Congames

[Micamo]

In this thread, let's throw around some ideas for congames. For our purposes, we'll leave out physical sports (as there's already a thread for that). Instead, this thread is for games like checkers.

First up: Cio. Literally, "Honor."

Cio is played with 5 different carved wooden figurines: Upe, Siu, Anti, Pou, and Chiu. (What these figures are of and what they signify I've not come up with yet.) The game is played by a screen separating two players, who each place down a figurine, then remove the screen to reveal who the winner is.

Upe beats Siu and Anti.
Siu beats Anti and Pou.
Anti beats Pou and Chiu.
Pou beats Chiu and Upe.
Chiu beats Upe and Siu.

Upon the removal of the screen, whichever side turns out the winner (note there's always a clear winner unless both pieces are the same) gets one point for the round. In the case of both pieces being the same, there is a draw and neither player earns a point. The match ends when one player gets 3 points.

During a single match, you cannot play the same piece twice. This means a match can only last up to 5 rounds: In the case of a match lasting 5 rounds without a player reaching 3 points, whoever has more is the winner.

The game's fairly simple, but here's a slightly complicating factor: At the start of the round, before the pieces are chosen, a player may tell the other which piece they intend to play. This is called "Taking an oath." If one player takes an oath, then the other must take an oath also. If an oath is taken, you are only allowed to pick a piece different from the one you declared (breaking the oath) once over the course of the match. For every other round where an oath is taken, you must be honest.

Even with that the game is still fairly simple. The game is not taken very seriously in terms of winning. However, it's considered a mark of godliness for a man to be able to win a match of Cio without ever using his one permitted lie.

[roninbodhisattva]

I've got a board game that I've always wanted to import into a consetting. It's abstract, played on an 8x8 board made up of squares (so a standard chess or checkers board). Each player receives 12 pieces which are deployed in a block, where I've indicated on the image below:



On a player's turn, he moves one of his pieces. A piece may move 1, 2, or 3 unobstructed spaces in any direction. Each move affects other pieces on the board differently:

1-space move: After the move is completed all pieces adjacent to the moved piece (here on: 'attacker') are repulsed one space away from the attacker. So, on the board above, if I have a piece on A4 and there's a piece on B5, and I move my piece A4 > B4, the piece on B5 is repulsed to B6. An A4 > A5 move would repulse B5 to C5.

If a piece adjacent to the attacker does not have an open space next to it in the direction of the repulsion, the blocking piece must move. This continues down a piece-line of any length. Continuing the example above. Suppose that there are pieces of B5 and B6. If the attacker moves A4 > B4 the piece on B6 is repulsed to B7. Essentially, the repulsion travels along the line of pieces until there is an empty space to move into.

2-space move: This move may only be made if the square the attacker lands in creates a flank of an enemy piece between another friend piece. The flanked piece is removed, and no other pieces are affected. Example: There's are blacks pieces on C4 and E2, and a white piece on D4. The black piece on E2 may move E2>E4 to capture white D4.

3-space move: The 3-space move is a tad bit like a 1-space move, in that it moves pieces around the attacker, but in a different way. Like a 1-move, the attacker repulses all adjacent pieces after it moves. However, unlike the 1-space move, it does not repulse along lines. In addition to repulsing pieces, an attacker moving 3 spaces attracts distance pieces. Any piece that is directly 2 spaces away from the attacker is attracted into an adjacent space.

To give an example, imagine there are pieces at D4, E6, and F3. The F3 moves F3>E6. The piece at E6 is repulsed to D6 (like in a 1-space move) and the piece on D4 is attracted diagonally to E5.

If a piece would be repulsed from a square at the edge of the board, it is captured. If a piece is flanked with a 2-space move, it is captured. The first player to reduce his opponent to 3 pieces is the winner.

There are two small stipulations placed on movement: 1) a move must affect another piece, that is, a piece can't simply move off into empty space and 2) a piece my not move into a square it was just repulsed or attracted away from. Both this small rules really limit the end of the game and prevent infinite loops.

While that description may be a little confusing without a board in front of you, the game does actually work well. I think I'll probably end up introducing it into my Áressa setting.

[roninbodhisattva]

The game's fairly simple, but here's a slightly complicating factor: At the start of the round, before the pieces are chosen, a player may tell the other which piece they intend to play. This is called "Taking an oath." If one player takes an oath, then the other must take an oath also. If an oath is taken, you are only allowed to pick a piece different from the one you declared (breaking the oath) once over the course of the match. For every other round where an oath is taken, you must be honest.

Let me make sure I have this right.

1) At the beginning of a round, you may tell your opponent which piece you intend play
2) He then must tell you which piece they intend to play
3) You then actually pick a piece. If you pick a different piece then the one you siad, you 'broke the oath' for that round, and you may not choose differently if you take an oath again.

If this is the case, what's the incentive for initiating an oath after you've broken an oath once? That is, I say I'm going to play Upe, and my opponent says she'll play Chiu. I change my piece to Anti, breaking my oath, but greatly increasing the chances of me winning the round

So, after this, what's the point of me telling my opponent what piece I will play if I'm going to be required to play that piece. After my first oath, my opponent will always beat me. Also, my opponent has more incentive to make me take an oath again: She says she'll play Anti, I say I'll play Upe, can't break my oath, and she plays Chiu. So really, the two oaths do nothing to structure of the game: there's no extra incentive to take an oath in the first place, other than a guaranteed point for each player when an oath is taken. Essentially, it makes each match a two point match.

However, if some incentive was added, then that might make sense. Unless I'm understanding the mechanic wrong.

[Micamo]

Did you happen to have Arimaa as an inspiration? :p

Let me make sure I have this right.

1) At the beginning of a round, you may tell your opponent which piece you intend play
2) He then must tell you which piece they intend to play
3) You then actually pick a piece. If you pick a different piece then the one you siad, you 'broke the oath' for that round, and you may not choose differently if you take an oath again.

If this is the case, what's the incentive for initiating an oath after you've broken an oath once? That is, I say I'm going to play Upe, and my opponent says she'll play Chiu. I change my piece to Anti, breaking my oath, but greatly increasing the chances of me winning the round

So, after this, what's the point of me telling my opponent what piece I will play if I'm going to be required to play that piece. After my first oath, my opponent will always beat me. Also, my opponent has more incentive to make me take an oath again: She says she'll play Anti, I say I'll play Upe, can't break my oath, and she plays Chiu. So really, the two oaths do nothing to structure of the game: there's no extra incentive to take an oath in the first place, other than a guaranteed point for each player when an oath is taken. Essentially, it makes each match a two point match.

However, if some incentive was added, then that might make sense. Unless I'm understanding the mechanic wrong.

Basically. Though a thing you forget is both players can lie at once, or not at all during a round. One player takes an oath. The second, convinced the first player intends to use their lie for this round, breaks theirs. However, the first player was honest, so they've wasted their lie and lost the round*. Honestly the game is more comparable to Tic-Tac-Toe than a high-strategy game like Go. Winning a game of Cio is more representative of your spiritual health than your sharp wits.

*Say I pick Upe. That means the opponent wants to pick Pou or Chui, and will say so. So the logical thing to do if I lie is to switch to Anti, so my opponent, anticipating this, will switch to either Upe or Siu to catch me. However, I kept my word and played Upe, so this round is either a draw or a win for me (depending on which Anti-counter they picked). The game's outcome is mostly defined by the first 2 rounds (in later game it's possible to setup a scenario where you win a round no matter what the opponent does), so the first round going this way for me would be devastating.

[roninbodhisattva]

Did you happen to have Arimaa as an inspiration? :p

Actually, no.

[Micamo]

Really? Now I'm much more impressed. How long did you work on that?

(Hint: Total design time for Cio: 20 minutes.)

[roninbodhisattva]

Really? Now I'm much more impressed. How long did you work on that?
(Hint: Total design time for Cio: 20 minutes.)

Well, the game has been around for at least...4 years? The core mechanics of the game (the three moves, set up) are basically the same as when I designed it initially. However, little things, like the win condition have changed. Also the two move requirements (affecting another piece and no infinite loop) have been added.

But really, the initial design probably took me a couple hours. Playing around with various set ups and move mechanics and such.

[Micamo]

Have you had the chance to play your game? It's so hard to design a fun game when you can't play it yourself to see what works and what doesn't.

[roninbodhisattva]

Have you had the chance to play your game? It's so hard to design a fun game when you can't play it yourself to see what works and what doesn't.

Oh yeah, I have a lot of chances to play it. Initially I was just playing it by myself, playing both sides, but I've also played it with friends and such. It didn't really require any kind of prototyping or anything: just a standard chess board and 12 black and 12 white stones. Simple enough.

I'm a huge board gamer in general, and as a younger-self I spent a lot of time on game design.

[cybrxkhan]

I've always had some difficulty designing these types of more abstract board games for some reason, and usually what I did manage to do was just simply variants of chess or at best normal chess except the pieces move differently.

In some of my creative writing, I have vaguely mentioned a kind of chess-like game for the Aidisese, except that it is essentially much less abstract and more like an actual war simulation. I guess it's in the middle between chess and your average modern-day miniature wargame. It's abstract enough that it can be picked up more or less easily, but it's still a bit more complicated than normal chess. Unfortunately, since this is something I only vaguely mentioned in my creative writing, I really don't know anything much about its rules and things like that.

I also once thought about having a collectible card game -esque kind of game for the Aidisese that was related to the aforementioned wargame, but I dropped the idea pretty quickly.

[roninbodhisattva]

In some of my creative writing, I have vaguely mentioned a kind of chess-like game for the Aidisese, except that it is essentially much less abstract and more like an actual war simulation. I guess it's in the middle between chess and your average modern-day miniature wargame. It's abstract enough that it can be picked up more or less easily, but it's still a bit more complicated than normal chess. Unfortunately, since this is something I only vaguely mentioned in my creative writing, I really don't know anything much about its rules and things like that.

I've actually been playing around with the idea for something similar for Áressa. It's loosely based on short descriptions of a board game mentioned in GRR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series called Cyvasse. As far as I can tell, there are a set of pieces that a player can deploy at the beginning of the game which basically act as terrain, and then also some kind of set up with pieces much closer to chess, with particular move and capture rules.

[Micamo]

In some of my creative writing, I have vaguely mentioned a kind of chess-like game for the Aidisese, except that it is essentially much less abstract and more like an actual war simulation. I guess it's in the middle between chess and your average modern-day miniature wargame. It's abstract enough that it can be picked up more or less easily, but it's still a bit more complicated than normal chess. Unfortunately, since this is something I only vaguely mentioned in my creative writing, I really don't know anything much about its rules and things like that.

What kind of complexity? There's a big difference for explicit complexity (having a huge rulebook with tons of exceptions you have to look out for) and implicit complexity (not explicitly enforced strategy you need to be aware of to be a competent player). Chess is explicitly complicated, but the remaining implicit complexity is fairly tame compared to some other games.

I also once thought about having a collectible card game -esque kind of game for the Aidisese that was related to the aforementioned wargame, but I dropped the idea pretty quickly.

Non-perfect information games can be pretty cool. Note for Magic-like CCGs, the game mechanics are usually based on some aspect of the culture. Mixing this with conculture stuff can lead to a really cool result.

[cybrxkhan]

In some of my creative writing, I have vaguely mentioned a kind of chess-like game for the Aidisese, except that it is essentially much less abstract and more like an actual war simulation. I guess it's in the middle between chess and your average modern-day miniature wargame. It's abstract enough that it can be picked up more or less easily, but it's still a bit more complicated than normal chess. Unfortunately, since this is something I only vaguely mentioned in my creative writing, I really don't know anything much about its rules and things like that.

What kind of complexity? There's a big difference for explicit complexity (having a huge rulebook with tons of exceptions you have to look out for) and implicit complexity (not explicitly enforced strategy you need to be aware of to be a competent player). Chess is explicitly complicated, but the remaining implicit complexity is fairly tame compared to some other games.

Yeah, good point. I meant simply that it was less abstract than chess in terms of simulating war. You can think of it as the board game version of the tactical battles of any of the Total War computer games, if you've heard about them.

Non-perfect information games can be pretty cool. Note for Magic-like CCGs, the game mechanics are usually based on some aspect of the culture. Mixing this with conculture stuff can lead to a really cool result.

What happened was that I attempted to make the game somehow tied in with the 'cultural authorities' of Aidis (like the Department of Culture and that kind of thing, which in the modern day usually promotes the nation's culture and/or tourism and/or public media, if the country has it) who regulate the rules and make up new collectible cards every couple of years or so. I dropped the idea because my conception of it was turning way too much into your average 'collect them all!' kind of stuff that's usually aimed at kids. I may pick it up again at a later time, though, maybe for a different conculture and change its dynamics a bit.

[Micamo]

Maybe I'll give the Agyon a CCG... Certainly feels like a way they'd pass the centuries.

Anyway, been giving Cio more thought, and I present to you a modified game:

Two more pieces: Niho (Death), and Micu (Hope). The five earlier pieces are hereby collectively referred to as the "Five Spirits." Niho defeats the five spirits. Micu is defeated by all the five spirits, but is the only thing that defeats Niho.

No more round limitation: You only lose a piece if you lose the round in which you play it.

No more lying limit: You may break oaths as much as you want. However, if you keep your oath, you may choose one of your pieces to get back, except the piece you just lost (if any).

No more points: Instead the loser is whoever first loses all five of their spirits, OR whoever first loses Niho.

Not sure whether I'll make this replace Old Cio, or just be a later innovation on top of it.

[roninbodhisattva]

That sounds like a much more interesting game to me now.

[xijlwya]

Great thread - I've been into the topic of congames recently. I have some very vague ideas, but I'm far from a complete game. I want to have a strategic game without dices (comparable to Go or chess) and a luck based tactic game (comparable to Backgammon). But I think I'll be satisfied whenever I manage to come up with one single game.

What I have in mind at the moment is a learning game for children to memorise the script goshpysheshta uses. It's very much like domino in that you combine the parts of the syllabic symbols to meaningful words. If you want you could think of it as a mix between scrabble and domino I guess.

Not sure whether I'll make this replace Old Cio, or just be a later innovation on top of it.

Maybe a kind of "offical" challenge :D, or offical rules with variations troughout the country. Or a children's version, which is easier. I like your game. Maybe you can program a net version for it, so I can play it against you ;)

[roninbodhisattva]

What I have in mind at the moment is a learning game for children to memorise the script goshpysheshta uses. It's very much like domino in that you combine the parts of the syllabic symbols to meaningful words. If you want you could think of it as a mix between scrabble and domino I guess.

Like Hangul?

[xijlwya]

What I have in mind at the moment is a learning game for children to memorise the script goshpysheshta uses. It's very much like domino in that you combine the parts of the syllabic symbols to meaningful words. If you want you could think of it as a mix between scrabble and domino I guess.

Like Hangul?

Kind of, but it's simpler than Hangul (that's what I conclude from a glace at the wikipedia article...). Also, the letters remind more of runes than of the curvy Hangul shapes.

I think it works like that: The tokens are triangular, that gives three syllable beginnings from the start (written on the edges of the triangle). The players now add pieces to the game by matching the syllable beginnings with proper endings to form words or even sentences, sequentially built up from start piece.

[Veris]

Technically, there's no such thing as a "congame." If you describe a game in full, even if nobody plays it, what you've created isn't a congame, it's a real game. Even if you design the game for a conpeoples, even if your conpeoples play it, it's still also a real game. It'd only be a congame if humans were incapable of playing it; for instance because they need the ability to perceive ultraviolet wavelengths of light, or to omit certain pheromones, or to manipulate dozens of game pieces simultaneously. Of course, even then, taking such a game to a virtual environment would probably make it possible to play.

I've come up with numerous real games, a number of which my conpeoples play. Mostly playing card games, though a couple board-type games. Ehh, I'm feeling way too lazy right now to describe even a single one of them. Maybe later.

[Micamo]

I think it's obvious what I meant :/