https://blog.plover.com/notes/game-mechanics.html The Universe of Discourse Mark Dominus (Tao Min Wed, 03 May 2023 Xiu ) mjd@pobox.com Notes on rarely-seen game mechanics [TOP] A while back I posted some miscellaneous notes on card games played by aliens. Dave Turner has About me written a response in the same mode, titled "Rarely seen game mechanics". If you like my RSS Atom blog, you will probably enjoy this article of Dave's. 12 recent entries Dave's article inspired me to write him an email Two words, two lies reply, a version of which follows. (again) The pillar box war [ Content warning: discussion of Water, polo, and self-mutilation. ] water polo in Russian Perception Recent addenda to articles 202304: Dave says: Inappropriate baseball team names Some time ago, I invented a game where you and anagrams in try to determine physical quantities. Like, Russian you're given a box full of weights, and you Notes on have to determine how many grams it is, just rarely-seen game by hefting it. mechanics Why use cycle So far I can only think of one common game that notation for is even a little bit similar to this: guess the permutations? number of jelly beans in the jar. As Dave points Show how the out, weighing the jar, measuring it, or even student could have picking up the jar are forbidden. solved it Thought on cynicism Montessori education focuses on developing a Math SE report child's perception, and has many activities of 2023-04: this type, not played as competitive games, but Simplest-possible as single-person training games. One example is examples, pointy the "sound boxes" or "sound cylinders". This is a regions, and family of twelve opaque containers, usually in nearly-orthogonal six pairs. vectors I liked this simple Two wooden boxes, eachcontaining a set of six calculus exercise wooden cylinders. One set has red caps on Two words, two lies theends, the other has blue caps. Recent addenda to articles 202303 Two containers (call them R1 and B1) contain a small amount of sand, two (R2 and B2) contain Archive: dried peas, R3 and B3 contain small pasta, R4 and B4 contain pebbles, and so on. The child is first 2023: JFMAM presented with three cylinders, say R1, R3 and 2022: JFMAMJ R6. They shake the cylinders close to their ears JASOND and listen to the sounds. Then they are invited 2021: JFMAMJ to listen to R1, R3, and R6 and to match them JASOND with their mates B1, B3, and B6. As the child 2020: JFMAMJ gets better at this, more pairs of cylinders cnn JASOND be introduced. Later games involve taking a 2019: JFMAMJ single set of cylinders R1-R6 and ordering them JASOND from quietest to loudest. 2018: JFMAMJ JASOND Other Montessori equipment of this type includes 2017: JFMAMJ "baric tablets", which are same-sized tablets JASOND made of different woods, to be distinguished by 2016: JFMAMJ weight, and "cylinder blocks" which are sets of JASOND cylinders in different sizes, to be sorted by 2015: JFMAMJ size and then put back in their corresponding JASOND sockets. None of this is hard stuff for adults, 2014: JFMAMJ but it is interesting and challenging for a JASOND three-year-old. Montessori was a brilliant woman. 2013: JFMAMJ JASOND My piano teacher would sometimes play two notes 2012: JFMAMJ and ask me to say whether it was a major third or JASOND a perfect fourth or whatever. 2011: JFMAMJ JASOND Dave mentions a microgame played by Ethiopian 2010: JFMAMJ girls to choose who gets to go first: JASOND 2009: JFMAMJ they would instead hide three stones in one JASOND hand and four in another, and ask another 2008: JFMAMJ player to figure out which hand had more JASOND stones. Of course, this is also a deception 2007: JFMAMJ game. JASOND 2006: JFMAMJ This made me think of Odds and Evens, which was JASOND the standard method in New York where I grew up. 2005: OND One player (doesn't matter which) is designated "odds" and the other "evens". Then on a count of three, the two players each reveal either one or ------------------- two fingers. If the total number of fingers is Subtopics: even, the evens player wins. I always assumed that this was a game of pure randomness, but now Mathematics 227 I'm not sure. Maybe other people play it at a Programming 95 higher level, using psychology or trickery to Language 87 gain an advantage. Miscellaneous 64 Book 48 Short-term memory Tech 42 Haskell 33 At math camp we used to play a short-term memory Oops 30 game that went like this: The first player would Etymology 30 say "I went on a picnic, and I brought an Unix 26 abominable antelope." Then the second player Cosmic Call 25 would say "I went on a picnic and I brought an Physics 21 abominable antelope and a basket of bananas." Math SE 19 Then "I went on a picnic and I brought and Law 19 abominable antelope, a basket of bananas, and a Perl 17 copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." If Biology 15 you miss one, you have to drop out. Have-to-drop-out is often a bad game mechanic, [mjd-univer] but since this is a low-stakes social game, it Higher-Order Perl can be fun to hang around and watch the end even Blosxom after you're out. And since this was usually played in a larger gathering, it was easy enough Comments disabled to wander away and talk to someone else. Similarly at one point I worked with an instructor who, on the first day of class, would have the kids do this with their names: kid #7 would have to recite the names of the six kids who had gone before. Unfair to the kids in the back, of course, but that's what you get for sitting in the back. And the instructor would promise ahead of time that he would have go last and the TAs would have to go next-to-last. Pain tolerance Dave said: Dominus suggests a version of chess where you can make your opponent take a move back by chopping off one of your fingers. This is rather permanent (at least for humans). But what about temporary pain? I had originally imagined this variation played by aliens with many regenerating tentacles, where cutting one off is painful, embarrassing, and inconvenient, but not crippling. But then I thought the idea of playing it as a human was much funnier and more compelling, and it ran away with me. You enter a chess tournament and sit down. Try to imagine your thought process when you see that your opponent is missing a finger. Or that your opponent is missing three fingers. There would be stories about how in the 2008 Olympiad Hoekstra was mounting a devastating attack, and thought he was safe because his opponent Berenin was not a finger-chopper. But then Berenin completely foiled the attack by unexpectedly chopping his finger, at just the right moment. (Interviewer: "You have never cut off a finger before. Was it a sudden inspiration, Grandmaster Berenin?" Berenin: "No, I saw what Hoekstra was doing, so I had been planning since move 13 to interfere with his rook defense in this way.") Or there might be the legendary game in which Berenin made the devastating move fe6, and when Hoekstra, perhaps panicking, cut off a finger, Berenin merely shrugged and immediately made the equally devastating and nearly identical move de6. What's the record for one player cutting off fingers in a single game? Is it a legendarily bad game by a reckless dumbass? Or is it a story about how GM Basanian would stop at nothing to win the 1972 world championship? What's the record for two players cutting off fingers in a single game? Okay, let's try a more plausible variation. Chess, but if your opponent makes a move you don't like, you can force them to take it back and play another by taking a shot of schnapps. Intriguing! Dave continues, discussing a P.K. Dick story in which the characters take turns holding their fingers in a cigarette lighter. In the story, they're not burned, because Dick, but you could imagine playing this as a brutal game in our non-Dick universe. In fact I thought I might have heard of people playing exactly this game, but I'm not sure. For a game of this type that I'm certain of, consider Episode 13 of Survivor: Borneo: Final immunity challenge: Each tribe member held on to the immunity idol while standing on a small log. The person who lasted the longest would win immunity. After two hours of holding on the idol, Jeff tempted the three with oranges. After 21/2 hours, Richard gave a speech, said he wouldn't be able to outlast Kelly, and stepped down voluntarily. ... After three hours, the two left switched positions while keeping their hand on the idol and were to do so every half-hour. ... After 4 hours, 11 minutes, Rudy [inadvertently] took his hand off the idol while switching spots, and Kelly won immunity yet again. People compete in eating contests, which also has an element of seeing whose body can take the most abuse. And there's that game where two players take turns hitting each other in the face until one gives up or is too battered to continue -- I don't know what it's called. There are also games like Chicken and Russian Roulette (and possibly follow-the-leader) that are about who is willing to tolerate the greatest amount of unnecessary risk. Conclusion If you haven't read Dave's article yet, at least check out the thing about the Sichuan peppercorns . [Other articles in category /notes] permanent link