| Author |
Message |
Jodi Kramps (Admin)
| | Posted on Friday, February 09, 2001 - 8:17 pm: | |
Hi everyone. I know that a lot of you here make games using the Zillions language. What do you enjoy about doing that? Does the Zillions system work well for you in that respect? What things about the Zillions language do you appreciate and why?
What could it stand to improve on? Do you have suggestions?
We'd love to hear from you.
Thanks.
--Jodi |
Dan Troyka (Dtroyka)
| | Posted on Sunday, February 11, 2001 - 4:19 am: | |
One aspect of Zillions that has not been discussed much on these pages is its use as a development tool. I find it much easier to design boardgames with Zillions because it is pretty good at identifying weaknesses in games. If a game is unplayable (nobody ever wins, same player always wins, players can form impenetrable defenses, etc.), Zillions will more often than not detect the weakness in its self-play. This is a huge time-saver. |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Monday, February 12, 2001 - 9:43 am: | |
Zillions being
"pretty good at identifying weaknesses in games"
does not apply to solitaire games.
Not in my experience, anyway.
In tiling games (Pento, Nutts,...) it is about
a thousand times to slow to find answers either way (whether a problem is solvable or not),
in other solitaire games is creates all sorts
of strange behaviour. E.g. Zillions
actually loops in the Rabbit game, despite the
claim that three-times repetition will always create a draw...
Try it, you might not like it...
(I do not mind, because I use my mind instead
of using autoplay). |
Dan Troyka (Dtroyka)
| | Posted on Monday, February 12, 2001 - 7:33 pm: | |
Really, you use your mind? I hadn't noticed. For what it's worth, the documentation for Zillions states that draw by repetition is turned off for puzzles. I think a (repetition true/false) option would be useful so that players could control this.
And that was a joke, btw. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2001 - 3:28 am: | |
Both Karl and Dan are correct and the discussion should not degenerate into taking intellectual pokes at each other. Zillions is good at identifying weaknesses in a very broad range of games where Zillions takes on the role of an opponent AI. Zillions is not good at identifying weaknesses were is takes on the role of presenting game progress such as solitaire or puzzle games.
Karl and Dan both published an opinion closely tied to their game design work. Dan's games, such as the excellent Breakthrough and Sidewinder, fall within Zillions strengths as a generic game engine and probably do test well on autoplay. Karl pushes the Zillions system. I am amazed each week at what Karl comes up with: Setris, Rabbit, and Cat & Mouse are good examples. By pushing the limits of the system, Karl does run into design complications that Zillions does not autoplay well if at all.
As a person with poor programming skills I appreciate the ease with which I can create new variants of games posted by others. |
Dan Troyka (Dtroyka)
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2001 - 12:29 am: | |
I think the strength of the AI depends less on whether a game is one-player or two-player and more on the nature of the win-conditions and the sophistication of the script. Zillions plays a number of solitaire games perfectly well (Entropy Puzzle, A-Maze, Bauhaus, etc.), and it plays a number of two-player games awfully. What makes the primary difference - and this admittedly is a guess - is whether the win-condition is of the sort that moves at the beginning of the game can be evaluated for proximity to a win. If they cannot be so evaluated, then Zillions can only flail about with random moves. If they can be, Zillions makes intelligent moves. |
Roger J Cooper (Rogercooper)
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2001 - 10:59 am: | |
What really drives me crazy in Zillions is all those parentheses. As I usually program in Visual Basic, I find a function/argument structure more familiar.
Still, it is amazing how fast I can create a game. |
Karl Scherer (Karl)
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2001 - 6:15 am: | |
At some other place, I have already posted some
suggestions for an "optimizer" that would help
the Zillions engine to improve its strategies greatly.
(e.g. when a progress of a piece along a certain
line means that it is closer to a win).
I hope that my suggestions will be picked up.
In the existing engine there is still a lot
of room for improvement concerning
better play by the program, even for puzzles and solitaire games and any other games that Zillions plays badly or without any direction at the moment.
Introducing a few options for the "optimizer"
can fix a lot of these no-goes.
There is still hope! |
Jake T. Anderson (Madmardy)
| | Posted on Monday, September 10, 2001 - 1:43 am: | |
How do you learn this programming language? I'm a programmer and I'm familiar with lisp-ish languages (namely scheme) but I can't find a general purpose introduction anywhere. Am I missing something? I would hate to have to piece together a working knowledge of this language from the specific questions in the posts. Is there a page somewhere that I'm just not finding or a readme file I didn't get? (I bought the downloaded demo key). Thanks for your help. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Monday, September 10, 2001 - 3:22 am: | |
To locate information on the Zillions scripting launguage launch Zillions, click on help, then choose the Rules File Language Reference. There is lots of stuff well laid out nicely cross referenced and with good examples.
This view of the scripting language can be a bit segmented. To get a more strategic overview go to the Zillions site, click on the smaller user's corner icon in the top right corner above the home page section called user's corner, from there click on Other Sites then go to Jens Markmann's page, Jens reference is very helpful.
From there I would look at existing rules files. The ones that come with Zillions are a good start. |
Steven R. (Steven_r)
New member
Username: Steven_r
Post Number: 1
Registered: 8-2017
| | Posted on Thursday, August 10, 2017 - 12:32 pm: | |
Hi, im new here,
I am a layman in programming and i really would like to see a comfortable graphical Editor which u can set all what u need for your idea and what the game can do.
Example:
- U have the default board at editor start. Example 8x8. U set your dimension in a right window beside the main screen from the board :12x12 in my example - Save - Next.
- Then u add some pieces - click on a add pieces button - Piece Name - default pic or your own (u can browse your pc) - save - next.
Then u can set the move and capture characteristics on the board. Your piece is highlighted and u click on every field which can move and next step step capture - Save - Next
And so on..
That would be great!
At the moment i stuck with my game idea, copy and paste a bit from other chess similar variants, but thats not enough and very slow to go forward, because its really hard to learn if u don't like programming.
But the game is good and a Editor would a great addition. |
|