HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dkfenger@kate.UVic.CA (David  Fenger)
Subject: Re: Recommend these game, from Game Top 100?
Summary: Terrace isn't so bad...
Keywords: Terrace
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 92 01:31:05 GMT

kleber@husc11.harvard.edu (Gwydden) writes:
>ninja@halcyon.com (Jonathan Roy) writes:
>
>> Terrace - looks and sounds cool. I really like Abalone, and this
>>   seems very similar. Anyone play it? :D
>
>This one didn't impress me-- it has Abalone's elegant look, until you
>actually touch the pieces, and the game itself isn't helped much by the
>board and pieces-- would work almost as well with graph paper and a pencil.
>Definitely know what's in the box before buying.

Well, I got the game as a Christmas present, and while the construction is
mid-grade, it's not all _that_ bad...  Yes, the stones are hollow plastic,
but solid enough.

I don't think it would work well as a graph paper and pencil game - too much
moving around.  (Graph paper and various bits of paper, perhaps.)  The rules
are very simple, yet the consequences of the rules seem to be quite complex,
from the games I've played so far.

Admittedly, I've not played a lot of abstract games lately - but if Othello
and chess fit in here, Terrace should, too.

----
David Fenger (dkfenger@sirius.uvic.ca)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: gardabr@unix1 (Gard Eggesbo Abrahamsen)
Subject: Shortest game of Othello...
Organization: MRIH, More og Romsdal Ingeniorhogskole
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 15:10:35 GMT

On the subject of short games of reversi, I have a little bug in my
algorithm for level 1 of "Reverse - the better reversi?" on the Atari
ST(e).

If you'd like a copy of the game, you can get it by ftp at ftp.uni-kl.de
/pub/atari/games/reverse.prg   The file is 19770 bytes and ready to run
(packed with the pompey packer).

But pleasve... ST/TT-series of computers only. I have not yet
tested it on the Falcon, and would appreciate it if someone did.

BTW; does anyone know a *good* algorithm for reversi, and would this
someone be interested in cooperative work with me to put this algorithm
in version 1.4 of Reverse?

Anyway, here's the "battle" - how to beat the computer in 9 moves!

                  BEAT 'DIS!!!

.......  ........  ........  ........  ........  
.......  ........  ........  ........  ........  
.......  ........  ........  ........  ........  
..#O...  ...#O...  ...#O...  ...#O...  ...#O...  
..O#...  ...OO...  ...O#...  ...O#...  ...##...  
.......  ....O...  ....O#..  ....OOO.  ...#OOO.  
.......  ........  ........  ........  ........  
.......  ........  ........  ........  ........  
          1         2         3         4

.......  ........  ........  ........  ........  
.......  ........  ........  ........  ....O...  
.......  ........  ........  ....#...  ....O...  
..#O...  ...#O...  ..OOO...  ..OO#...  ..OOO...  
..O#...  ..###...  ..OO#...  ..OO#...  ..OOO...  
.OOOOO.  ..OOOOO.  ..OOOOO.  .........  ........  
.......  ........  ........  
.......  ........  ........  ........  ........  
5         6         7         8         9



--
===============================================================================
Gard Eggesboe Abrahamsen                              PO Box 5061, Larsgaarden,
gard.abrahamsen@mrih.no             o O                  6021 Aalesund, Norway
gardabr@unix1.mrih.no              =( )=             Postal giro: 0825 0488697
ga@samson.mrih.no                    U         Date of birth: August 19th 1973
Gard@IRC                                     "Why sort what already is sorted?"
===============================================================================
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Timber Chess
Date: 21 Dec 92 19:09:07 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <BzM46D.JH6@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl> wiltinkm@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl (M. Wiltink.a73A.telnr-015-138378) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.231746.24737@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
>>mss2e@Virginia.EDU ("ardly know ") writes:
>>>
>>>	All you need is a sheet of graph paper and two
>>>pencils..[]... the first
>>>person to get five in a row wins.  It is a fantastic game.
>>
>>This is called Go-Moku in Japan...[]  They
>>also don't allow "three-threes" - placing a piece so that you get an
>>unobstructed three-in-a-row in two directions at once..[]
>>  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
>
>Sorry to disagree, but I think this is the Go-Bang variant. In Go-Moku,
>there is the additional rule that two stones of the same colour with a
>stone of the other colour on both sides are removed from the board.
>
>Thus 'OXXO' > 'O  O'.

this is like Pente.  Go-Moku has no capturing.
>
>BTW, I never heard about the 'three-three'-rule. It would make the games
>we play a take a lot longer, I think (they could use that).
>Maarten Wiltink

the rule of the double-three is part of Go-Moku.  it is a "defect" in my
view, a necessary blemish on its purity.  (the "ko" rule in Go is its
"defect" and has had an accidental side effect of creating a very nice
feature, the ko-fight.  some "defects" in some games have absolutely no
function otherwise, such as "en-passant" pawn capture - now how in- what
was the circumstance that led to that rule??  i'd like to go back in time
and see where they came up with that one...:-))

the search for a game without defects continues.....

- nate
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: rbr@well.sf.ca.us (Bob Rossney)
Subject: Re: Twixt - please comment
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 17:06:00 GMT

In <1992Dec22.010818.553@news.wesleyan.edu> CDRESSER@eagle.wesleyan.edu (CLAYTON J. DRESSER) writes:

>Twixt is a game that was released as a board game by Avalon Hill in the 60s
>and I've always thought it was really cool and even considered trying to
>get a computer to play it.

Twixt was originally released by 3M, not Avalon Hill.  When 3M got out of
the board game business they sold their line to Avalon Hill (which is why
AH now publishes Acquire, Oh Wah Ree, Auction, and Feudal, among others).
Twixt was designed by Alex Randolph, a fine and prolific game inventor.

The problem with Twixt, if indeed it's a problem, is that it's difficult
if not impossible to recover from a failed gambit.  Playing Twixt feels very
much like working out a tesuji in Go, except there's no broader strategic
context in which to place it.  As I say, I'm not sure that it's a problem.

Bob Rossney
rbr@well.sf.ca.us
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 24 Dec 92 17:11:01 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <kleber.725161868@husc.harvard.edu> kleber@husc11.harvard.edu (Gwydden) writes:
>nates@ll.mit.edu (Nate Smith) writes:
>> a game without defects isnt necessarily good.  tic-tac-toe has no defects,
>> but is hardly a "great abstract game".
>
>Hmm-- I would disagree, actually; tic-tac-toe does have defects.  The
>most obvious is that the minimax strategy is trivial, all perfect
>games end in a draw, and the 3x3 and 3-in-a-row board size is arbitrary.
>
>--Michael Kleber                 I don't have an overactive imagination...

ah...i think we have a problem in semantics...i agree that its trivial,
always should end in a draw and is arbitrary in size.  those are not what i
would term "defects" in the rules.  so i guess its how we use the term,
"defect".  in my application here, i was referring to the system of rules
and how internally consistent they are.  i've often said that rules to a
game is like trying to cover an open set with a finite number of closed
sets.  in this case, the fact that tic-tac-toe is trivial and completely
treed out has nothing to do with my "defects".  going back to Go, the
ko rule immensely augments the game, so its by far preferrable to not
having that rule (then lots of go-games are alas trivial).  the jump from
3x3 to 19x19 for Go-Moku gets rid of a lot of the triviality of tic-tac-toe,
and the double-3 rule is a small price to pay.

and looking up at what i said above, i said a "game without defects", so i
guess i wasnt describing what i was saying....:-)  i was trying to stay
within the system of rules.  so going back to my topology analogy, in
the case of tic-tac-toe, while the rules have a minimal finite number of
closed sets or perhaps a sort mutual orthogonality, the open set that they
cover is a trivial open set.  maybe its that orthogonality - the double-3
rule isnt "orthogonal" enough to the rest of the rules...:-)

- nate
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: mcherm@msc.cornell.edu (Michael Chermside)
Subject: Re: Timber Chess
Organization: Cornell-Materials-Science-Center
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 00:06:29 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.190907.26083@ll.mit.edu> nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith) writes:
   [ Stuff Deleted To Save Bandwidth ]

>                     ...some "defects" in some games have absolutely no
>function otherwise, such as "en-passant" pawn capture - now how in- what
>was the circumstance that led to that rule??  i'd like to go back in time
>and see where they came up with that one...:-))
>
>the search for a game without defects continues.....
>
>- nate

Unfortunately, my reference on this one is at home, (home as in
another state, not a nearby residence) so without some effort I can't
substanciate(sp?) this, but I believe that I remember the origin of
"en-passant".  If I remember rightly, it was introduced to allow the
pawn-moves-2-on-first-move rule.  At one point, the game had neither
of these rules, but it suffered from very slow (and booring) opening
play.  The 2-square pawn move was added to compensate and to get
things off to a good, quick start but somebody (some "game defect"
purist I expect :-)) was upset that it wasn't JUST a speedup, in
certain circumstances it could change the game play.  "en-passant" was
introduced to re-correct for this: a pawn is allowed to capture
another pawn which used the 2-space move as a "trick" to escape it.
Presumably, en-passant applies only to pawn-vs-pawn captures because
with any other piece one can move forwards AND backwards, and so ought
to be able to get into position without such a special exception.

Just for fun, I'll point out that castling was another rules
"innovation" introduced simply to speed the game (it's the kind of
thing you'd like to achieve anyway, castling just makes it easier).
In much the same way as the en-passant rule, this explains the special
proviso that castling is illegal if any of the spaces involved OR
passed through is subject to attack (ie, a square in which a king
would be in check).  Presumably, if one's opponent had that kind of
control of one's side of the board, she would be able to prevent the
castling if it were attempted "the long way" (using normal moves, I
guess).  And the fact that castling was NOT intended to provide a new,
special kind of move, but was only to be used to speed the game a
little, explains why neither rook nor king may have moved previously.

I certainly understand (and enjoy/agree with) the search for a
defect-free game, but in the case of Chess, it looks like the people
in favor of being defect-free got in arguments with the people who
wanted to make the game more "playable", and the result was even more
severe defects.  Moral anybody?

**********************************************************************
* Michael Chermside * mcherm@msc.cornell.edu * "a raving mathophile" *
**********************************************************************
-- 
                                            --- Michael
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: trodrigu@spock.ecs.umass.edu (Tao R or Stephen L)
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 06:54:10 GMT

We could look at this idea of 'perfection' in abstract games as a form of
mathematical elegance, or we could look at it in terms of real-world
values such as ease of play, ease of learning, simplicity of manufacture,
physical beauty of the game, etc.  I the latter view, the argument
against the _no repeats_ rule is straightforward.  But this rule, or
something like it, is needed to prevent draws in many games.  Is there a
way out of this dilemma?
 
Many people have referred to draws in my game SUSAN even though I have no
specific rule defining a draw.  I imaging the same same thing happens
with Abalone which also lacks a rule defining draws.  The no repeats rule
can be used to create the ko situation and eliminate draws, or it can be
used as a way to define a draw.  When is one preferable over the other?
Would Chess be 'improved' by eliminating draws?  Would Go be 'improved'
by adding them?  What makes these two cases so different?
 
- Stephen  (no answers tonight, just questions)

Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: trodrigu@spock.ecs.umass.edu (Tao R or Stephen L)
Subject: Re: SUSAN (a game)
Summary: Some thoughts
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 05:41:17 GMT

>>  careful; if one of your stones is surrounded on your own turn
>>  (even if you surround one of your opponent's stones at the same
>>  time), you lose the game!....
> could you say that this is the reverse of Go?  in Go you kill first,
> then breath, as for example in a ko.  so in SUSAN you try to breath
> first, then kill.  thus, if you cant breath, you die before you kill?
Yes, exactly. A nice consequence of this is that it is possible to
protect a stone by threatening an _empty_ neighbor.
 
> disallow repeated positions...the 4-6 consecutive slides idea just
> sounds messy.
Abstractly I agree, disallowing repeat positions is more elegant. My
concern is that keeping track of repeat positions might be hard for many
people. On the other hand, the no passing rule would be a direct result
of the no repeats rule, so it is very elegant.
 
> nice game.  how did you come up with SUSAN?  is it an
> acronym?  the end of a bad relationship?  :-)
Here's the true story that I put on the tag for the game (I guess I aught
to point out that this is Copyright (c) 1991 by Stephen Linhart - All
Rights Reserved):
 
  "So why call a board game SUSAN?"
 
  Well, I'll tell you. One day me and my friend Michael were eating at
  our favorite cafe. We were playing my new game and I asked him what he
  thought it should be called. Just then, the waitress came over and
  Michael asked her name. She said 'Susan', and he turned to me and said
  'Susan'. So I said 'Ah... Susan'. Anyway, the name stuck, and it must
  be a good one because everybody asks "So why call a board game SUSAN?"
 
> ...if i tell somebody else about this game and we play
> it on one my hexgrid boards (i seem to have all these remnants of games
> lying around from failed ideas), is that ok?  as long as i dont make
> any money or let anyone else make money off this?
In this case, I'm already distributing SUSAN(tm) for the Mac as Freeware,
so I not only don't mind people playing SUSAN on their own homemade sets,
I would really like it. Of course, commercial distribution would be
another thing altogether. In addition to copyright on the words and
images, and trademark on the name, I've heard a legal theory that it may
be possible to protect a boardgame using a 'look and fell' copyright
argument similar to what has been done with some computer software.
 
> what do others in this group think about some kind of Registration?
> we could establish an archive somewhere for Registered games.
I think this sounds like a great idea. Really it could be a game archive
first and foremost, and additionally it could be dated for copyright
purposes.
 
- Stephen


-- 
Tao or Stephen at trodrigu@zonker.ecs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: trodrigu@ganzer.ecs.umass.edu ()
Subject: SUSAN (a game)
Summary: An original game. 
Originator: trodrigu@spock.ecs.umass.edu
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 06:55:49 GMT

SUSAN is a game of my own design with extremely simple rules and
considerable depth of play. The rules are as follows:
 
  S U S A N (tm)
  A quick and subtle game for two players
  
  Copyright (c) 1991 by Stephen Linhart
  All Rights Reserved
  
  SUSAN includes a hexagonal playing board with 61 spaces, and two
  sets of playing pieces, called _stones_.
  
  To begin the game, players choose colors and decide who goes
  first. On each turn you may place a stone in any empty space, or
  slide a stone which you already have on the board. When sliding a
  stone, you may move it to any neighboring space which is not
  already occupied. You may not pass your turn.
  
  The object of the game is to surround any ONE of your opponent's
  stones. You surround a stone simply by filling in the spaces
  around it - _a stone may be surrounded by any combination of your
  stones, your opponent's stones and the edge of the board_. But be
  careful; if one of your stones is surrounded on your own turn
  (even if you surround one of your opponent's stones at the same
  time), you lose the game!
 
The second half of the second to last sentence confuses some
people, so I include diagrams to explain it when I print the rules
on paper. The key point is that the game ends as soon as ANY stone
has no empty spaces around it. Neighboring stones of your own are
just as much of a threat as your opponent's stones. Every stone is
both a benefit and a liability.
 
The most significant weakness that I am aware of is that it is
possible to get into a draw situation. I am thinking of adding a
new rule to cover this. A draw could be a repeated board position,
or 4 to 6 slides in a row. I'm still thinking about this.
 
The shape of the board and my notation system are:
a      1 2 3 4 5      a
b     1 2 3 4 5 6     b
c    1 2 3 4 5 6 7    c
d   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8   d
e  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  e
f   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8   f
g    1 2 3 4 5 6 7    g
h     1 2 3 4 5 6     h
i      1 2 3 4 5      i
 
When I play by mail I prefer to write that as:
       1 2 3 4 5
a     . . . . . 6
b    . . . . . . 7
c   . . . . . . . 8
d  . . . . . . . . 9
e . . . . . . . . .
f  . . . . . . . . 9
g   . . . . . . . 8
h    . . . . . . 7
i     . . . . . 6
       1 2 3 4 5
A slide move can be written   'b2 -> c3'
 
SUSAN is currently available by modem from the Dragon's Eye BBS at
(512) 343-7727.
A Macintosh version is available by ftp from
sumex-aim.stanford.edu
The Mac version 2.0 has an opponent intelligence that uses neural-
net techniques, and learns by playing.
 
  - Stephen



-- 
Tao or Stephen at trodrigu@zonker.ecs.umass.edu
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 22 Dec 92 14:30:05 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <BzMrHE.At3@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca> eadengle@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca (Ed "Cynwrig" Dengler) writes:
>
>...[]...  If you want "no defects", try Hnefatafl (or any of its variants).

i never heard of it, could you describe it?  how is that pronounced?

- nate
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Timber Chess
Date: 22 Dec 92 14:57:45 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <0mW=5p#@engin.umich.edu> positron@engin.umich.edu (Jonathan Scott Haas) writes:
>In article <1992Dec21.190907.26083@ll.mit.edu> nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith) writes:
>>
>>(the "ko" rule in Go is its "defect" and has had an accidental
>> side effect of creating a very nice feature, the ko-fight.  
>>                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>I vehemently deny that the ko rule is a defect. Without it, a "ko fight"
>would consist of hour upon hour of replaying the exact same moves over
>and over until one of the players got bored, tired, or fell over dead.
>All the ko rule states is that a move which exactly recreates a previous
>position is illegal... is that wrong?

hey, i'm not saying the ko is bad.  the ko-fight aspect of go is a truly
remarkable effect - a very nice feature, something i use to advertise the
game to others....           :-)

what i mean by "defect" is a patch on the rules to prevent an undesirable
effect from occuring.  you could almost say that anytime you can describe
a rule with the word "except", you have a defect patch.  a defect isnt
necessarily bad - some rare gems are only possible because of defects in
the crystalline lattice.

>Do you also disagree with the
>"three repetitions and a draw" rule of chess?

usually i dont like games that can end in a draw, but i'm not disagreeing
with any of the rules for chess this way, including "en-passant".
>
>It dates back to the time when pawns weren't allowed to move forward two
>spaces on their first move. When they allowed the pawn to move forward
>two spaces on its first move, they didn't allow it to escape a threatened
>capture by an enemy pawn that way, 
                                    yes i understand that - but why?  why
did they decide that way?  what was the pro/con thinking there.  here is
a great game in modification, and they first conclude that they need to
speed up pawn development (to fix some "defect", i suppose, of slowness) -
then they conclude they went "too far" and, to swing the pendulum back,
come up with "en-passant".  i just wonder what they were saying to each
other then.

>by allowing the enemy pawn to capture as if the pawn had only moved one.
>-- 
>__/\__  Jonathan S. Haas

- nate
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: wiltinkm@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl (M. Wiltink.a73A.telnr-015-138378)
Subject: Re: Timber Chess
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 13:59:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.231746.24737@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
>mss2e@Virginia.EDU ("ardly know ") writes:
>>
>>	All you need is a sheet of graph paper and two
>>pencils.  You be Xs, get your buddy to be Os.  Just play tick
>>tac toe, except you can go anywhere you want, and the first
>>person to get five in a row wins.  It is a fantastic game.
>
>This is called Go-Moku in Japan, and they use the intersections of
>lines, rather than the spaces, when they play it on graph paper.  They
>also don't allow "three-threes" - placing a piece so that you get an
>unobstructed three-in-a-row in two directions at once.  This is deemed
>too easy to get, though some players allow beginners to use them.
>
>-- 
>  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu

Sorry to disagree, but I think this is the Go-Bang variant. In Go-Moku,
there is the additional rule that two stones of the same colour with a
stone of the other colour on both sides are removed from the board.

Thus 'OXXO' > 'O  O'.

BTW, I never heard about the 'three-three'-rule. It would make the games
we play a take a lot longer, I think (they could use that).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
wiltinkm@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl
Maarten Wiltink

Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science
Delft University of Technology
The Netherlands