| Author | Message | ||
| Admin (Admin) |
This topic is a forum for discussion on how to create new games, what has worked for you in the past and a place to seek solutions to problems you might have come across. I know there are lots of experienced Zillions rules file creators out there that can help you with your questions and certainly our own developers are willing to lend a hand. For a help file on how to create Zillions of Games rules files, feel free to check http://www.zillionsofgames.com/language/index.html . | ||
| Eugene Yakovlev (Eugeneyakovlev)
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Hello I want to make Zillion game for Russian Chess. This game has a feature that when any piece captures another one that capturing piece stand above captured piece so there can be a tower composed from few pieces standing one on another. Number of all possible towers variants is too huge so I have no idea how to realize it. Can you help me? Thanks in advance | ||
| Claude W. Van Horn (Ropebender)
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I am an excited new user of Zillions. I don't know that I will be able to write a game file for a while, but I have opened a few game files to see the "guts" and I am intreagued. I wonder if anyone has programmed the game of "Dots and Boxes". There are deap mathematical strategies and network solutions for this game that would make it a great project, but I havn't the faintest idea of how to start. | ||
| Karl Scherer (Karl)
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To Eugene: Zillions has not truely "floating images" (apart from the one piece a player is moving at the moment). All images sit on their board positions and cannot be of larger size than a board position. Given a normal 2-dimensional chess board on the screen, there is not much space anyway per position (square on the board). An image of a high tower would interfere with the adjacent position. HOWEVER, if you are willing to reduce a piece to a thin flat rectangle (which may be characterised by their colouring), and create , say, ten such thin board positions above each other per chess-board square (the square being painted in the background image, but not being a Zillions position), then you can indeed play with towers up to 10 units high. | ||
| Karl Scherer (Karl)
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To Claude W. Van Horn: Can you please tell us how the game "dots and boxes is played?" Maybe it exists already in Zillions under a different name. | ||
| Claude W. Van Horn (Ropebender)
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A field of dots is the playing "board", 5x5 has been solved, larger boards are more interesting, 6x7 is (I belive) not solved. Players alternate drawing a vertical or horizontal line connecting two adjacent unconnected dots. A move that completes a square between 4 adjacent dots allows the player making that move to: 1: place his initial (or color) in that square 2: s/he MUST draw another line between two unconnected adjacent dots. (no passing) The game ends when there are no unconnected adjacent dots remaining, The winner is the player with the most squares with her/his initial (color) inside. Advanced theory is outlined in applied mathmatician Elwyn Berlekamp's book "The Dots and Boxes Game". He calls the game "the mathematically richest popular childrens game in the world by a substantial margin." | ||
| Karl Scherer (Karl)
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Hi Claude, thanks for your reply. I think the game you describe is a traditional and well known game. (In Germany the game is called "Kaesekaestchen" (Cheese Boxes). I cannot see any difference to my game "Walls", which I published on the Zillions web site a long time ago. Walls has variants of different board sizes. Please check it out and tell us in what sense your game is different from it. I have the suspicion that it is the same game indeed, so there is no need for programming it anymore. In general I think it is fair to state that it is highly unlikely that a traditional, wellknown game is not implemented in Zillions yet (if it is implementable at all). Cheers, and happy playing, Karl | ||
| Mats W (Kålroten)
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Yes, but it is not enough to check whether a game has been implemented in Zillions. One must also carefully check the rules to see that they, too, are traditional. Zillions Fox and Geese, for instance, is not the traditional Fox and Geese. So I implemented the traditional one. It's the same way with Asalto, as there existed modern Asalto variations that didn't use the traditional rules. Now I've found another game in Zillions which doesn't use the traditional rules and which I'm implementing again. | ||
| Karl Scherer (Karl)
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So I assume your reply means that you agree that 'Walls' is the same as 'Dots and Crosses'? You do not explicitly say that, though, which I find a bit confusing. Of course you are right with your 'Fox and Geese' examples. Rules vary, and I really appreciate your good work in this area. Often even 'traditional' rules are not so 'fixed' as we often think they were (just think of the many varying rules people use for Canasta etc). Zillions allows us in a wonderful way to invent new rules, too, and experiment in ways that traditionally were not possible. Lets our phantasies run wild... :-) Cheers, Karl | ||
| Claude W. Van Horn (Ropebender)
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Thanks Karl, The game CHeese Boxes played with the extra move for a flower is aparently the same as dots and boxes. I played a couple of games and it doesn't do badly, but sacrifices long chains much too quickly. It does know the trick of leaving two boxes at the end of a chain, but does not know how to count chains or find the shortest available chain for the first sacrifice. Have you ever thought of reworking it's strategy now that you have programmed so many other games? You have written some great games, and this one could be fun if it was a better oponent. Thanks. | ||
| Mats W (Kålroten)
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Do these "chains" consist of pieces? In that case the program can easily be tweaked to not give up the pieces so easily. | ||
| Claude W. Van Horn (Ropebender)
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Actually, the "chains" turn out to be the connected groups of boxes that the pieces surround. in Berlekamp's book, a chain would be defined as a connected string of more than two "boxes" (or in this implimentation more than two potential connected flowers). The other tweek would be to take all the flowers in the last chain instead of leaving the two-box-trap. | ||
| Namik Zade (Namik)
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Greetings. I created some chess games and You can see this-The Clash of Civilizations Chess: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSccc-theclashof and Aliens Vs Predators Chess: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSaliensvspredat Can You help me for creating Zillions of games for above mentioned chess games? | ||
| Mats W (Kålroten)
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Hi Namik! It seems like your chess variants are relatively easy to implement, so you should do it yourself. It's much more fun. You can capitalize on other implementations (and acknowledge this in the readme file). For instance, you can download some of Cazaux's chess variants here. Gigachess contains so many piece types so probably your own pieces have already been implemented. Probably you only need to change the piece names. Then the graphics is ready, too, because I think these images are free. You can also make use of Zillions's "Fairy Chess" variant. It contains many piece types. To program a piece of your own is easy, however. --Mats | ||
| Namik Zade (Namik)
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Greetings! Thank You very much Mats! I download some Yours game from Zillions. Scandinavian and Swedish Chess are very nice. | ||
| Claude W. Van Horn (Ropebender)
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HElp! My computer broke and I cannot get Zillions authorized on my new one. No one answers E-mail to support, and I am stuck with the Demo version. Can anyone get in touch with the developer to recover my user key? I am game-deprived! I figure you guys can reach him if anyone can  Van!! | ||
| Mats W (Kålroten)
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I sure don't know how to contact anybody, except Ed who has nothing to do with this. When Europeans have ordered the Zillions CD they get no response either, but nothing is drawn from their account. It's obvious that this is a dying enterprise. Maybee Zillions should go freeware, and allow advertising on their site instead. It's an immensely attractive site they have here. Imagine if it would be freeware. Maybe your only option is to purchase a new user key, and this time make a backup of it. /Mats | ||
| Sean Duggan (Dream)
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There was a post not so long ago, maybe a month ago, with someone complaining about the lack of response, and they received one via the forums and via emails. I will see if I can track that one down. | ||
| Sean Duggan (Dream)
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Ah! Look here: /discus/messages/5/673.html?1158367899 He has responses from the admin in there, which should include email addresses. | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 20 Registered: 1-2007 |
Dots and Boxes is not the same game as Walls/Cheese Boxes. Unlike Walls, in Dots and Boxes if a player completes a box, they get an extra turn. Could Dots and Boxes be programmed in Zillions? I don't see how this behavior (allow extra drop within same turn) is possible in Zillions. Unfortunately, add-partial, when used in a drops block, only allows the dropped piece to be moved, it does not allow another piece to be dropped. Is there a straight forward way to program a conditional number of drops? -- Greg | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 21 Registered: 1-2007 |
I wrote: [I don't see how this behavior (allow extra "drop" within same turn) is possible in Zillions. ] I've been experimenting with plug-in engines and learned something interesting. Although the .zrf does not allow another "drop" to be specified as a partial move, it appears that the "partial" keyword, when returned by a plug-in, can apply to *any* move. The partial move doesn't even have to apply to the same piece. This also suggests that restricted turn ordering capabilities can be worked around to some extent by using a plug-in. Conclusion: Dots and Boxes could be programmed in ZoG by utilizing a plug-in. Still, it would be interesting to know if there is a reasonable way around the turn order limitations using the .zrf. | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 21 Registered: 1-2007 |
Would it be possible to create a chess clock for Zillions using the plug-in feature? /Mats | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 22 Registered: 1-2007 |
[Would it be possible to create a chess clock for Zillions using the plug-in feature?] I don't see why not. A plug-in can maintain its own internal timer for timing both its own and the opponent moves. If it detects that a player has violated the time constraint, it could end the game. Of course the "Move Now" feature could be utilized as the "stop clock" button. There is no requirement that a plug-in obey the "Thinking Time" setting. In fact, my plug-in has its own internal timer. That allows me to use it with game clients other than Zillions which do not implement a timer. For example, I have a program which will play two instances of my engine against itself a specified number of times. By pitting slightly different instances of the same game against each other, I can tweak the AI and determine which one is better. Mats, I would like to send you (or anyone else who might be interested) a copy of the game "Thrall" with an improved AI. I tried to contact you at mwi9@swipnet.se, but never received a response. Let me know how I can contact you. I can be reached at gschmidt958@yahoo.com. P.S. I have created a scripted, universal game engine plug-in for Zillions, called "Axiom", that is an alternative to .zrf. It greatly expands the set of games that Zillions can play and excels at connection and territorial games. It supports a full suite of mathematical functions and the engine offers direct control of the AI. I have created several Axiom games already. I plan on releasing Axiom, along with these games and documentation in a few months. Anyone can email me if they would like further information. -- Greg | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 22 Registered: 1-2007 |
Yes, please send the Thrall program to mwi9@swipnet.se (I must have missed your message because I get so much spam to that account, but I will check it better now). It's amazing that you have created a plug-in for connection games. There are several excellent games in this field which Zillions cannot play well today. They are attractive due to their simplicity. It's a deficit that the chess clock is missing in Zillions. Chess and checkers are always played with a clock in these days. /Mats | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 23 Registered: 1-2007 |
I have now tested Axiomatic-Thrall and it seems like it's now strong enough for the average player. It's a big improvement. Problem: it reports the wrong player as winner. Then, when ok is pressed, it reports the game as drawn. The latter can be remedied by inserting a (loss-condition (First Second) stalemated) in the zrf. The first phase of the game seems strategically redundant in that the piece can move to the other wing anyway. Suggestion: in order to shorten the opening phase one can introduce different initial positions where pegs are already placed in different patterns. Comparatively, in blobs games they often begin with certain initial patterns which obstruct the pieces. /Mats | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 23 Registered: 1-2007 |
Thanks for trying it out Mats. I just emailed you a fix for both problems. [Problem: it reports the wrong player as winner.] This is actually a recent bug I introduced when I added partial move support to the Axiom engine which is a workaround to a ZoG end of game reporting bug. The problem is now fixed. [Then, when ok is pressed, it reports the game as drawn. The latter can be remedied by inserting a (loss-condition (First Second) stalemated) in the zrf.] Actually, if you look at the files, the zrf does not contain the end of game condition - instead it's defined in the Axiom script (plug-ins don't have access to the .zrf). It turns out that this is another ZoG end of game detection bug that occurs when using plug-in engines. I also sent you a patch to run on Zillions.exe that fixes this problem. Note that if you plan on playing other Axiom games in the future, you should run this patch. Also, Sudoku solver exposes this bug, so running the patch will solve the problem there as well. I like your suggestion of different initial positions. I would be grateful if you could send me some .zsg's with initial configurations that you think would address this issue. I will credit you for that when Axiomatic-Thrall is released. Thanks again. -- Greg P.S. To anyone who is interested in testing the new Axiom games or is interested in the engine - please email me at gschmidt958@yahoo.com. | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 24 Registered: 1-2007 |
One more point: Problem #2 above was discussed a long time ago in this forum, see: Topic: Designing Games for Zillions Thread: Plug-in question: how to report win, loss, or draw. I have developed a patch for Zillions.exe that solves this problem. The patch is perfectly safe (if it makes you feel better, you can make a backup copy of Zillions.exe prior to running the patch) and only affects games that use plug-in engines. The patch is available to anyone. Just email me at gschmidt958@yahoo.com. Currently, there is only one posted ZoG game that benefits from this patch (Sudoku), although in the future, I will be posting more Axiom plug-in based games that will benefit from the patch as well. -- Greg | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 24 Registered: 1-2007 |
Greg, I have now installed the patch and the problem is corrected. I created three initial positions which are interesting. It removes the tedious initial part of the game. They are in forms of games in the following zip. I also made some changes to the board graphics which you can use if you want. There was an irritating repeating notch in the image. http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/axiomatic-thrall.zip | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 25 Registered: 1-2007 |
Thanks for the changes and additions Mats, I'll add them in as variants. In addition to the setups, Alfred Pfeiffer suggested multiple stones per player so I may incorporate that idea as an additional variation. Axiom: I plan on releasing Axiom, along with several games in a few months. I'm also considering releasing an "Axiom Developer's Kit" for those wanting to try creating new games with it. Before I do that, I'm trying to gauge the level of interest in Axiom. The main goal of Axiom is to allow anyone to create new games for ZoG - primarily for games which are either impossible to implement in ZoG or for which ZoG plays poorly. Axiom addressses many of the problems and limitations of ZoG that have been discussed in this forum. And as much as I dislike pointing this out, unlike ZoG Axiom will be supported - it's designed to be extensible. I don't know how many people currently read this forum and are interested in game development, but if this sounds like something you're interested in, please let me know by either replying to this group or email me at gschmidt958@yahoo.com Thanks -- Greg | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 26 Registered: 1-2007 |
Mats wrote: [Would it be possible to create a chess clock for Zillions using the plug-in feature?] Mats - I just sent you a copy of my Axiom "demo" game 'Axiomatic-Tic-Tac-Toe'. The game is intended to provide a simple example of how to use Axiom. I added a variant that implements a simple game clock. The game description will explain how to change the clock timeout value. As always, if anyone else is interested in this, email post here or email me at gschmidt958@yahoo.com -- Greg | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 25 Registered: 1-2007 |
This all sounds very interesting. When it comes to game clocks, what we need is a clock that measures the time for the whole game. For instance, the players could have 10 minutes each to complete all their moves. But then one also needs to see how much time is left. /Mats | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 27 Registered: 1-2007 |
That's correct, I don't know why I did it that way, the clock interval should apply to the whole game, not the time between moves. Although now that I have this working, it is a trivial change to make, and I can send you a revised version that behaves as expected. A bigger concern of mine is that the player has no feedback showing the remaining time. How does the player know how much time they have remaining on the clock? One thought is to have each move also update a remaining time indicator on the board. That's an improvement over having no feedback, but the disadvantage is that the remaining time is not displayed continuously. A better solution would be to have the plug-in spawn an independent program that displays a clock window. That would provide a real-time display of the remaining time which is exactly what is desired. The plug-in would tell the clock window to start and provide updates following each move. I think its definitely possible and this would be the best way to do it. The only problem I see is that it would take some work to set this all up. -- Greg | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 26 Registered: 1-2007 |
On the following link is an example of freeware chess clock. Except key clicks the clock can also be handled with the function keys (F5, F1, F12). I don't know about Windows programming, but if key presses can be generated in the plug in, then this could solve the problem, I suppose. http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/cclock.zip /Mats | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 28 Registered: 1-2007 |
I think it could work, although it might be a bit of a challenge to figure out how to send keystrokes to a window which does not have the active focus. Also, since there would be no direct way to read the clock time from the program, Axiom would have to maintain its own redundant timer which it would start and stop in parallel with cclock.exe. But I think it can be done. Keep in mind that Axiom has its own scripting language which is not the same as .zrf. This means that someone would have to implement a Chess program in the Axiom scripting language. Although it would be a great test case for Axiom, I hadn't given much consideration to that since Axiom was designed to play games that ZoG doesn't play well. The ZoG engine is optimized for Chess like games so I would be surprised if a naive Chess implementation in Axiom would outperform ZoG. However, Axiom does allow you to specify game specific knowledge to improve the AI, so possibly an Axiom Chess could perform well if the AI was specifically customized for Chess. To be clear, here's my thoughts on the similarities and differences between the ZoG and the Axiom universal game engines: ZOG (some of this is speculative): - A universal game engine designed to play any game. - Search engine is optimized for positional games such as Chess. - Automatically generates an AI by analyzing the game. The AI is also optimized for positional games such as Chess. Piece and position values are calculated. The AI is based mainly on piece/position values and mobility. Win conditions are also factored into the AI. Limited 'tweaking' of the AI possible via various tricks clever zrf programmers have discovered. - Iterative deepening with transposition table. - Move reordering based on transposition table 'best move from previous iteration' and 'other' heuristics. - Limited forward pruning to control branching factor. - Quiescence based on detecting capture sequences. Additional controls in place to limit explosive branching factor. - Killer move heuristic. - Support for 'partial' and 'pass' moves. - Support for statically specified turn order. - Time management. - Supports additional user-supplied custom engines. AXIOM: - A universal game engine designed to play any game. - Search engine is not optimized for any particular class of games. - Allows (actually requires) the game programmer to specify a custom game AI. This is one of the main benefits of Axiom. Some 'built-in' AI helpers are provided. For example, one helper is s simply the difference between the number of available moves for each player. The list will grow over time. - Iterative deepening with transposition table. - Zobrist hashing - Limited move reordering based on 'best move from previous iteration' stored in the transposition table. - Full width searching. - Programmer controlled quiescence (currently experimental) - Support for 'partial' and 'pass' moves. - Support for arbitrarily specified turn order. - Time management. - Supports additional user-supplied custom engines. Future: - Killer move heuristic. - Programmer controlled move reordering. I am not claiming that Axiom provides a stronger engine than ZoG. The claim that I am making is that there are a great many games where a strong engine customized for Chess like games with an auto-generated AI plays weaker than a weaker engine with an AI that is customized specifically for that game. This notion applies best to non Chess-like games, for example connection and territorial games. In summary: Use ZOG - Chess-like games. Use AXIOM - Everything else. -- Greg | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 27 Registered: 1-2007 |
The transposition table technique has proven very important in commercial chess programs. The user can specify how much of RAM memory will be used. If it's possible to use huge transposition tables in Axiom, then it could be worthwhile to use it for chess programming. Keep in mind that chess clocks are also used for checkers games, Stratego, Camelot, etc. It adds flavour to the game when challenging the computer. The game becomes more exciting with the stressful element of the chess clock. By the way, is it possible to create a functioning Stratego in Axiom, that is, with hidden pieces? (Not that it matters much, just curious) /Mats | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 29 Registered: 1-2007 |
Axiom currently has a fixed transposition table size of 65536 entries. The size could be increased or made configurable (within limits of course). There is an Axiom client program (a surrogate for ZoG) that allows me to automate self-play of many games and record the results. It would be interesting to try various TT sizes, pitting one variation against the other, and see what the effect is for a given game. I haven't thought too much about Stratego. It seems as though you would have many types of 'hidden' pieces that all look the same but hide a different underlying man. I suppose that the moves list would have to be turned off and the human player would have to avoid right clicking on the piece to view its type. Stratego has been discussed before in a few different threads. Just search the forum for 'Stratego'. I like your idea of adding a game clock. At the moment and for what I have planned for the initial release, Axiom functionality is complete. Before I release it and the associated games, I have the formidable task of producing user documentation, and tying up some loose ends on a suite of Axiom games. I'd really like to get this done and put this work out there. This is all a part time effort for me and mixed with other responsibilities. I hope to have it ready within a few months. Once I release it, I plan on prioritizing the list of desired features, a game clock being one of them, and work towards subsequent releases. I have a growing list of long-term features and game ideas so there's plenty to do! It would help to know that others would be interesting in creating new Axiom based games, but I it's too early to tell, especially since I haven't yet published the game creation methodology. It would be great if there were scores of game developers creating new Axiom games all beating on my door wanting game clocks! But if it turns out that I'm the only one developing these games, then obviously that changes things if I'm the one that must do all of the work. -- Greg | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 28 Registered: 1-2007 |
Very few people, it seems, are involved in ZoG programming, and it seems like 99% of the game programs are chess variants, so your Axiom will hardly be a blockbuster. On the other hand, lovers of certain games will be happy, I suppose (for instance, if it's possible to create a strong Halma program. But this is hard to achieve, I believe). /Mats | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 30 Registered: 1-2007 |
Judging by the traffic of messages here and the rate of new game submissions, the audience is small, but hopefully there is some pent up demand for games which ZoG does not play well. Also, I would be willing to collaborate with others, such as yourself Mats, in porting a ZoG game to Axiom (in fact I feel that we have already collaborated on Axiomatic-Thrall, thanks again for your graphics and play testing). There was a thread here once about whether or not it was worthwhile to implement a game that ZoG does not play well. I also see messages of the type "I wish ZoG would to this or that" or "too bad ZoG is no longer supported". Axiom addresses these issues so my hope is that it will find a niche. To me, and perhaps a few others on this list, few things compare to devising a new game, finding out that it has playability, and then seeing it come to life. Thanks to all who have offered me feedback. -- Greg | ||
| Keith Carter (Keithc)
New member Username: Keithc Post Number: 138 Registered: 8-2000 |
I am quite interested in Axiom and will make direct email contact about it. I am bogged down with real life committments at the moment so my Zillions efforts are severely curtailed for a while. It sounds to me like Axiom would expand greatly what Karl Scherer can do with Zillions. When I learn some more about it I will contact him directly. | ||
| Richard Hutnik (Richardhutnik)
New member Username: Richardhutnik Post Number: 42 Registered: 12-2002 |
I would like to chime in here. I also have been interested in doing more with Zillions. I have several things I would like done. 1. I want to have a way for people using a GUI to be able to create games, without having to edit the text files. 2. I want to extend Zillions (or have a similar product) that will enable just about every boardgame and card game in existence to be able to be rapidly done up to allow human vs human play over the computer and Internet. This is so that board games and cardgames can get better playtesting than they do now. By dropping the need for the AI to play, and only focus on reffing games, this should enable more games to be adapted. Games with hidden information, and randomizers and events. | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 39 Registered: 1-2007 |
Robert, I don't exactly know what you have in mind, but it's already within the scope of Zillions to create games without programming. Karl has created puzzle engines with which you can create your own puzzle. As I understand it the scope of variations is very large. Among the Zillions standard programs there is one called Fairy Chess. This is designed for creating chess variants without programming. There is a great number of pieces predefined, and you can also insert 'blocks', that is, squares which cannot be stepped on, thus redesigning the board. It works like this: you create a setup and store it in a gamefile (zrg). When you double-click on that gamefile your chess variant is loaded. So your chess variant could be distributed this way, too. Of course, this could be greatly enhanced, with many more predefined piece types and board sizes. It is an effortless way of creating games, also for playing over Internet. However, if you think that you're going to create highly original games, with novel rules, then I don't understand how you expect to circumvent programming. Creating games is not effortless, Axiom cannot change this. Mats | ||
| M Winther (Kalroten)
New member Username: Kalroten Post Number: 40 Registered: 1-2007 |
I don't know how I could misread Richard as Robert. Sorry. | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 36 Registered: 1-2007 |
First of all, I have created the following yahoo group: "axiom-system · The Axiom Universal Game System Project" http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/axiom-system/ Now back to Richard's post. Richard and I have had some correspondence regarding his ideas. I think what he is looking for is something that will allow very quick prototyping of new games. Quick prototyping allows new game ideas to be tested quickly. Ideally it also becomes a vehicle for propagating games and bringing about a renaissance in turn based board gaming. In Richard's view, the AI is not so important. What is important is that the game plays by the rules (I put a bit more weight on the AI than Richard does but recognize that limiting it to correct game mechanics is also a valuable goal). He admits that some programming may be required, however there are many things that can be defined graphically. For instance, piece movement can be learned by example. Imagine moving a virtual pawn two spaces and dropping an "initial move only" icon on the pawn. Now imagine moving the pawn one space and indicating that the move applies to any space on the board. Do the same for captures etc... It's not hard to see how one could at least create the basic framework for a game this way. Now consider a game with dice. From a palate of standard game components select the dice and drop them on the game canvas. Imagine dropping player icons. They are given names and then lined up to form a turn order. Maybe one of the players names is "dice roll". You tell "dice roll" to send the "roll" command to the dice object when it is his turn. Maybe you want some six sided dice which don't yet exist. Then you drop down into zrf like programming (or better yet Axiom ) to create the six sided dice "object". You define a roll command for it and add it to the palate. After awhile, you have built up a library of common game idioms which can be reused. If your game is really weird, then maybe you have more programming to do - that's OK. Maybe you can define 80% of your game this way and the remaining 20% is programming. Again, that's OK, the net gain is worthwhile. This is an idea that is very ambitious and requires careful thought and planning, but it is a worthwhile, and a revolutionary concept for game design. To Mats point about reuse. I'd like the ability to bundle the image and the movement code into a self-contained "piece object". For example, imagine a rook which presents the classic castle image and when dropped on any board will allow itself to be moved any number of rectilinear spaces. Now imagine adding the rook to a palate and now it becomes available to any game designer. If I don't like the image, I'll clone the rook and replace the bitmap. Now we have two slightly different rooks to choose from. Similar ideas apply to defining the board. I have many types of board to choose from (eg. rectangular, hex, etc..), can specify dimensions or can create new ones by graphically linking a collection of positions together. Boards and pieces can be scaled to match etc... -- Greg | ||
| Richard Hutnik (Richardhutnik)
New member Username: Richardhutnik Post Number: 43 Registered: 12-2002 |
Ok, I will chime in here again. Currently, there are a LOT of games not being done for Zillions, due to its limited nature. For example, cards are not really done, particularly multiplayer versions of them. The ability to hide information per player I don't believe is there. This means a lot of work. Secondarily here, there is a bunch of design that should be done graphically. For example, defining what a board is like, and how the spaces are interconnected. Why should this be done in a text file? It is visual. Doesn't it make sense to have a GUI for doing this? Also, the movement of pieces, and defining of zones to drop pieces. At this point, the Axiom project and the forum are discussing these. If Zillions development were going, you could go here. Ok, can I ask people here if these are doable with Zillions: - Collector Card Games - Wargames - Euro games involving cards - Economic games - Auction/bidding games - Multiplayer trick-taking games. What I see is needed is a more universal game engine that would enable people to play multiplayer. If you were using Zillions for this, you would need the ability of Zillions to be extended greatly, and a GUI used for defining play areas. | ||
| Wesley M. Steinbrink (Wsteinbr)
New member Username: Wsteinbr Post Number: 1 Registered: 1-2009 |
I am wanting to design into a game the chance to pass instead of play. This would be restricted thus: A player cannot pass if the previous player passed. A player cannot pass if he passed for his last move. Those are the only two restrictions. I can't seem to find this in the rules help files. | ||
| Greg Schmidt (Gschmidt2)
New member Username: Gschmidt2 Post Number: 88 Registered: 1-2007 |
I think you will have to track your conditions via attributes or dummy pieces and when you detect that a pass condition arises "generate" a pass move. Unfortunately Zillions doesn't allow you to generate a pass move so you will have to simulate a pass by creating your own move (drops) that does nothing. You also have to put a pass button (button shaped piece on the board) that is clicked on to make the fake "pass" move via the drops. (you should also turn off all of Zillions pass options such as pass turn forced, pass turn partial, etc.. so these won't be confused with your custom method of passing) -- Greg | ||
| Wesley M. Steinbrink (Wsteinbr)
New member Username: Wsteinbr Post Number: 2 Registered: 1-2009 |
Thank you very much for your insight and high level of detail! -- And quick response. I will be working through your suggestions soon. | ||
| sofearinozat (Sofearinozat)
New member Username: Sofearinozat Post Number: 1 Registered: 4-2009 |
Well, I have only just started playing on forum based rpgs, and discovered that they can be preety fun. The best one i've come across is preety small; but it has a loyal fan base and is very funny to play. I reccommend you try this at www.freewebs.com/billsnode, it's actualy preety good, even if slightly eccentric. http://www.rpg247.com | ||
| Ben Wilder (Animalia555)
New member Username: Animalia555 Post Number: 6 Registered: 1-2009 |
I am trying to figure out how to create a zillions version of Irensei I got a tip here /discus/messages/3/1260.html but i have no clue how to properly implement it as i keep getting error messages | ||
| Ben Wilder (Animalia555)
New member Username: Animalia555 Post Number: 14 Registered: 1-2009 |
better but here are still some aspects of the game to work out that i have no clue how to program | ||
| douglas zone (Douglasdzone)
New member Username: Douglasdzone Post Number: 1 Registered: 9-2015 |
Hi - I want to create have a piece to mount another (like get on a horse) and then later dismount. But I cannot figure out the dismount where the riding piece gets off one square from the ridden piece. I keep losing the ridden piece. I know I need to use Cascade but that's it | ||
| Sean Duggan (Dream)
New member Username: Dream Post Number: 115 Registered: 9-2000 |
Actually, you don't need Cascade. Something like the following as a move on your piece will allow the piece to move right, become a Knight, and create a Pawn to the left: (w (verify empty?) (create Pawn) e e (verify empty?) (add Knight)) ^_^ I know there's a way to make it so that it's an "in-place move" to do that, but I'm out of practice. Here's the following code, which creates the ability to mount a pawn onto a Knight as a chess variant: (variant (title "Mount and Dismount") (piece (name Pawn) (help "Pawn: moves forward, captures diagonally, can promote on 8th row") (description "Pawn\A Pawn can move straight ahead one square, or two squares from its starting position. A Pawn captures by moving one square ahead and diagonally. If a Pawn reaches the far rank it promotes, changing into a Knight, Bishop, Rook, or Queen. On rare occasions Pawns can also execute a move called `En Passant`, or `in passing`. This allows a Pawn to take an enemy Pawn that has just moved two squares.") (image White "images\Chess\SHaag\wpawn.bmp" "images\Chess\wpawn.bmp" Black "images\Chess\SHaag\bpawn.bmp" "images\Chess\bpawn.bmp") (moves (Pawn-capture nw) (Pawn-capture ne) (Pawn-move) (s (verify empty?) add) (En-Passant e) (En-Passant w) (n (verify (and friend? (piece? Knight))) (add PawnKnight)) ) ) (piece (name PawnKnight) (help "PawnKnight: moves like an `L`, 2 squares one way and one the other") (description "Knight\A Knight moves like an `L`, two squares vertically plus one horizontally, or two squares horizontally plus one vertically. It hops over any pieces on the way.") (image White "images\Chess\SHaag\WKnightBishop.bmp" "images\Chess\WKnightBishop.bmp" Black "images\Chess\SHaag\BKnightBishop.bmp" "images\Chess\BKnightBishop.bmp") (moves (leap2 n ne) (leap2 n nw) (leap2 s se) (leap2 s sw) (leap2 e ne) (leap2 e se) (leap2 w nw) (leap2 w sw) (Pawn-capture nw) (Pawn-capture ne) (Pawn-move) (w (verify empty?) (create Pawn) e e (verify empty?) (add Knight)) ) ) ) | ||
| douglas zone (Douglasdzone)
New member Username: Douglasdzone Post Number: 2 Registered: 9-2015 |
Thanks! That did it! | ||
| douglas zone (Douglasdzone)
New member Username: Douglasdzone Post Number: 3 Registered: 9-2015 |
Hi - I have defined particular squares where the rider can dismount. Depending on the direction they approach the square, the dismount acts differently. For instance - if approach from North, rider dismounts north of the square. If approach from West, the rider dismounts west of the square. I did it using zones but it is "ugly". Looking at moves, I can't seem to find something that compares current and target position in terms of direction. I think I am missing something fundamental! | ||
| Sean Duggan (Dream)
New member Username: Dream Post Number: 116 Registered: 9-2000 |
There might be a more elegant way to do it, but I'd probably just build a macro like the following and then add the directions that the piece can enter from: (define dismountMove ($1 (verify empty?) (verify (in-zone? dismount-zone)) (create Knight) $1 (verify empty?) (add Pawn))) For example, for North, the cursor goes North 1, checks to be sure the space is empty and that it's in the zone, marks to add the Knight, moves one space further North, checks to be sure it's empty, then adds the move where the piece turns into a Pawn. | ||
| Michael Nelson (Mikenelsdesigner)
New member Username: Mikenelsdesigner Post Number: 1 Registered: 11-2023 |
I need code to push adjacent pieces. | ||
| Sean Duggan (Dream)
New member Username: Dream Post Number: 135 Registered: 9-2000 |
@Michael: How do you want to handle it if there's another piece where it's being pushed? Or if there's the edge of the game board? |