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Feedback for new Go-like boardgame/app

7 replies [Last post]
Thu, 06/25/2015 - 08:45
locksleyu
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Joined: 06/24/2015
Dokusen screenshot
Dokusen screenshot

Hello, I'm a big fan of board games like Go and Othello and decided to make a new board game influenced by those.

Because I know programming I made it into a iPhone app, and published it on the iTunes store. However, it has all the elements of a typical physical board game, and could have been made with physical materials such as tiles, game pieces, and dice.

I'm looking for members of BGDF to give me feedback on the rules and overall experience.

I've written a post on the rules, including some screenshots to step through a few turns of the game. You can see it at the below link:

https://playthefieldgame.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/dokusen-the-art-of-dom...

Also, if you have an iPhone and would like to try out the game yourself, you can get it at the below iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dokusen/id1000275892?mt=8

Thanks!

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Fri, 06/26/2015 - 11:53
#1
Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
Placement rules?

So you can place your tile anywhere that you don't already own? The way you described it seemed needlessly complex. For that matter, you might as well say that you can place a tile anywhere on the board. If you place it in a spot you already own, that's poor strategy on your part, but it's not forbidden.

If you can't place a tile which replaces an opposing player's tile, then your description is even more confusing (at least to me). It sounds as if you at least can replace an inactive player's tile. You should include a sample of doing that in your video.

If there is more than one active player, do they place simultaneously? Does one place, and there's a grow phase, then the other places and there's a grow phase? or what?

For the grow phase, it wasn't clear to me if diagonal adjacency counts. You might include in your video the calculation for one cell, putting a dot on the cell and saying, "for this cell, see that it has 3 adjacent blue (and put arrows from the cell pointing to the clue) and only 2 adjacent red (again, arrows) so it becomes blue." Something like that.

Without the ability to try it, I can't tell if it is fun or not. But the basic concept looks interesting enough that I would be glad to give it a try if you had a flash version or an Android version. Alas, I have no iPhone.

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Fri, 06/26/2015 - 12:00
#2
Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
2 more points

Also, can tiles grow only into black, or over another color if they dominate it adequately?

Finally, I think it's clearer if you call the black tiles "empty" rather than black. If you make your app show the colored squares with highlights to make them look like a raised tile, but the empty ones are just flat black, this reinforces the concept that they are empty.

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Mon, 06/29/2015 - 08:25
#3
locksleyu
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Joined: 06/24/2015
Zag24, Thanks for all the

Zag24,

Thanks for all the questions and feedback. Thats a good point that even if you have the full rules described as text, the only way to tell if it is fun is to actually play it. Right now there is only a iPhone version, but if things go well I could make an Android at some point.

To answer your questions:

1) Yes you can place tiles anywhere except where you own. Placing a tile where you already own (which is equivalent to saying there is a tile of your color there) is forbidden because it just doesn't make sense. It's like saying someone wants to promote their pawn to a pawn when they reach the last rank. I don't see any advantage of allowing a player to do something which has no purpose

2) Yes, you can replace an inactive player's tile, and any tile that is not your color.

3) Players play once at a time, with a grow phase at the end. I tried to describe that in my post but I guess it needs some more clarification.

4) Diagonal adjacency does not count for the grow phase. However, it might be an interesting exercise to see how the game strategy would change if I allow that, or if I allow a partial score for diagonal areas

5) You're right that it might be clearer to say "empty space", rather than "black tile". The confusion is, I think, because there is not actually any physical "tiles", but rather grid spaces that change color when you touch them. For those who are used to board games, it might be better to visually show a tile, as you said.

I may update my rules post eventually or add a new one with clarifications based on your feedback.

Thanks again!

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Mon, 06/29/2015 - 21:12
#4
DarkDream
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Not Sure on What Active, Inactive and User Player Is

I read the rules and do not really understand the difference between an inactive and active player which is different from the user player. Why can you not just say player and AI players (computer players)?

Here are some comments:

- In the game loop, why mention meteors? The gain loop should just mention the essentials.
- To make things easier it is good to maybe have some headers, "Goal of Game," "End of Game," "Players," "Growing" and so on. Nice to organize the rules by sections.
- Maybe add one more move to the example.
- Not clear on the turn order of the players.

-DarkDream

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Tue, 06/30/2015 - 17:33
#5
Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
If you take turns placing,

If you take turns placing, and then there's a grow phase, this seems like too much of an advantage to the person who places later. You get to see what the other person has done before placing your own, AND he has no opportunity to react to your placement, that's a huge advantage. At the very least, the second player should not be allowed to place on top of the tile that the first player just played.

DarkDream, I believe that inactive players don't place tiles. So the solitaire mode of the game is that you are the only one to place tiles, and you're trying to get ahead of an inactive player who starts with several tiles placed but only gains tiles in the grow phase. I actually suspect that this mode might make for some really interesting puzzle problems, especially with multiple inactive players. It would be, IMHO, more fun that a "vs an AI" mode, because the AI for something like this is either perfect and unbeatable, or gimped and easily beatable.

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Wed, 07/01/2015 - 02:32
#6
DarkDream
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Interesting . .

Hi Zag24,

I am still a little confused.

Do the inactive players get a chance to place the start tiles at all? I understand after that the inactive player does nothing and just see what happens.

If the inactive player does not place the start tiles, then it just seems to me to be an AI opponent, simply one that only places start tiles and does not take any turn to place tiles.

If the inactive player only places start tiles, I fail to see what fun that would be. Without any interaction would not seem to me to be very fun. :)

--DarkDream

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Wed, 07/01/2015 - 17:26
#7
Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
I"m just speculating --

I"m just speculating -- hopefully the OP will jump in.

My take on the inactive players is that it's not a player so much as the initial board setup. In the sample video, for instance, one color starts with 8 tiles already placed, and the player tries to defeat that color by placing tiles. The color that started on the board never places any more tiles, they only increase in the growth phase -- that's an inactive player. Calling it a "player" is a little misleading, it's just a color on the starting board.

At least that's my take on it.

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