pretty impressive; it's about what I would expect to score against him.
I played two more games of Pente with someone else at the club (Eli) who had never played before, again winning both. And then Tal and I had to leave.
OK, so I really should have played another game of Go, but I'm not yet an expert at Pente, and it really is an enjoyable game, too. My respect for it goes up a bit each time I play, actually.
High on a great evening, and looking forward to game night tomorrow night, Tal and I left to catch the bus home.
Yehuda
[1] I wanted to use the heading "Coffee, Pente, and Go (Oh my!)", but Tal nixed it.
[2] Josh generally gives his opponents about a six stone advantage.
Slow Day, but I'm Off to the Go Club
I'm working on another longer post, Israel related this time (but not poiltics).
uWink is a new chain of restaurants built around the idea of gaming.
And here's a short business article about how Hasboro takes old games and remarkets them.
Yehuda
uWink is a new chain of restaurants built around the idea of gaming.
And here's a short business article about how Hasboro takes old games and remarkets them.
Yehuda
Monday, October 16, 2006
Buzz buzz
Events buzzin' around:
I missed last week's ICON, which was not too surprising. One day of games was already enough. Still, too bad.
This week there's a game night at Gilad's in Modiin, but owing to the young ages of his children it won't start until 21:00, which is too late for me. On the same night in Jerusalem is the monthly meeting of the Jerusalem Go club, which is more likely.
I was contacted by a guy who is looking to develop a series of games and thought that I must work in the industry based on what he read on this blog. Whoops! Sorry, I don't produce games or invest in games. More's the pity.
I need suggestions for games to order for Hanukkah for the group. Any suggestions?
Last week I was able to help two people in toy stores. In one instance, I saw a woman puzzling over the rack of card games and I directed her to Take 6 instead of Taki (a cousin of Uno). In another, I saw a woman and her kids looking at what looked like a glorified version of Nine Men's Morris, and I convinced them to get Reiner Knizia's Ingenious instead, for the same price.
Just doin' my job.
Yehuda
Addition: I haven't hyped David in a while, so here is yet another heart-kicking post from Treppenwitz: Small Acts of Kindness.
Michael Totten, a journalist/blogger has put together a set of pamphlets containing essays and blog entries from the latest war. You can buy it at Amazon, too; it's called The Hezbollah War
Rabbi Boteach, famed for his book Kosher Sex, and for turning Michael Jackson, Roseanne Barr, and Madonna on to Judaism and Kabbalah, is starring in a reality TV show whose premise is that he visits families and helps them overcome problems. That's the first reality TV show I've heard of that doesn't sound entirely like pond scum. It still sounds rather voyeuristic, however.
I missed last week's ICON, which was not too surprising. One day of games was already enough. Still, too bad.
This week there's a game night at Gilad's in Modiin, but owing to the young ages of his children it won't start until 21:00, which is too late for me. On the same night in Jerusalem is the monthly meeting of the Jerusalem Go club, which is more likely.
I was contacted by a guy who is looking to develop a series of games and thought that I must work in the industry based on what he read on this blog. Whoops! Sorry, I don't produce games or invest in games. More's the pity.
I need suggestions for games to order for Hanukkah for the group. Any suggestions?
Last week I was able to help two people in toy stores. In one instance, I saw a woman puzzling over the rack of card games and I directed her to Take 6 instead of Taki (a cousin of Uno). In another, I saw a woman and her kids looking at what looked like a glorified version of Nine Men's Morris, and I convinced them to get Reiner Knizia's Ingenious instead, for the same price.
Just doin' my job.
Yehuda
Addition: I haven't hyped David in a while, so here is yet another heart-kicking post from Treppenwitz: Small Acts of Kindness.
Michael Totten, a journalist/blogger has put together a set of pamphlets containing essays and blog entries from the latest war. You can buy it at Amazon, too; it's called The Hezbollah War
Rabbi Boteach, famed for his book Kosher Sex, and for turning Michael Jackson, Roseanne Barr, and Madonna on to Judaism and Kabbalah, is starring in a reality TV show whose premise is that he visits families and helps them overcome problems. That's the first reality TV show I've heard of that doesn't sound entirely like pond scum. It still sounds rather voyeuristic, however.
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