[Adonthell-minigame] Re: Mini-game (fwd)

[Nezumi]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Patrick G, The Myst wrote:

> Reading through this I see that you have some sort of game already in your
> mind, I am talking about a type of game you already play?

Well, I've played chess in the past, and have dabbled with backgammon (and
like it, but have little experience).  I'm currently fascinated by Go.

However, this is an entirely different game, although it would be
chess-like in many ways.

> Anyway, I am thinking chess, or something like chess. The reason for this is
> that each piece in chess has its own strengths and weakness. The player goes
> out and gets "reagents", each has its own strengths and weakness, now we use
> each type in the game linked to rules. Say a wind "reagent" can only move
> four squares at a time. A fire "reagent" can move any number of squares but
> only in a certain direction.
> The easier to find "reagents" are the weaker pieces in the game and the
> harder to find ones are the stronger.

That's what I had in mind.  In practical terms, clicking on a piece would
show its strength and the movements available to it, so you wouldn't have
to commit everything to memory.  I wonder if the type (wind, fire, etc.)
could control the movement, while the "strength" of the item would
determine its ability to capture and/or special effects.

> On the size of the board, how about controlling it?s size equal to the
> strength of the players strongest "reagent"?

That's a possibility.  I'd like to keep the game simple for beginners, but
with the ability to scale for advanced players.  The changing board size
is lifted from Go, but we could also add challenges like obstructed spaces
or a non-square board.

> These are just ideas I have floating around in my mind. I would need to sit
> down at a later stage and work out the details. But first we would need to
> agree on all the reagents possible before we start on the hard stuff.

I'm considering a couple of interesting possibilities for the game.  For
instance, each piece might have an attack and defense stat, whereby a
piece might not move fast, but pack a real punch.  So if you try to take
it with a weaker piece, it won't get taken so easily.  However, the stats
for the piece would then go down and make it more vulnerable.

If we go with that, it makes a capture a battle instead of an automatic
capture.  An addendum to this might be the ability to have an adjacent
piece, if any, join the battle and add its stats to the attacking piece,
at the cost of the attacker losing a turn or some other penalty.

I've also been thinking that if this turns out well enough, the team might
be able to release the mini-game as a stand-alone game, after the official
release of Adonthell.  And it's been suggested that if the game is very
popular in the game world, then there would be simple spinoff variants.
Say, a simple capture game on a small board that ignores attack/defense
stats and is only controlled by the individual moves, or other little
games involving the reagents.  There are a lot of possibilities.

I also wonder if starting a mailing list for this, so we can invite others
into the conversation.  What do you think?

> Oops, almost forgot. Hello, how are you.

Heh.  Pretty good.  Crappy weather and I'm stuck at work.  You?

-- 
                      Nezumi * address@hidden
  "You're a very rude mouse and I don't want to give you anything.  But
the cow is my friend." -- Crazy Quilt, surreal kids' show
          http://www.kekkai.org/nezumi/