| Author |
Message |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 4:48 am: | |
There are many many noteworthy user created games posted on the Zillions site. Very few have received any designation of quality. There is no way for a newcomer to determine which games are worthwhile without a lot of trial and error. The purpose of these posts is to help provide some additional guidance.
These posts are not intended to be full game reviews. The focus will be on the positive aspects of the game. I will tend to favor games that are not widely known. I won't spend much time on games that are better known even if they are very well done, like Backgammon, or give much attention to otherwise excellent games that Zillions does not play well, like Arimaa.
All of the games described stand out in some way or ways that is worth noting.
Keith Carter |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 06, 2004 - 4:51 am: | |
Gauntlet is a game with unequal forces and mutually exclusive goals. It can be played in five to ten minutes. It was created by Phillip L. Leduc. The graphics are brown and white marbles matched to a textured marble chess board. It has six variants.
Gauntlet has an enjoyable feel to its play with the player's marbles racing up the board while two walls of opponent marbles close in. In my first game I felt I came close to running the gauntlet except for some clever tactical sacrifices by the AI that stopped me just short of the goal. So I tried again. Another close game. Then I switched sides. Yet another close game.
Gauntlet is noteworthy for combining a simple set of rules with fast play to produce that elusive "just one more and I will get it" game quality. Further play on both sides shows that the second player, the one operating the gauntlet pieces, has an advantage. Yet the second player must play carefully or the first player will run the gauntlet. The "just one more and I will get it" quality applies to the second player too.
http://www.zillions-of-games.com/games/gauntlet.html |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2004 - 12:23 am: | |
The Symmetrical Chess Collection (tSyCC) by Derek Nalls is an extensive collection of chess variants. The collection is built around the theme of geometric, perfect symmetry board setups. Only sliding pieces are used to insure fast openings. The collection is updated on a semi-regular basis and currently includes 39 variants.
I believe the graphics are done by L. Lynn Smith. They have a familiar bold and clean style with the piece graphics clearly indicating the directions the piece can move in and red lines showing the connections between non-adjacent squares. An interesting and helpful feature is that the game strategy help file gives the attack value of the various pieces which vary with the geometry of the board.
Two quick notes. Open "collect.zrf" to launch the selection menu. Some of the variants require a vertical resolution of at least 960 pixels to display the whole board.
What is noteworthy about tSyCC is the depth and variety with which it explores its theme. The piece setups vary greatly and the board geometries vary even more. The goal of fast openings is well met. A lot of thought and playtesting is evident. If this sort of chess variant appeals to you then tSyCC is one of the best combinations of quantity and quality available on Zillions. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2004 - 12:26 am: | |
Here is the link for tSyCC http://zillionsofgames.com/games/symmetricalchesscollection.html |
L. Lynn Smith (Interrupt27)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2004 - 4:05 pm: | |
My only contributions to the Symmetrical Chess Collection was a few sections of coding and the occasional criticism.
The graphics are the work of Derek Nalls. |
Derek Nalls (Omegaman)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2004 - 8:06 pm: | |
The required, sophisticated coding, graciously provided by L. Lynn Smith, was-is perfect. [Sorry, I have yet to read "Dummy Pieces For Dummies".] Yes, one or two of his salient criticisms and ideas have triggered important revisions to every game in my collection (which I remain totally satisfied with). |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2004 - 11:18 pm: | |
Thank you for clearing up my confusion. My apologies if I offended anyone. Next time I will check with the designer rather than guessing.
Since the purpose of my Noteworthy Game posts is to provide guidence to games worth trying, it is worth mentioning that L. Lynn Smith has posted a number of noteworthy games and is an expert resource for 3D chess games amongst other things. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Friday, March 19, 2004 - 6:01 pm: | |
Altairian Checkers is a hex based checkers/draughts game that uses rotational movement. It was created and scripted by Dan Troyka. The graphics are yellow and magenta “checkers” done with a gear motif that adds to the feel of the rotational movement that is very strong in the game. Sounds are tailored to the game and a music track is included. The main game is supplemented with two training variants.
A piece moves in Altairian Checkers by rotating around any adjacent piece, called a pivot. A piece promotes upon reaching the far side of the board and promotes again upon returning to the near side of the board. The strategy help included with the game does a good job of explaining how the game plays out. There is a strong element of zwug zwang during the opening phase of the game since advancing may give your opponent the pivot point they need to advance and promote a piece.
What is noteworthy about Altairian Checkers? The rotational movement fits well with the round checker pieces and is a rare mode of movement in a board game. The method of capturing keeps a strong checkers feel while making the game much less drawish than many other checkers games. The power increases with each promotion are well proportioned.
http://www.zillions-of-games.com/cgi-bin/zilligames/submissions.cgi/71720?do=show;id=17 |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Friday, March 19, 2004 - 6:10 pm: | |
The ;id=17 got dropped from the link when I posted. Either copy and paste the entire link into the address window or click on the link and then add ";id=17" to the end of the address. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 4:08 am: | |
Ant is a Zillions adaptation of the DOS game Ant Run. An arcade game with the goal of keeping an ant running as long as possible by building a path of connected tunnels ahead of the ant’s progress. It is similar to the game Pipe Dream. Ant was adapted by Karl Scherer. The four variants modify the level of difficulty. It is best played with piece animation off.
Ant looks a lot like the original game and it plays a lot like it too. Some of the special score based pathways are missing from Ant Run which makes sense because Ant measures success in distance traveled. Beginning with the third turn the ant advances one square each time a pathway piece is rotated. The board wraps around to the opposite edge and the requirement to travel a certain distance before paths can be reused remains. Ant is not a full recreation but a combination of the reality of doing an arcade game in Zillions and the essence of the original game.
Ant is noteworthy for three things. The first is that it does capturethe tension of trying to stay ahead of the ant that was the charm of the original game while adding the thoughful planning of a turn based game. The second is how many moves ahead one can think. Because the path pieces are reused rather than replaced it is easy to think ahead an unusualy large number of moves. Seeing a dozen moves ahead is fairly easy once pathways start to line up and two dozen moves is not uncommon in the mid-game. The third is play balance. A static balance is hard to achieve. If it is too easy to form paths ahead of the ant then the game goes on forever. If it is too difficult to form paths ahead of the ant then game play can not be sustained and the game ends too soon. Karl has solved this dilemma by making the distance the ant must travel before paths can be reused progressivly longer. The challenge to stay ahead of the ant increases over time.
The game Ant Run can be found at http://www.soleau.com
Karl Scherer’s Ant can be be found at http://www.zillions-of-games.com/cgi-bin/zilligames/submissions.cgi/78074?do=show ;id=76 |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Friday, April 02, 2004 - 3:54 pm: | |
Vexed is a puzzle game with a simple rules set that creation of puzzles with a wide variety of difficulty. It comes with 538 puzzles distributed across 9 packs. All the puzzles I tried came with a solution. Vexed was invented by James McCombe and implemented by Ed van Zon. It comes with three sets of graphics.
A Vexed puzzle is a series of tiles set out on a square grid that is a combination of solid blocks and empty spaces. The goal of Vexed is to clear the game board. This is done my moving identical pieces next to each other causing the pair to disappear. You can move a piece to the left or right one space. If the space below the destination square is empty the piece will drop until it lands on another piece or a board block. The same thing happens when a pair of pieces is eliminated. The pieces resting on them will fall. The puzzle packs range from one designed for children to a set called Panic and another called Impossible.
Vexed is noteworthy because of the number of puzzles and the range of difficulty. The simple movement rules produce a fair range of elimination mechanisms that are applied across the puzzles. So the puzzles become a combination of familiar mechanisms and the difficulty of getting them to mesh right to produce an empty board. I can be quite vexing.
Vexed can be found in the Elimination game category. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Saturday, April 24, 2004 - 1:35 am: | |
Force is a crossing game played out on a 10x10 square board. It is similar to Epaminondas but with enough differences that general tactics are transferable between the two but sticking too closely to Epaminondas tactics will get you zinged in Force. It was created by Chris Huntoon. The graphics are yellow and purple marbles on a textured wood board. It has a single variant.
Force is one of the Zillions pioneers. It was first posted in the Zillions version of back in the day. So far back in the day that all games were posted under one category and Karl Scherer had 26 games to his credit. It had standout graphics at the time. A larger board graphic than most of the games that came with Zillions, marbles with shaded edges so they looked smooth and round, and a nice textured board that have held up well. More significantly if offered a game to explore in the same family as the modern classic Epaminondas 17 months before Epaminondas was posted. Here is a brief comparison of the two.
Epaminondas
1. A piece's mobility is determined by the number of friendly pieces in line with it, up to and including the length of the moving line.
2. Attacks on enemy lines are limited to enemy lines of shorter length. A single piece can not capture.
3. The attacking line's movement stops on the first enemy piece captured.
4. A piece that reaches the far row must stay on the back row to count towards the victory conditions.
Force
1. A piece's mobility is determined by the number of friendly pieces in line with it and must move exactly the length of the moving line.
2. Attacks on enemy lines are not limited by the length of the attacking friendly line. A single piece can capture an adjacent enemy that is part of a larger line.
3. The attacking line moves its full length when capturing.
4. A piece that reaches the far row may move off the back row and still count towards victory conditions.
Force is one of the games I had in mind when I started these posts because I have had enough fun with it to return to it a few times a year for four years to play another handful of games. The effect of rules 2 and 3 above for Force means that an attacking line of friendly pieces gets more intermeshed with the opponent and counter attack is easier. Compared to Epaminondas, Force has more infighting. I like that.
Force is noteworthy for its early contribution to raising the standard for game presentation, for being a good introduction to the contributions of Chris Huntoon, and for being a part of a relatively unexplored class of games that use phalanx movement.
Force can be found in the Breakthrough/Race category. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Sunday, November 28, 2004 - 10:43 pm: | |
Dominion is a confederation of Blobs with Reversi. It combines the movement and conversion rules of Blobs with the conversion rule of Reversi. It was created by Ken Franklin. The game pieces are stones in the standard red and yellow Curling colors on grey. There are eight variants. Seven of the variants use a checkerboard in a variety of sizes from 6x6 to 12x6 to 10x10. One variant uses a hex board.
The default variant is a combination of the standard Blobs and Reversi setups. In the early game the Reversi capture aspect only occasionally comes into play. As the game board gets more crowded the Reversi capture aspect comes into play more and more often. The number of additional pieces that get flipped because of the Reversi conversion rule is usually not a large sweeping amount, but it is significant. If a player fails to take into account the Reversi aspect of converting opponents pieces the Zillions AI will remind them by rapidly moving them towards a loss. Dominion is a game that the Zillions AI plays very well.
There are two variants that I have enjoyed in particular. The first is called 8x8/2 tri: 'and'. I am not sure what makes this variant the most intensely contested one for me. It might be the triangle shaped play area with its large percentage of edge spaces, the fact that the initial piece setup has both players pieces adjacent to each other, or that the density of the starting setup is more than 3.5 times that of standard Blobs. The second is called 8x8 distinct: Lower. This variant is a tough one for the first player. Because of the way the pieces are initially setup 28 of the first players 32 move choices result in the first player being wiped out in one quarter of the game board. The first player has little choice during the first handful of moves and will have far fewer pieces on the board once real choice becomes available. Making a comeback from such a start is quite an enjoyable challenge.
What is noteworthy about Dominion? It combines two classic games that come with Zillions. Dominion provides game play that is familiar yet significantly different. It does so with variants that provide a diversity of challenging and enjoyable gaming and which do a good job of showing how changes in board shape, size, and initial piece placement impact play.
Dominion is found in the Territory section. |
Mats W (Kålroten)
| | Posted on Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 2:45 pm: | |
Success! My Swedish Chess and my Orphic Chess will be described under the title "Swedish Rhapsodies" in the next issue of Variant Chess magazine.
Mats |