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Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

paper-tactics.com

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Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#21

Post by im3w1l »

Kharacternyk wrote: post #4
gus_massa wrote: post #3

I had to play a few games to understand the rules, but I'm wining most games. How good is the bot? It's strange that you can make a few moves in each turn. With 1 move the strategy is too easy. Which is the standard lenght of the turns?

The bot is not very good, unfortunately. It's mainly useful to help understand the rules, as in your case. If you're interested in playing with an experienced player, ping me at nazar@vinnich.uk :) > Which is the standard lenght of the turns? The usual setup is a 10×10 grid with 3 moves per turn. More moves means more interesting manoevres are possible. I like 7 moves on 12×12.

I'd say the bot is very weak. My first game I had no real idea what I was doing. Half the game I thought I had to maintain contact with my starting square or lose, until I managed to wall in my opponents starting square and didn't win. Then I tried to make as many walls as I could because I didnt like my pieces being captured and walls seemed more solid. Suddenly it said I won and I was like wait how, turns out I had managed to turn every circle into a wall except the walled in starting square.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#22

Post by gus_massa »

Kharacternyk wrote: post #6
gus_massa wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's mainly useful to help understand the rules, as in your case. I agree. [spoiler alert] I tried with 2 or 3 moves per turn. My strategy was to advace in diagonal to have a lot of space in tha back, and keep some distance from the oponent. When it advances, I wall the pieces. If it doesn't advance I fill my backshard space. With 2 or 3 it's humanly learnable in 10 minutes. I imagine that 7 moves would be much ore…

Your strategy is definitely good — capturing territory to fill it later when advancing doesn't make sense is important. 7 moves are more complex, but much less so when playing against the bot. Your suggestion about making the bot eager to advance makes sense, thanks. Hope you'll play a few times against a human opponent in the future:)

Two small sugerstions:

* Make a small pause as if the bot is thinking each move. Probably .1 or .2 seconds is enough and not boring. We made a few games a long time ago, and a small pause makes it easier to understand the rules.

* When the game finished, I still can see my token as if I can draw it. It's very confusing until I notice the congratulations message. Don't show the token whe the game ended.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#23

Post by frei »

Unfortunately the bot is not very good. Just by reading the rules I was able to beat it every time on multiple rulesets.

The matchmaking is also difficult to find a partner since the rules are so customizable, and there's no way to tell what rules potential partners could be searching with. Maybe a list of games that are looking for an opponent would be good.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#25

Post by Brajeshwar »

I think this is very similar to one of the games that I played growing up. I'm from a remote corner of India and everyone there knows how to play (school, family gatherings, etc). I tried teaching my kids but they find it too boring and mundane.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#26

Post by chrisfosterelli »

frei wrote: post #23

Unfortunately the bot is not very good. Just by reading the rules I was able to beat it every time on multiple rulesets. The matchmaking is also difficult to find a partner since the rules are so customizable, and there's no way to tell what rules potential partners could be searching with. Maybe a list of games that are looking for an opponent would be good.

I just read the first paragraph and then decided I wanted to play and I still beat the bot first try. At least that means the game rules are fairly discoverable :)

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#27

Post by CSMastermind »

Well this is very addictive, thank you for sharing.

If you're looking for feature requests then the ability to view move history (especially after the game is over) and the ability to share completed games would be nice. I see a game ID but it's not clear to me I can do anything with it.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#28

Post by CSMastermind »

steve_wilson wrote: post #19

Great job at explaining the rules! Tried it out from my phone, how do I „confirm“ a move? I seem to be unable to actually finish a move.

At least by default you get three moves per turn. Try playing more moves.
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