HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Twixt - please comment
From: CDRESSER@eagle.wesleyan.edu (CLAYTON J. DRESSER)
Date: 22 Dec 92 01:08:17 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Wesleyan University
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20Lines: 49

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.

You start with a board of some reasonably large size, the larger the board,
the longer the game, that is a square grid of holes, try 20 x 20 for a good
game.

Below is a diagram of a 10 x 10 board:


o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o
   -------------------------------
o : o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o : o
  :                               :
r : o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o : o
  :                               :
o : o   r   o   o   o   r   o   o : o
  :                               :
o : o   o   o   r   o   o   o   o : o
  :                               :
o : o   o   o   o   o   o   r   o : o
  :                               :
o : o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o : r
  :                               :
o : o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o : o
  :                               :
o : o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o : o
   -------------------------------
o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o

The line of :'s represent red lines.  The -'s represent black lines.  Each
play must create a boundary that extends from the edge past one of his lines
across the board to the edge on the other side (i.e. across his colored lines).

Play alternates.  There are two types of pieces, pegs and connectors.
On your move, you place one peg.  Then, as a second part of your move, you
may place connectors between any of your pieces that are a knight's move
(from chess) away from each other.  Thus, the selection of r's above would
all be connected in a position indicating a win for red.

You can easily play this on graph paper and its worth playing around with
a little to see how interesting it is.

Clay

                     The Two Rules for Success in Life
                     =================================
               Rule 1: Don't tell people everything you know.
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Subject: copyright,trademark,patent
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 15:38:56 GMT


i was thinking about the protection game inventors have to get and
the dangers of publishing a game in this news group.  then i thought
that we may be able to setup a Registration List here that would at
least provide some rudimentary protection.  the key idea is the date
of publication.  you can get a copyright easy because they do not
check to see if its been copyrighted before.  the burden of proof in
a copyright case is to establish the first date of publication.  by
getting a copyright with the U.S. Library of Congress you get a
bullet-proof date of publication.

a patent - on the other hand - does require a search, and the system
is heavily rigged so that you have to hire a patent attorney.  this
is much costlier in both time and money.

take for example Rubik's cube.  this was also invented in Japan? at
about the same time, although it was (maybe still is) hard to see
who was first.  another issue is Golomb's "pentominoe" trademark.
does that mean that any new game using them has to fork over some
kind of royalty?  yuck.  we can call them "pentasquares" then and
declare that term to be in the public domain.

what do others in this group think about some kind of Registration?
we could establish an archive somewhere for Registered games.

then again we could be flooded with zillions of trivial or overly
ornate games that would swamp the process and effectively render it
useless.

just wondering....

- nate
From: eadengle@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca (Ed "Cynwrig" Dengler)
Subject: Re: Timber Chess
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 22:22:26 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.190907.26083@ll.mit.edu> nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith) writes:
>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...:-))
>

Basically (as far as I understand from my sources), the original games of
chess (Shatarunga, and Chatranj) did not allow the pawns to jump forward
two squares atthe beginning. This lead to very slow games as it took
quite a while to actually bring the pawns into contact (this is why Burmese
and Siamese chess start their pawns on the third and fourth ranks). To
help solve this "defect", the pawns were allowed to makean initial move of
two squares rather than one if desired. However, it was felt that this gave
too much advantage to the player moving the pawn since he could skip by
a guarenteed capture if played at the right time. Thus, the "en passant"
capture rule which allows an enemy pawn to capture the first after the move
was made as if the player's pawn was only moved one swuare rather than two
(whewwww, that was rather long winded :-).

>the search for a game without defects continues.....
>
>- nate

Good luck!  If you want "no defects", try Hnefatafl (or any of its variants).

Ed
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: mdm@bnr.ca (Diane MacMartin)
Subject: Re: Win/Win Games
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:39:45 GMT

I've played a couple of games of this type.
---------------------
Crossed/uncrossed - people are sitting in (more or less) a circle or
ring, some people with their legs crossed.  (this can be either 
Indian-style on the floor, or on chairs with their legs crossed)

A pair of scissors is passed from one person to the next, with the
passing person saying "crossed" or "uncrossed".  Those who are "in" on
it say "wrong" when the person is wrong.

The key is, you say "crossed" if the scissors are in the closed
position, "uncrossed" if you pass them in the open position, i.e.:

0 0                    0  0              
 V  crossed             \/    uncrossed  
 V                     /  \              
 V                                       

Use the legs to distract people.  (this may also be used with
eyeglasses, or anything of that type)
---------------------
There is another game called (I think) "murder".  You deal one playing
card to each player, including one queen of spades.  The one receiving
the QoS is the murderer, and kills people by winking at them.  Once
winked at, a player must declare "I'm dead" and is out of the game.

The turn is over when all players are dead, or when a player who is
alive guesses who the murderer is.  Of course, the "I'm dead" should not
be declared instantaneously, so as to immediately reveal the murderer.

This game can be played amidst normal conversation, and indeed is best
as such.
---------------------
I don't think these games really follow the teamwork/win-win principles
that the original poster is asking for, but we played them in the same
groups as the "I like coffee but I don't like tea" game, so I have
suggested them here.

- 
Diane MacMartin       Bell-Northern Research, Ltd     Ottawa, Canada
mdm@bnr.ca            Any opinions are my own and do not represent BNR.
=========>> If this is printed on paper, please recycle it <<==========
From: kleber@husc11.harvard.edu (Gwydden)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 29 Dec 92 02:42:13 GMT
 <1hie51INNnvd@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> <1992Dec28.224523.28467@news.arc.nasa.gov>


I don't *think* I was the one who started the "defect-free games"
thred-- maybe just helped it along a bit.  In any case, Melfin
Nicholson gets into the action and proposes some criteria for defect-free:

> 1: state should be limited to position of pieces on the board and whose
> turn it is, with no reference to 'previous board positions' and other
> phenominon which must be tracked

So you would consider a "no repeated positions" rule a defect?  I'm
not sure whether I do or not-- but then again, these are very aesthetic
questions; no surprise that we don't all agree.  Hmm-- what happens
if you eliminate such a rule, anyway?  You end up im places where
the players might loop forever... if you just say that's a loss for
both of them, does that take care of it?  No, I suppose not, because
there's no good way to decide which one should break the loop.
Pity.

> 2: the rules should not admit special cases and be symmetric to all
> peices and positions

Sometimes it's hard to say what's a special case.  The starting
position in [othello/reversi] always seemed somewhat arbitrary to
me; one of the beauties of go was the fact that the board starts
empty, and only the strategy inherent in the rules determines
the first move.

> 3: the rules should be stable in a concise way, and not too numerous

(statable, I assume you mean.)  Hmm (evil grin)-- how about Mornington
Crescent?  From one point of view, the rules are not too numerous,
but not statable at all; from another, there are arbitrarily many
rules.  And yet, it's an incredibly aesthetic game... ah, but I suppose
there are those that would argue that it doesn't qualify as an abstract
game, given the definitions I've seen posted here.  (imho, if MC isn't
abstract, what *is*, but that's personal...)

> While I agree that defect free status isn't all that wonderful of a
> thing (as someone pointed out, tic-tac-toe is quite 'defect free' in
> this since, but in general is a lousy game), I do sympathise with the
> aesthetic quality the original author was trying to put his finger on.

I think flawlessness needs some kind of not-too-easy characteristic...
I think that perfect play being known is definitely a flaw, for example.
Yes, I realize how arbitrary "known" is... maybe "practical to play"?
One of the appeals of "mental jujitsu" is that it's state-tree isn't
computable, because players don't alternate-- but I think that's
*too* much to ask from a poor innocent little game...

--Michael Kleber                 I don't have an overactive imagination...
  kleber@husc.harvard.edu        I have an underactive reality...   --EG
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 29 Dec 92 16:32:14 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <kleber.725596933@husc.harvard.edu> kleber@husc11.harvard.edu (Gwydden) writes:
>
>I don't *think* I was the one who started the "defect-free games"
>thred-- maybe just helped it along a bit.

alas...it was probably my fault  :-(

>Melfin Nicholson proposes some criteria:
>
>> 1: state should be limited to position of pieces on the board and whose
>> turn it is, with no reference to 'previous board positions' and other
>> phenominon which must be tracked
>
>So you would consider a "no repeated positions" rule a defect?  I'm
>not sure whether I do or not-- but then again, these are very aesthetic
>questions; no surprise that we don't all agree.  Hmm-- what happens
>if you eliminate such a rule, anyway?  You end up im places where
>the players might loop forever... if you just say that's a loss for
>both of them, does that take care of it?  No, I suppose not, because
>there's no good way to decide which one should break the loop.
>Pity.

when the "no repeat" rule is regarded as a "defect" patch, then, to
get rid of it, possible games are limited to those that do not need
such a rule.  he has suggested othello/reversi.  there are many games
where a repeated position cannot occur.  the question is whether the
numerous other games which do have that possibilty otherwise should be
disallowed.  of course not.  but, then, the "no repeat" rule might be
a concession to 1 defect.  1 aint bad.  especially when you consider
what else is at stake.  i am sort of on a fence.  the elegance (and
elegance is certainly a goal of good abstract game design) of the
Chinese Go rules versus the Japanese is persuasive.  indeed, it may
be that you have to add a defect in the name of elegance.

>
>> 2: the rules should not admit special cases and be symmetric to all
>> peices and positions
>
>Sometimes it's hard to say what's a special case.  The starting
>position in [othello/reversi] always seemed somewhat arbitrary to
>me; one of the beauties of go was the fact that the board starts
>empty, and only the strategy inherent in the rules determines
>the first move.

i agree that this is a beauty of Go.  however, i dont think the arbitrary
quality of a game has to be a bad thing, and i wouldnt categorize it
under "defect removing".  its more under the "easy to describe" column.
consider the arrangement at the beginning of a chess game....
>
>I think flawlessness needs some kind of not-too-easy characteristic...
>I think that perfect play being known is definitely a flaw, for example.
>Yes, I realize how arbitrary "known" is... maybe "practical to play"?
>One of the appeals of "mental jujitsu" is that it's state-tree isn't
>computable, because players don't alternate-- but I think that's
>*too* much to ask from a poor innocent little game...
>
>--Michael Kleber

flawlessness?  in my other response to Melfin's post, i came up with
desirability.  there is perhaps too much of a constraint in using
terms like "zero-defects" and "flawless"....:-)

- nate
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Four-Letter Word
Date: 24 Dec 92 16:30:12 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <BzqJ1C.3uG@boi.hp.com> jstodola@boi.hp.com (Jane Stodola) writes:
>My sister taught me a variation of Mastermind that uses
>four-letter words.  Each player has a piece of paper on which
>he/she writes his/her four-letter word which the other person
>has to guess.  The word may not contain double letters.

we called it "Four-Letter Word" and you were not prohibited from
using double letters at all.  it was great fun.  we used Scrabble Rules
for picking the words.  you would score a point for each wrong guess.
we used to play 3 rounds and add the 3 scores together to see who won.
in our version pots was no win for stop.*  we gave our answers back in the
Mastermind form of a-b where a is how many letters are right and b is
how many of those are in the right position.  so, in the above case, pots
for stop would get you a 4-0 answer.  if, however, it turns out later that
a guesser can prove an answer given is incorrect, then the answer player
only scores up to, but not including, that point and no further on that
word.  so you had be careful with the a-b answer.  later on we discovered
that there was no problem confining the length of the word to 4 letters.
it just added another level of points.  long words had their disadvantages,
as the guesses progressed, getting very confined in possibility very fast.
shorter words (<4) had the weakness of being subject to brute force
algorithms.  later on i wrote a communication program for any number of
participants.  however, in this, i had the program compute the answer -
taking away that need to be careful.  this was so some of us could go
home and others would still be able to guess on their words.  this also
fit into a slogan i made up:

 "I dont like to win by getting my opponent to make a stupid mistake...
  I would much rather win by forcing my opponent to make an intelligent
  mistake."

* there are 24 ways to arrange 4 letters.  pots may hold the record for
having the most of those 24 be real words (Scrabble english):

opts  post  pots  spot  stop  tops (but not as in "you drunken psot":-)

any others like this?

- nate
From: palumbo-gordon@cs.yale.edu (Gordon Palumbo)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: Timber Chess
Date: 22 Dec 1992 01:11:38 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
NNTP-Posting-Host: hare.zoo.cs.yale.edu

In article <BzMrHE.At3@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca> eadengle@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca (Ed "Cynwrig" Dengler) writes:
>
>Good luck!  If you want "no defects", try Hnefatafl (or any of its variants).
>
>Ed
One how the hell do you pronounce it! :-)
And two how is it played?
	-Gogo


Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: Michael.Norrish@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Michael Norrish)
Subject: Trax anyone?
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Victoria Uni. of Wellington, NZ.
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 09:35:45 GMT

Trax is a nice game developed in New Zealand with a very abstract
design and (dare I say it? :-) no flaws....

Has anyone outside of New Zealand ever heard of it? If no-one has,
I'll even post a description of it as a Christmas present.. :-)

Michael.
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: boman@sccm.stanford.edu (Erik Boman)
Subject: hnefatafl and tablut
Organization: Scientific Computing/Computational Mathematics, Stanford
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 04:17:23 GMT

While waiting for Ed Dengler to post his collection of hnefatafl
variants, I could not resist the temptation of giving him some help ...

First of all, although hnefatafl (or simply tafl) is often referred to as 
a Viking board game, it is even older than the Vikings. According to
Murray(*) it was played in Scandinavia before AD 400.
For many centuries it was the only board game in Scandinavia. Thus,
the word tafl meant board game and only when other board games came along
became it necessary to name the specific game hnefatafl to distinguish it from
other board games. Hnefatafl was exported by Norsemen (vikings) to Iceland,
Britain, and Ireland, and was also the only board game played by the Saxons 
before chess was introduced in the eleventh century.

I don't know the correct English pronounciation, but in Norwegian tafl
should be pronounced 'tavl' with the 'a' as in English 'car'.
'hnefa' is probably straight forward with (almost) silent 'h'. I'll have to ask my 
Icelandic friend about this...

Unfortunately, the game of hnefatafl was forgotten except for some variants
in remote areas (see next section). It has not caught on after it was 
rediscovered either, I have never met a Norwegian (or anyone else) 
who plays hnefatafl.

The rules for the full 19x19 version of hnefatafl have already been
posted in this group. As a start, it is probably better to try the game of
tablut. Tablut is a variant of tafl played by the Lapps in Northern
Scandinavia on a 9x9 board. It was described by the famous botanic
Carl von Linne in 1732 after his trip to Lappland. The rules are exactly 
as in hnefatafl, execpt that the opening position is like this:

 . . . m m m . . .
 . . . . m . . . .
 . . . . s . . . .
 m . . . s . . . m
 m m s s S s s m m
 m . . . s . . . m
 . . . . s . . . .
 . . . . m . . . .
 . . . m m m . . .

The pieces labeled s are called the Swedes and the m's are called the 
Muscovites. The S is the king and the central cell is called the konakis
where only the king is allowed to enter.

Note that this game can be played on the lines/points of a chess board
and with chess or checkers pieces. Be sure to let the blond Swedes be white
and the dark Muscovites be black :->

Enjoy!

Erik

(*) Source: A History of Board Games Other Than Chess, by H.J.R. Murray (1952).
From: kleber@husc11.harvard.edu (Gwydden)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: hnefatafl and tablut
Date: 30 Dec 92 08:02:33 GMT

Erik Boman writes:

> The pieces labeled s are called the Swedes and the m's are called the 
> Muscovites. The S is the king and the central cell is called the konakis
> where only the king is allowed to enter.

OK, a question about hnefetafl and Tablut-- what prevents the swedes
from making a shape like
                          Ss
                          ss
                              which is completely invincible according
to the rules as I've seen them?  (Now how do you explain *that* in terms
of a simulation of real combat??)

--Michael Kleber                 I don't have an overactive imagination...
  kleber@husc.harvard.edu        I have an underactive reality...   --EG
From: fau@po.CWRU.Edu (Francis A. Uy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 26 Dec 1992 20:09:05 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: fau@po.CWRU.Edu (Francis A. Uy)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


eadengle@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca (Ed "Cynwrig" Dengler) says:

>This capture (the XOX) is known as a courier capture. The reason I consider
>the capturing rules consistent stem from the fact that I belong to the
>Society of Creative Anachronism, and I am an authorized fighter in the

>Also, being the special symbolism of the king, no piece would want to 
>place themselves on the throne. A more practical reason is that unless

>I hope I have explained to you why I do not consider the points you have
>made to be impurities. After doing fighting in armour, and in some instances
>with obstacles in the way (such as fighting in woods and on bridges), I
>consider Hnefatafl to be a very accurate simulation of real fighting given
>the simple rules it has.

The problem now is that you are violating the central
 tenet of "abstractness".  The rules of the game should
 be able to stand on their own merits as a consistent
 system without reference to "accurate simulation".

By using real world symbols to create rule exceptions
 (such as the throne), you are adding impurities.

In Hnefatafl's defense:  numerous variants of this game
 exist, with board size (and therefore number of pieces)
 being the variable.  They are for the most part fair to
 both attacker + defender.  The box set "Best of Dragon
 Magazine Games" contains rules for several of these
 games.
From: nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
Subject: Re: defects in abstract games
Date: 30 Dec 92 15:49:10 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

In article <1992Dec29.223213.2217@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu> rob@hoster.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) writes:
>In article <1992Dec29.163214.3190@ll.mit.edu> nates@ll.mit.edu ( Nate Smith)
>writes: 
>>when the "no repeat" rule is regarded as a "defect" patch,  [...]
>>the elegance (and elegance is certainly a goal of good abstract game design)
>>of the Chinese Go rules versus the Japanese is persuasive.  indeed, it may be
>>that you have to add a defect in the name of elegance.
                         ^^^^^^!!!oooops
>
>I agree about the elegance bit.  However, the Chinese rules do not _add_ a
>defect with the no-repeat rule: the Japanese rules instead have a ko-rule
>which is also stateful, and therefore also a defect according to the sacred
>definition :-)  (as well as being a significantly more ugly patch.)
>
>SR

i'm sorry.  i had a typo and let it go out...sorry...i meant to say:

"indeed, it may be that you have to add a defect patch in the name of
elegance."

i am still on this fence about whether a "no repeat" rule is always a
"defect patch".  i think i still have to lean that way - that it is a
defect patch.  but i was saying that "when you regard it as..." then
the elegance of it in making Go so successful outweighs the horror of
leaving it out in the name of "defect-freedom".

- nate
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract
From: bcannard@hppcb36.mentorg.com (The Human Mi-Go)
Subject: Re: Timber Chess
Originator: bcannard@hppcb36
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 06:31:55 GMT
Reply-To: bob_cannard@mentorg.com
Organization: Yuggoth Ores and Quality Used Brains
Keywords: 
Followup-To: 


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....)

Hmmm, only a defect as specified under Japanese rules. When specified in
the "no repeated positions" form (Chinese or American rules) its purity
is restored without losing the Ko-fight.

Whoops - I think this thread is drifting into the wrong newsgroup!

Cheers,

	Bob.

-- 
bob_cannard@mentorg.com			"More dynamite!" - Theron Marks
Newsgroups: rec.games.abstract