Game Sources

These are useful sources to find new games:

• Mixing known concepts in strange ways (i.e., applying game mutators).
• Choose a good word and squeeze its content into a game.
• Get a board, some stones (of one or more types) and a position that pleases you, and hear the story they have to tell.

The Waves of Fortune

Talking with an old friend, we noticed that if there were no mistakes in some games we were playing, the moves would be always the same, i.e., the perfect match. That remark stayed inside my mind because it annoyed me the feeling that, in perfect information games (i.e., no luck and no hidden information), two players devoting enough time and skill so that eventually are able to completely master the game they love, will destroy it! The game collapses to a single and fixed contest - always win, always lose, always draw...

In games where the random factor exists this does not happen! I'm not talking of 100% random procedures (they are not games) like the Roulette or the Lottery, but something like Backgammon (a game with luck) or Stratego (a game with hidden information). If the balance of randomness is finely tuned, a good player will consistently beat any worse player. Facing two perfect players in a game like that, the final outcome is not decided at all! Using a fair random generator, each will have a certain percentage of chance to win. A statistical average of wins/loses will still apply but not for an individual game - the actual game being played. And if that average is near 50%, the joy cannot be destroyed by sufficient skill or dedication.

The Ocean of Abstract Games it is an area of flat water, where nothing random or secret appears to disturb the surface. With algorithmic evolution (not just speed, speed is useless for Go), this part of the Ocean will continuously grow smaller and smaller. I wonder if, sometime, most of these games will have the need for the Waves of Fortune...

Players

Even if there are many types of games, there are two main types of serious players: generalist and specialist gamers. Specialists dedicate most of their free time to one game (even if they know and play other games) and dedicate large amounts of time learning openings, tactics and strategies about it. Generalists are meta-gamers curious with new rules, different ideas. Sometimes the former define the later as "people who failed to become good at one game", but this is an unfair critic. Most player are not generalists and so are bound to tradition and mainstream culture, playing games that society (sometimes just by historic reasons) maintains. In a sense, the same happen with religion, scientific models (at some extent), music... But it would be better for many obscure and excellent games if that was not so.

A generalist analysis a scenario with much less prejudice (and much less depth) than a specialist. Specialists are more uncomfortable with the unfamiliar. They like the assurance that practice and study provide. Even with enough intellectual skills, the generalist do not have the patience for the learning required. Performance is not the main goal. What matters are delight and surprise by unusual new thought processes.

There are two opposing problems. A specialist would think: "Why should I lose all my investment in game A to look at game B?". A generalist would think: "Why should I invest time in game A? Why not game B?". These questions do not have easy, general answers. I'm still not able to answer mine. [T.Sagme, Meditations]