Card games for geeks?

[Markgm]

Hi,
I've been programming for many years, but never thought to come to
programmers on this until now.

Welcome, and happy introductions to you, this is a standardized set of card
games which may at first best be called puzzles.

In the past few weeks, I have encountered issues with reader comprehension,
such as by way of the written instructions. At this point, there is an
animated how to play (power point), and it seems far better than the old text
and pictures, but I think I am still running into comprehension-related
issues.

These are heady games, and so now I'm trying to figure out what kind of
"heady" I'm dealing with. I am looking for any volunteer to watch the slide
show (couple of minutes), and maybe even try a deal or two for themselves.
My question is "Do you understand it?" And secondly, "Do you feel like you
have a sense of it?" And thirdly, hey, if you like it, it's for you. If you
know to play, then you may very well like it. You certainly aren't to "solve
it" anytime soon, seems to me.

There may be marketing-related issues outstanding, but I haven't gotten that
far yet (sex it all up and make it shnazzy). These are generic as such -
they're as standard as a 52-card deck (which was intentional). Problems
I've had preceded getting to the game program (which simply works).

I'm still trying to figure out if a sense of the game can be conveyed, and
to whom.

I'm getting the feeling that without being played once or maybe twice, a
person can't really have developed a concept of it. I personally can't tell
anymore, since I invented this stuff 26 years ago. What I have come to find
is that there's more in front of me now, after those years, than there was
before. I see a lot. What do you - a newcomer - see? Does it look like a
lot? It's been a very long time since I've known what they look like to a
newcomer.

Cheers, and thanks in advance, and enjoy for yourself,
Mark

Link to: Boardwalk Solitaire Games (also two-player),
http://bwsgames.org

 

[Markgm]

Clarifying on topic, I could put this as follows...

It seems to me the topic of this is "technical writing", and that means
posting in a technical writing forum, which I could scout, and might be
interesting.

I think programming is the opposite of that, or the last people I would go
to for technical writing (for non-geeks). However, the programmer strikes me
as the most likely player.

Try and figure this one out.

Cheers -
Mark

 

[David Kaye]

I'm still trying to figure out if a sense of the game can be conveyed, and
to whom.

Try bringing the games to an in-person games group. In San Francisco I run
one, called SF Games. We also have a branch in Los Angeles. There are lots
of other games groups around the country and the world. That way you can get
a real world sense of how clear your instructions are.

 

[Markgm]

Thanks, David. I will have to try that.

Meanwhile, if you have a games group I would encourage you to take a look at
the presentation. Might look like a deck of cards like you've seen before,
but a person can develop their strategy in this one for years.

And if a person can pick up some of the basic design principles, they could
construct amazing games with them. I think you need a computer, though,
because for this type you would have to play it well enough to say you knew
how hard it was to win (all possibilities counted).

For example, start with a large territorial go board, and instead of using
black and white stones, give them faces. A grid, faced-pieces, and a few
rules, like "flip" or "slide", and then engineered for challenge to win.
What we're talking about here is a ceiling of a 50 times per playing piece
increase in the number of play-possibilities over that of traditional go. I
guess that's another way of saying, "the sky's the limit".

Cheers -
Mark