Recent Media — First half of ’23

(and maybe some late stuff from ’22)

Recommended

• Been watching Columbo on Freevee (via Amazon Prime). They hold up well (I had seen a few before, but not many).
• In the process of finishing Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota Series. (Which starts with Too Like the Lightning). A sociological SF story set in a post-national near-Utopia where each adult chooses which legal system they wish to belong to, commuting to another continent is a short hop, discussing religion in public is prohibited, 20 hour work weeks, most crimes are solved instantly. Someone has nicked a not-yet-released article “Who are the power brokers” list and delivered it to a home that secretly contains houses a world-changing theological secret. Written in a bizarre 18th century writing style by an unreliable narrator. So yup, the first dozen pages are hard, but once I survived that I was hooked. The first book was a revelation, after that a dip in quality but still good. If you spot this book in the library grab it and look at the title page.
• The Netflix-only “Sturgill Simpson’s Sound and Fury” introduced me to Sturgill Simpson’s music. It’s a ~40 minute Heavy Metal style anime (with a few stories mixed together). As I was watching it I thought “this is good, I would have thought it was great a while ago … but the music slaps.” That particular album (which I bought, the first music purchase I’ve made in years) is a weird country/rock mix. His other albums are more country or bluegrass.
• The new Vlad Taltos novel (Tsalmoth) novel was fine, but as the ~20th? 25th? book in a shared world (counting the Romances etc) you aren’t just going to jump in. With all the media looking to find the next Game of Thrones I am endless surprised nobody has optioned this series.
• Got Zach Weinersmith’s Bea Wolf graphic as a gift for a nephew (but secretly read it first). Awesome. See the preview to confirm awesomeness. “She sparkled with power and also with sparkles.”
• Better Call Saul nailed the landing.

Maybe, Maybe Not — Things that you might like if it sounds good.

• Nope — Didn’t quite stick it, but at least tried new things.
• Read Naomi Novik’s Scholomance Series (which has been optioned) and it was an OK Hunger Games style YA. The idea is that wizard’s send their kids to a magical school where only ~25% of the kids survive, because those are the best odds you get. Didn’t do as much with the idea as I’d hoped, but it was OK. Should make good movies (but I probably won’t see them).
• The Night Circus (by Erin Morgenstern) is one of the better “Magical Realism” (probably up there with Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I don’t really remember much of it).
• I broke my “No more superheroes” rule to see the second SpiderVerse movie, and it was good …. but secretly a two parter. I have a “Don’t reward producers that split movies for no good reason” rule (Looking at you, Hobbit Trilogy), so I was annoyed at that. The only other superhero movie I’ve felt any temptation to see is Guardians III. My “No superhero rule” exists because the movies feel samey. SpiderVerse at least has an aesthetic (many of them, in fact).
• Netflix’s The Diplomat — Twilight with US/UK Politics instead of supernatural creatures. Rufus Sewell is excellent.
• Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson — He actually wrote an ending for once, but possibly because this book is essentially a 600 page prologue, setting up climate change as a problem and showing how some nations/companies/etc will act. Against other authors that would be a criticism, but I thought it worked.
• In person XFL games — surprisingly watchable if you are with a crowd. Some of the rules will hopefully be stolen by the NFL.
• 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown videos on youtube — funny, good as a background show
• Cyrano with Peter Dinklage — He’s very good, the movie is OK. I don’t think I’d ever seen an actual Cyrano before, only the Steve Martin one (Roxanne).

Avoid

• Shadows of Eternity by Gregory Benford. Good ideas, but I spent most of the book annoyed at the protagonist and thinking the plot was on rails. Every time I noticed the writing it was not in a good way. (And when every reviewer, including this middle-aged guy, notes that your gender portrayals are problematic at best its a problem).
• Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. One friend said “Not enough character development and weird timing issues,” so in that sense its like most sessions of the RPG. I found this unwatchable and turned it off multiple times before finally abandoning it.

A Chess Psychology Tidbit

The lesson I found the most striking is this: there’s a direct correlation between how skilled you are as a chess player, and how much time you spend falsifying your ideas. The authors find that grandmasters spend longer falsifying their idea for a move than they do coming up with the move in the first place, whereas amateur players tend to identify a solution and then play it shortly after without trying their hardest to falsify it first. (Often amateurs, find reasons for playing the move — ‘hope chess’.)

— Nabel S. Qureshi

(I suspect — apart from the GMs spending longer falsifying, they are able to quickly see the candidates moves much faster — weaker players need to spend more time enumerating them, perhaps fatiguing them).

See Nabel’s “Notes on Puzzles” article for details and thoughts on chess, math, puzzles and Newton’s notebooks.

Low Card Points at Party Bridge

While on a family reunion cruise, I stop by the “Bridge players gathering” on a sea day and discover three very nice retirees looking for a game, so I pair with the odd woman out against the couple from Australia to make a foursome, and by the end of the second hand I know that I am playing against party bridge players who have played for decades and never got past novice. (It takes two because one of them was dummy with no obvious bidding mistakes on the first hand).

Simple bidding, no conventions besides blackwood and stayman (and my partner “knows transfers”). No defensive signals. Bad card play. A few hands later and I learn that my partner does not play reverses after I make one and get passed in a 4-2 fit that I am allowed to make. I don’t bother lecturing (what’s the point?) and simply update my mental convention card to acknowledge that fact.

After an hour or so my opponents note that I have been getting very good cards and my mind flashes to a lecture by the Hideous Hog (paraphrased).

Of course I hold better cards than you. We each get the same number of High Card Points, but I also get Low Card Points, since I play my cards better than you. When I hold ten points, I do as well as when you hold thirteen. So why should I bid it like ten? In fact, I bid as if I only held twelve points, to keep something in reserve in case of emergencies.

H.H. (at various times)

(Although in fact I have been getting a decent number of HCP as well). Obviously politeness means that I keep the HH quote to myself.

After a while I pick up S: AJ7x H:x D:Jxx C:K876x in third seat (we aren’t really worrying about vulnerability). My partner opens One Heart, I have an easy One Spade response, and my partner jumps to Three Hearts.

My mental convention card doesn’t really know what that is but it should be sixteen to eighteen and six hearts. That’s just basic stuff. So I’m bidding a game. I think with most partners I’d bid 3NT (although there is an argument for raising, even with the stiff, as diamonds might be wide open) … and in any case in 3NT my low card points will be pulling their full weight.

So while I am being a hand hog bidding Three No Trump, it is justified. I magnanimously pre-absolve myself of all blame should it not work out.

Partner passes, I get a small diamond lead and see the following dummy.

S: KT H:QJT8xxx D:Axx C:Q

I suddenly remember another H.H. quote from when he played on a cruise ship after a similarly disappointing dummy was tabled.

As always, when he feared the worst, H.H. oozed confidence from every pore. Somehow, even before he saw dummy, he managed to convey the impression that partner had more than he expected. No one, looking at the Hog, would have suspected that his dearest wish at the moment was to throw partner, and all his other enemies for that matter, to the bottom of the ocean — if, that is, the ocean would have them.

Victor Mollo, Bridge in the Menagerie (“The Vanishing Trick”)

(Hand repeated for convenience)]

Dummy S: KT H:QJT8xxx D:Axx C:Q

Declarer S: AJ7x H:x D:Jxx C:K876x

3NT is a truly atrocious contract. I have three tricks only, and the opening lead means that opponents have five tricks (or more) once the diamond ace is gone. But I had three advantages. Myself, LHO and RHO. I ducked dummy’s ace — maybe LHO had underled KQ, and playing for a blockage seemed against the odds. The exact card LHO led was small, but I’d learned that didn’t really mean anything, except that “LHO had that card,” so I didn’t note it (I reconstructed this hand an hour later, away from the table and by that point I didn’t remember, if I’d ever noticed in the first place).

RHO won the queen and, after a brief pause, switched to a club, which went to LHO’s Ace and then he … returned a small club. I pitched a heart from dummy and RHO played a small club and my six won. How? Don’t ask. That way lies madness.

Assuming clubs were 4-3, I could now take three clubs and let’s assume I can untangle the spades and get four tricks. Add the diamond ace and I’m at eight. And as we say “Where there’s eight tricks, there are nine.” But I’ll still need to lose another trick, and the hearts are obvious. (If I clear the clubs they will pretty much be forced to lead a diamond or tangle up my spades).

I lead a small heart and it goes small (with a tiny hitch) – Queen – King.

RHO leads another club, and I play small, LHO winning with the jack. They now have four tricks (two clubs, a diamond and a heart) so if he cashes the heart ace I’m down. But, on the plus side, down one is remarkably good compared to where I started on the hand.

But now it’s LHO’s turn to “Shine” and he leads a club. (Yes yes, if his partner had the club king she should have slammed it down to pin my queen on trick two, but that is well beyond them). I cash my two clubs (RHO pitching two spades and LHO pitching a diamond). I now need my four spade tricks. I can’t finesse LHO for the queen, so my choice is to play for Qx in his hand or finesse on the way back. There are arguments for either play. I play a spade to the king and then the spade ten. Before I have to decide RHO plays the queen, so I win. When I played the spade jack RHO follows with the nine, so her cover saved me a guess (and, of course, she should have never pitched a spade as I’d mentioned I had four as well).

Spades were 3=2=4=4 around the table, so LHO follows to the spade jack and I think I’ve got them. When I lead the good last spade LHO is — as I’d hoped — caught in a simple positional squeeze.

Dummy H: J D: Ax

LHO H:A D:KT

Declarer D: Jx + Good spade

LHO pitches the diamond ten and so I toss dummies heart and lead low to the Diamond Ace and then back to my now-good jack. Nine tricks.

I play for a bit longer and then we all break up. For the rest of the cruise I briefly poke my head in to make sure I’m not needed to make a table, but don’t bother waiting around for a game. There are too many levels of expertise between us to make it interesting … most of the time.

Calimala will not rule the world soon

(References for you young’uns)

Played Calimala last night. This was described as a JASE-y game from ~5 years ago that felt like it was aping games from ~15-20 years ago. You have wood, brick, marble and deliver silk and build churches oh god I’m already asleep. Like I said, JASE.

But the game has innovation. The actions (get stuff, build stuff, deliver stuff) are placed out on a grid and you place your token between two of the actions and take both (in either order). Also, your token stays and when someone places a token on top of yours, all the tokens underneath take the actions again. But if the stack is 4 tokens high, the bottom token does not get the action and instead triggers a scoring, which are all “3/2/1 for 1st/2nd/3rd” in a category (which is mainly deliver to place, delivery type, build at place, build type).

If you can’t take one of the two actions you get a card. The cards give you a bonus action later (during your turn) of a specific type, but the action is determined by the card, so sometimes its a benefit (you trade an action you can’t use for an action you really want) and sometimes its OK and rarely its useless (particularly towards the end game). Also, the tie breaker rules are important, and typically involves adding up one type of delivery plus discs that are in the scoring. There are a few other minor rules, but that’s it.

By the end of the explanation I thought “OK, this sounds reasonable.” A few novel ideas.

I don’t think they quite work. It certainly didn’t help that it was a five player game and there seems to be a strong bias towards the first player. They can jump on a premier spot. If others follow, they get to use it again right away. The last player apart from getting less turns, will always have less discs than the start player that might get triggered by others. There is a minor balance for last player, but it feels weak. The TaoLing (who was last player) quickly noticed this.

(On the other hand the fourth player won).

The cards are a reasonable “can’t do that action” balance, but they slow the game down. Honestly, worker placement games should be at least a tiny bit brutal, so just saying “If you can’t take the action, you don’t get it” feels like it would improve the game (and speed it up).

So … there’s something there. Better than it sounds, but not great. Probably works better with three or four. The sort of game where afterwards we were discussing how to make it better, but only as an intellectual exercise.

Rating — Indifferent

Strategy in Pastiche: Birth of a Masterpiece

Pastiche: Birth of a Masterpiece has quietly locked its place in the rotation (and the game bag). It’s a nice Rummy-style game with elegant aesthetics and works with three. This means that the TaoLing and I often teach the game and the gameplay is opaque enough to make new players struggle.

So I thought I’d write up a few words. Random tips and thoughts.

(Disclaimer — Most of my plays are 3p games, more players probably changes this advice. Not sure).

Fun fact — The number of dots on a scoring card is how many copies there are in that stack (although each player can only get one). The number of dots on a regular card shows the lowest card in that suit! (So you don’t have to keep referring to the backs of the cards).

I played over a dozen games before someone noticed this.

Start with a small work — Earlier I thought “Why go for three of a kind for one point, when I can just drop a seven card straight for three?” The answer — you want a masterpiece, which only happens after you (or opponents) remove all-but-one card from your work (meld). Only Masterpieces score, and — more importantly in the early game — they turn later works into masterpieces faster.

Turning a three of a kind into a masterpiece requires three card draws, placing the work, and two ‘pastiche’ actions (which may be from a kind or desperate opponent, but you probably not). If you assume each card draw is an action as well, that’s 6 actions for a point. The seven card straight takes 7 (card draws) + 1 (place work) + 6 (pastiches) = 14 actions for three points. That’s slightly better economy, but eight turns slower!

That’s eight turns where you may get a free card or two, but also ….

Masterpieces compound — The more you have; the easier to get more. One you’ve dropped your three of a kind and converted it, you can use that card as part of a seven card straight. Now your seven card straight takes one less card draw and one less pastiche action, so its now twelve actions instead of fourteen. (You probably would still want to do something faster, I’m just using the seven card straight to compare to the last section).

You can use your opponents’ quick masterpiece (for a straight) you give them a card, but you save yourself an action (you don’t have to pastiche it out).

Using masterpiece cards means you don’t need to draw perfect, you can use any card as a wild (for their card). Don’t hesitate to use opponent’s masterpiece cards. It helps you and them. (Try and avoid paying with a card that opponent really wants).

In the last turn(s) people scan the board looking for ways to drop a single card into an instant masterpiece (likely paying a bunch of cards to opponents).

Take cards from the opponents if they will match with the board — If your opponent drops a three of a kind and you already have a matching card, one draw from their pastiche will guarantee your three of a kind. Earlier one we avoided it, and it’s not the best play (you’d rather take the top of the discard pile, but beggars can’t be choosers. Remember, it’s a three player game. Even if it helps your opponent more than you, that may still be in your best interest. You don’t want an opponent to do that and now you are falling behind).

Plays like this can also compound to speed the game along.

Our early games had reshuffling, but lately we’ve had games where we don’t come close to reshuffling. One three of a kind, then the same, maybe a different three of a kind, and people grab those cards to hit three pairs, now a straight only takes a few cards, now a longer straight … cards keep getting recycled.

If you are taking the last card to turn a work into a pastiche, take the card you want less! For example, if you are aiming for five “sevens” and an opponent has a ‘7-8’ remaining in his straight, take the eight (assuming you have a seven from your hand). You can then use that 8 (or any other card) to pay for the rights to use his seven, speeding you up. Of course if he had something like 7-8-9-11 you’d take the seven rather than risking someone else grab it (if you were in hurry). And you might grab the seven because you think that the other players will be using lots of sevens (for their own three/five of a kind or multiple pairs/trips) and you want to get repeatedly paid. But consider taking the card you don’t want.

(This also means that if there are exactly three cards in a work, if you take one you are giving the next player the choice of which card to lock in).

Lookout for a four card straight flush — These are the best bang-for-buck. Note that each suit has a single card that must be in the straight flush (for four cards). You can’t stop someone drawing into one, but if they do make sure they don’t just spend the next three turns grabbing card back to finish the work and setting themselves up for a possible six card straight flush. Painful as it is to take an un-necessary card from an opponent’s work, this is the time. (The TaoLing and I have gotten much better at recognizing this and blocking it. Yes, it’s a 3+ player game, but you have to play some defense).

Also — if you have a three card straight flush, check if its open ended or not. Two outs is much better than one.

Points only score for masterpieces — I’ve lost a few games playing a 3-4 card work (for “5 points!”) not realizing that the game was ending before I could score it. This is really just a continuation of “compounding” but as the game goes on you should be need fewer and fewer cards in your works. At the extreme, on your last turn you must play a masterpiece (or pastiche to make an earlier work a masterpiece) to score.

Pay them back with the card they just paid you — It’s not like they wanted it before. Of course the board is better now, so …

Pay attention to what can be done by anyone with a single card — (Assuming they have cards to pay). If there are three 7s on the board, getting five 7s is relatively easy, and you are one third of the way to three three-of-a-kinds (and have a “free” pair for the three/four pairs). If there are three fours on the board, there is still no possibility of “five fours” (because there are only four of them), but the pair/triplet still helps. If there are lots of different numbers it will be easy to make a long straight.

Notice these things and notice if you are putting down a masterpiece what it opens up.

(The TaoLing locked in a win taking a small play for his fifteenth point in such a way that did not allow a one turn big score, instead of making a higher scoring play that may have opened up someone to score 5+ in a turn and overtake).

The 1+13 and All Evens — I never used to pass the ‘1’ or ’13’ to an opponent (or discard it when drawing two), but honestly, even if you give it away and they score two points, its not terribly likely those compound. They might get some use in long straights (and the ’13’ is great in the “total to 49”), but given a random middling card (5-9) may let them hit a straight … particularly when that card is not yet in a masterpiece! So, the 1 or 13 is a dangerous card to give, but any card might be. It depends on the board. I’m more worried about giving up a ‘2’ or ’12’ because the “All evens” is six points and there should be sixes and eights (and probably a four or ten) on the board at midgame. That can be six points for a card or two, and even if its more cards, there’s only one “All evens” achievement.

High cards are slightly better than low cards — Assuming I had a totally even choice between playing 5-5-5 and 9-9-9 three of a kinds, I’d play the nines. That’s because of the “Sum to 49” achievement, where people will try to pay out as few cards as possible (and you’ll be closer to it yourself with a total of nine). Sure, someone may need a five to make it exact, but odds are you’ll get more with the nine.

(Once the total of masterpieces is at 36 or higher, anyone may be able to “Sum to 49” in a single play, and the 1+13 does matter if it makes the 49 easier).

Anyway, I’m sure there are more, but that’s it for now…

Update — A few more games, another thought.

It is a race — One reason to get a work early (where you’ll have to take quite a few turns to convert it to a masterpiece) is when its a valuable / limited card. The All Evens is a prime example. Unless you have a lock on the 2s (or 12s) you may want to snap that up early. The other reason is a defensive play. My last game saw the TaoLing taking the Triple-Three-of-a-Kind work solely to keep me from getting it, with no intention of scoring it.

The Technical Play

Playing a club game with Roxie I pick up S: Axx H: 8xx D: J8xx C: AQx. It goes pass-pass to me, so in 3rd seat I open 1 Diamond, planning on passing whatever Roxie bids. It’s not a great opening, but it’s 3rd seat. (And arguably I’d open this first or second …). LHO passes and Roxie bids 3 Diamonds, showing a limit raise.

I’m not particularly happy with that, I was hoping to pass one heart or one spade. Ah well. I pass. LHO leads a small spade and I get a pretty dummy.

Dummy: S: KQx H: Qx D: A9xxx C: Txx

My Hand: S: Axx H: 8xx D: J8xx C: AQx

The spade goes to the jack and I win the ace. I lead a diamond to the ace and RHO plays the King. I hope for KQ tight, but when I lead a diamond RHO shows out, LHO having QT behind my jack.. LHO wins and leads a heart to RHO’s Ace. RHO returns a heart to LHO’s king and now LHO cashes the last trump and safely exits with a spade. The remaining hands

Dummy: S: K H: — D: xx C: Txx

My Hand: S: x H: x D: x C: AQx

I’ve already lost four tricks, so it looks like I’ll need the club finesse to avoid going down two (for -200 and the matchpoint kiss of death). But in fact this is a technical position I’ve seen before and (more importantly) remember.

So I play a club to the ace, eschewing the immediate finesse. Then I ruff my last heart and cash the spade king.

Only then do I play a club to the queen, but LHO wins with the king.

And pauses. LHO is good enough player so that I can just show him my hand. I still have a losing club in each hand, but LHO doesn’t have a club to return, so must concede a ruff a sluff. Despite the club finesse being off, I have only lost one club.

The key was that even if the club finesse worked, I’d still have a lose a club, so cashing the ace and then leading towards the queen breaks even if the king is onside (I lose one club), and also break even when the king is offside with Kxx or longer (I lose two clubs). But when the King is stiff it falls under the ace, and if (as in this case) LHO has King doubleton, he is endplayed to concede the ruff and sluff.

-100 still isn’t a great score …. if I had passed the hand would pass out (for zero) and many players do in fact pass the hand out…. but it was the best score possible after that auction, and the technical play worked for once, so I’ll take it.

Great Western Trail

I finally played Great Western Trail last week. It’s a game that I dismissed by looking at the overwrought board … but one of my rules is “ignore the new hotness, and if they are still playing it next year, then try it.” Well, people are still playing GWT five years later, and it had a newer version in GWT: Argentina, so I gave the original a try.

There’s an actual great idea in the heart of the game. Much like Caylus (which I’ve written about extensively) had “Walking the path” (and provost manipulation), GWT has a branching and remerging path (the “cattle drive,” although I have no idea if the rules name it). You can take up to three steps on the path, taking whichever branch you want, and only spaces occupied by buildings (or hazards) count. Anyone can use neutral buildings, but for your own buildings only you can take their special actions (other players can use them for a basic action), and sometimes they “tax” opponents who swing by them.

So there’s a neat little game in path manipulation (especially as some of your buildings let you take an action and then bounce (“Chutes and Ladders”-style) down the path.

That idea is totally overwhelmed by something like a half dozen other sub-systems:

• You hire characters to improve the efficiency of some actions (cowboys make cattle cheaper, conductors make your trains better, builders let you build/improve buildings faster)
• You have a dominion like deck of cattle (starting with 5 grey “1”s and some “2”s of three different colors). When you deliver your heard, you only score income based on the different cattle, so you have deck manipulation of buying and “banishing” cattle.
• You have a train which you have to advance to place stations (again, based on the delivery income).
• Those station markers let you improve your actions/move further/hold more cards based on a player board you “unlock,” (so, “technologies”)
• There was a second (expansion) board of sub-stations. (I’m told this was to clean up some of the mess with the base game, so the argument “well, that’s an expansion mechanism might be true, but doesn’t really argue in favor of the game).

Caylus has “the path,” currencies are money and cubes, and some technologies (via favors/jousting). GWT has “the path,” the currencies are money, cattle, characters, stations, train distance, sub-stations, and technologies (like hand size, movement distance, improved actions).

In Caylus everyone can use every building (but the owner gets some passive benefit when others use it). Here only you can really use your building, meaning that the decision is less interesting. (“Yes, I want this ability, but do others want it more?” no longer applies).

How often do I have to say it? “This design lacks focus.” I should make that a category. Now, to be fair, I was playing with expansions (which generally diffuse a game’s concept), but still.

Rating — Indifferent.

Bonus Discussion — Is Alexander Pfister a name to avoid if you are a fan of focus? When they pulled out GWT on Friday and I saw the name, I groped around trying to remember where I’d heard it before … and failed, although I knew I’d heard it. So I looked him up just now.

I thought Mombasa was good the one or two times I played it (not good enough to move out of Indifferent, but better than this). Cloud Age was woeful. Boonlake was dismissed based on a glance at the board and rules. So I’m going to say that he designs games that I (generally) will not be inclined to like.

Pan-Am

The joke about Acquire is that it should be called “Acquired,” because you want to get bought out. Pan Am has the same feel in that you are building an airline, but you really want to get gobbled up by the juggernaut company (that will eventually die out, but after you’ve retired). So you build up routes in the hopes that Pan Am will buy you out, then you can convert that money into shares of Pan Am, which are the sole victory.

And — in some sense — it works. But there are random events and woo-eey, one of them just gave me four shares of Pan Am (as compared to 1-2 for other players) on the last turn. There also a deck of “Eh, I’ll skip my action this turn for a powerful event and an earlier worker placement next turn” and some of those events are …. a bonus certificate of Pan Am. I got three of those … so of my 27 points, 7 were from random events. I won … by 3-4 shares (27 to 24ish), without those events I lose.

So … too random.

Also, whatever happened to putting the designers name on it? That was kind of a big deal.

Should “Prospero Hall” be considered the Alan Smithee of game designers?

Rating — Indifferent.

Legibility, Confusion, Prediction and Enjoyment

As I have mentioned before, I’ve been following the magician Dani DaOrtiz ever since his appearance on Penn and Teller. One of his oft-repeated lines (in lessons) is that “Confusion is not magic.” But there are subtleties. Obviously the audience must be unaware of “the secret.” If you catch the magician secretly palming the card, or if the assistant has a twin then the trick unravels. So the audience must not know certain (key) facts. The effect must be clear, not confusing. The method should not be obvious.

That person was over there, tied up, in a bag. A second later they are over here, untied. Crystal clear.

When talking about Horseless Carriage I called the game state “illegible,” but now I realize that was imprecise. The current state is perfectly legible. A player has a score ($), a factory layout with lines that can produce X cars with certain spec, Y cars with different spec, Z cars (or trucks or sports cars) with another spec. That player has research positions, an order on the focus track, generates so much research/gannt charts per turn.

It may take a few minutes to “read,” but its all there. No cards. Nothing hidden.

The issue with H.C. is that game state changes massively (and simultaneously) during the “Build a factory” phase. You add parts and specs and whatnot and suddenly that player can generate cars with new specs, etc. The “build” step contains zero-to-many substeps of “add something to the factory floor.” What can a player do in that phase? Lots. Improve R&D, or leave it and make much better cars. Perhaps open a new dealership, or improve marketing, or second line. It’s similar to the Bin Packing Problem, and it’s hard.

I worry that there are optimal solutions. I don’t worry that people can find them at the table. But when I called the game “illegible,” I was fumbling around the following idea “When this step starts, it is very difficult to predict where the game will be at the end of this step. You have a wide variety of options and even deciding what you should be optimizing is difficult, much less optimizing it. But even if you optimize it, you may do well or not based on what other people are optimizing, if they are in conflict with you, and the like.”

(Of course, how well you optimize is also a big deal, but let’s skip it).

“And even if you are correct, other players may not see the solution the same way and their choices may greatly benefit/harm you based on their views.”

So …. Horseless Carriage is legible. But it’s not easily predictable.

In some ways, this is the same as a dudes-on-a-map game where the winner may simply be decided by who attacks who. That’s predictable (X is a jerk, everyone attacks him, given a choice, etc), but it’s not necessarily a function of the game rules. This is (sometimes) considered a flaw with the game. Similarly, one game of H.C. was decided by two players fighting Sports Cars, two players fighting for the high end market, and one player left alone in trucks (winner!).

But you want some level of predictability in a game. Chess has lots of predictability …. good players will all look at the same small list of moves in a given position. You still need to do the hard work of calculating to show that a move is good, and spectators delight in surprise moves, but the move is a surprise because of the superior skill. You thought g6 was bad, the grandmaster played g6! What did he see that you didn’t?

Interesting.

If Chess let you move all the pieces each, it would be a less interesting game, partially because predictability would fall (but more because the constraints makes tactics more interesting. This is not a theoretical example, looking at you Fuedal).

I got to thinking about this because of last night’s game of Darwin’s Journey. (Which I didn’t enjoy.) Darwin’s Journey is legible. You can glance at a player’s board (and the board) and see what spots are open to his workers, explorers, position in turn order, etc. It might (again) be difficult to read, but its open. There are some tiles drawn each round that add uncertainty, but OK. It’s much more predictable than Horseless Carriage, because each turn is a “simple” one … place a work and resolve an action. You might still have the same problem of “That player misjudges and takes a space that doesn’t help him, but hurts me,” but that can happen in most games. In fact, Darwin’s Journey is predictable enough that I could often say “I will take this spot, I think A/B/C will do X/Y/Z and then I’ll take that spot.” I could see many ply into the future (which is basically impossible in H.C.).

But I didn’t enjoy the experience. Perhaps because the game state had too much information? When a chess player makes a move you hadn’t considered, it’s exciting! (Not necessarily good for you, but exciting!) Maybe they blundered. Maybe I missed a nuance. But something important happened.

When a player makes a surprising move in Darwin’s Journey, well … it’s a point salad game. They are still going to get a few points, maybe a few more than you thought, maybe a few less. And there is so much going on in the game state, perhaps its a wash.

(“This game lacks focus” was my comment at game night.)

You want some predictability. Not too much. Not too little. Tic-Tac-Toe is predictable (once you are no longer a small child). So it’s boring. Chess is in the sweet spot (for many people). People who play Bridge or Go are self-selecting into an amount of predictability that they want. (Bridge is interesting, because the first part of becoming a good bridge player is learning how to read the game state, which is a non-trivial task in hand evaluation and understanding a bidding system, as well as the card play. For a novice, the game is mostly illegible, and the experience involves ‘learning to read’).

For those games, surprise is exciting, but you need the framework to be legible, so you have enough information to be surprised, and not just bewildered and confused. And as we’ve seen by Go and Bridge, learning to read a game state is often a valid (cherished!) part of the experience. I suspect that most of my irritation at Darwin’s Journey is that the learning to read the game state is complex, but it’s just “kitchen sink” complexity, not organic.

Anyway, I still feel like I’m not quite at the point, but I think I’m moving closer.

And moving back to magic, I see a parallel in the showmanship. Dani talks about “ending on a snapshot” where even if someone just wandered into the last second, they could get a rough idea of what’s going on. “Ah, there’s a pile of cards and a face up card. He must have found the card in the right place” or “He flips up two piles of cards and all the red cards are in one pile, and all the black cards are in another.”

The trick should not be confused. The effect should be simple. You need focus.

Darwin’s Journey

“My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.”

— Stephen Wright

There’s a clever idea here — some workers are better at certain tasks (and lesser trained workers cannot do some tasks). But that is completely overwhelmed by the other dozen mediocre ideas thrown into this box. And at 2.5 hours (with teach) this way overstayed its welcome.

Worker placement in theory but drowning in point-salad-dressing.

Rating — Indifferent, bordering on avoid.