[Draw a grid of points, for a quick game 5x5/6x6.Player1 chooses a starting point, and marks this with a small x on it. From this point player1 draws a line to a neighbour-point in orthogonal direction. From that point player2 draws a line. It's prohibibited to get back to a point that's already visited. Player that draws last line wins.Green can't draw a line, so red wins._______________________________________________]

Almost feels like I have to introduce myself with the 0.041 post per day since I registered May 27, 2008, but well....

I made this 2 person pen&paper game in the abstract style of 'Dots and boxes' and 'Sprouts'. I'm not sure if there aren't really that much abstract pen&paper games or that the internet doesn't report about them , but I feel there's a lack.

This one came in my mind this morning and I played a couple of times with my 8 year old daughter with success (success as in 'fun game'), I hope to find out wether the game has interesting mathematical properties and wether it's a balanced game if you play it on certain grids.

Chances are that I'm not the first person that came up with this idea, I'd like to know that too 
______________________________________________
Draw a grid of points, for a quick game 5x5/6x6.
Player1 chooses a starting point, and marks this with a small x on it. From this point player1 draws a line to a neighbour-point in orthogonal direction. From that point player2 draws a line. It's prohibibited to get back to a point that's already visited. Player that draws last line wins.

Green can't draw a line, so red wins.
_______________________________________________

Thanks in advance for your interest and reply.

Wouter

 

I think it works, I like it.

I'm quite passionate about esoteric programming.
Often the most minimal instruction-sets have unbounded possibilities, but only when you can solve the extreme hard universal puzzle that's hidden in it.
I wrote the language Paintfuck (http://esolangs.org/wiki/Paintfuck) some time ago, and since this week I'm working on something with the universal gate NAND as basis. (http://esolangs.org/wiki/FerNANDo)

Since I like the TIG-community because of their common creative mind + the way this creativity is expressed, I was wondering what you have to say about esoteric programming. Do you do it? Do you have language-ideas to share? Do you consider creating an original computerlanguage one day?

I'm curious
and I want to steal your ideas

 

Thanks for your reply,

I thought, since there are groups still making ascii-art, or demos in c64-asm, or games with pixels as big as pixels on a zx81, there should be a group of people besides the roguelike-developers, that like to make ascii games. Too bad.

that cheatlist a nice idea

Cymon:
I feel honoured, you may put it up on your site.

I've been visiting your site frequently last weeks, cause I want to learn programming old C with Curses, and there are some nice, clean and simple examples on your page. Could you guide me to some good places on the internet where they specifically talk about C with Curses (Yes I've used google, only the info is pretty scattered I think)? +What is the best active curses-community on the net from what you know?
I want to learn C while using curses directly from the start, instead of learning C with stdio first. Or do you think I should learn C from the simple tutorials (that use stdio) first and get into curses soon?

Thanks for your interest, and thanks in advance for your answer.

 

I love it,
I have experimented with simple design for interactive fiction too,
the simplest is ofcourse the choose-your-own-adventure type of game,
but that lacks imo one gameplay-element, where I can't put my finger on.
I like your experiment.

I made my first C-program,
it's the same game, but I'm kinda proud I finally made sth in C
http://www.willhostforfood.com/access.php?fileid=61169
(sorry windows only)
the source is probably kinda embarrassing, but here you go:

Code:

#include <curses.h>

int main()
{while(1){
 int row,col;
 int y=0;
 int t=-1;
 int h=550;
 int v=45;
 int f=150;
 int e=48;
   
char tit[] = "      ";
char title[] = " LUNA ";
char author[] = "by Whitespace";
char cockpit[] ="Tigsource Cockpit Competition 2009";
    initscr();
    curs_set(0);
    raw();
    noecho();
    clear();
    start_color();
init_pair(1, COLOR_BLACK, COLOR_WHITE);
attron(COLOR_PAIR(1));
    getmaxyx(stdscr,row,col);
    mvprintw(row/2-1,(col-strlen(tit))/2,"%s",tit);
    mvprintw(row/2,(col-strlen(title))/2,"%s",title);
    mvprintw(row/2+1,(col-strlen(tit))/2,"%s",tit);
    attroff(COLOR_PAIR(1));
    mvprintw(row/2+3,(col-strlen(author))/2,"%s",author);
    mvprintw(row/2+4,(col-strlen(cockpit))/2,"%s\n",cockpit);
    getch();
    clear();
    while (h>0) {
          clear();
          y=e-48;
          t+=1;
          f-=y;
          if (f<0){
                   f=0;
                   y=0;
                   };
          v+=(5-y);
          h-=v;
          if (h<0){
                   h=0;
                   };
          mvprintw(10,35,"Time:%d",t);
          mvprintw(11,35,"Height:%d",h);
          mvprintw(12,35,"Speed:%d",v);
          mvprintw(13,35,"Fuel:%d",f);
          attron(COLOR_PAIR(1));
          mvprintw(15,25," Burn fuel units:(press 0-9) ");
          attroff(COLOR_PAIR(1));
         
          if (h==0 && v>5){
                   clear();
                   char fail1[] = "You are on the moon.";
                   char fail2[] = "You landed too fast.";
                   char fail3[] = "Now you're dead.";
                   mvprintw(row/2-1,(col-strlen(fail1))/2,"%s",fail1);
                   mvprintw(row/2,(col-strlen(fail2))/2,"%s",fail2);
                   mvprintw(row/2+1,(col-strlen(fail3))/2,"%s",fail3);
                   break;
                   };
          if (h==0 && v<6){
                   clear();
                   char succ1[] = "You succesfully landed on the moon.";
                   char succ2[] = "I wonder what you want to do here.";
                   mvprintw(row/2-1,(col-strlen(succ1))/2,"%s",succ1);
                   mvprintw(row/2,(col-strlen(succ2))/2,"%s",succ2);
                   break;
                   };
                   e = getch();
          while(e<48 || e>57){
                     e = getch();
                     }         
                   
          }
          getch();
          }
endwin();
return 0;
}

   

 

Very cool experience,
the mouse movement/interaction gives me feeling of much freedom,
while the game in real is tiny. The mouse movement also adds to the cockpit theme of the game, the cockpit that's your head. 
Congratulations!
Don't expand this game,
but I would love to see a couple more of these experiences in other setting!

TIME:18
HEIGHT:0
SPEED:2
FUEL:12
YOU ARE ON THE MOON.
YOU LANDED SUCCESFULLY WITH A SPEED OF 2 M/S,
IT TOOK YOU 18 SECONDS,
YOU HAVE 12 FUEL UNITS LEFT,
I WONDER WHAT YOU WANT TO DO HERE.
REFRESH TO TRY BETTER.

What is "better?"  Softer landing?  More fuel left over?  Quicker time?

Yep! Funny isn't it, how much depth in four variables?
You can even try to make the slowest succesful landing.

Well, I certainly didn't had the intention to be no  .
But you're right, for the people that haven't had zx81 or something equal:
I didn't invent this game, the idea was written 30 years ago. There are several authors of several games on several platforms that have done same thing before. I seriously thought of this type of game as a genre. I'm sorry if it looked like I tried to be refreshing by taking things from the very past.

Besides that I don't really understand why I would not be capable to write such simple game myself?

I do think about the possibilities of making this game grow. I like the fact that you're looking at some bare-naked numbers, and still feel something through your fantasy.

I made an oldschool lunar landing sim,
It's in javascript,
I don't have a webspace to upload it though,
you can save it in notepad with html extension and play it,
or maybe someone is willing to upload it on his/her space?

Code:

<body onkeydown="k(event.keyCode)" style=font-family:monospace><script>
y=0;t=-1;h=550;v=45;f=150;k(48);
function k(e) {
if (e>47 && e<58 && h>0) {
y=e-48;t+=1;f-=y;if (f<0) {f=0;y=0};v+=(5-y);h-=v;if (h<0) {h=0};
if (h>0) {
document.body.innerHTML="TIME:"+t+"<BR>HEIGHT:"+h+"<BR>SPEED:"+v+"<BR>FUEL:"+f+"<BR>BURN FUEL UNITS: (INPUT 0-9)<BR>";
}
if (h==0 && v>5) {
document.body.innerHTML="TIME:"+t+"<BR>HEIGHT:"+h+"<BR>SPEED:"+v+"<BR>FUEL:"+f+"<BR>YOU ARE ON THE MOON.<BR>YOU LANDED WITH A SPEED OF "+v+" M/S, NOW YOU ARE DEAD.<BR>REFRESH TO TRY AGAIN.";
}
if (h==0 && v<6) {
document.body.innerHTML="TIME:"+t+"<BR>HEIGHT:"+h+"<BR>SPEED:"+v+"<BR>FUEL:"+f+"<BR>YOU ARE ON THE MOON.<BR>YOU LANDED SUCCESFULLY WITH A SPEED OF "+v+" M/S,<BR>IT TOOK YOU "+t+" SECONDS,<BR>YOU HAVE "+f+" FUEL UNITS LEFT,<BR>I WONDER WHAT YOU WANT TO DO HERE.<BR>REFRESH TO TRY BETTER.";
}}}
</script>

I'm sorry, something is drawing me to minimalism always.

[EDIT]
I made my first C-program,
it's the same game, but I'm kinda proud I finally made sth in C
http://www.willhostforfood.com/access.php?fileid=61169

I really like this.

I have some design comments though, sorry:

#Maybe it's good to make enemies cubes and keep powerups piramides, to make them differ a bit more.

#I would like to see nicer explosion of enemy, I don't think this firy line looks cool, maybe try particles?

#I don't like how shot-fire looks, it's too bold/fat imo.

I hope you continue doing something with this game!

Oh yeah, mini-map?

A theme for a competition is besides a guiding line or a inspiration source also a restriction for the author. And restrictions makes one creative. I like the idea of a competetion called 'restricted'or 'minimal', wherein designer chooses his own restrictions and greater restriction is encouraged. How low can you go, and still make a good game?

This doesn't neccesarily means there will only be b&w shooters with squares and circles only, I can imagine a one button 3d NES-palette FPS with characters that don't have more than 24 polygons for instance.

Voting should be based on the minimalism as well as the fun-factor.

Has anyone ever stared at ceiling tiles or randomish patterns of floor tiles and played this game. Used to have a bathroom that was good for this.

I think it's human nature to search patterns in, what at first sight looks like, random behaviour. Some of us are maybe more interested and look for it everywhere, but everyone I think has looked at the clouds in the sky and discovered what their fantasy brought up.

pareidolia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

apophenia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

I wonder if this works with music too,
I like the idea of procedurally generated music
but most of the works don't produce emotional response
in me. Maybe if the good parts in a random sequence
are handpicked ....

Since a couple of hours I'm interested in something.

It started with an attempt to write some typographic ascii based poetry, and it ended up in a form of self reflecting pieces of text. I don't have the idea I invented something new, because poetry, language and philosophy have such a long history all around the world, this has probably been done thousand times before. If you know where to look for it on wikipedia, please let me know.

It has some little connection to writing quines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)) in programming languages, only now you write it in plain text.

A text describes a ruleset and follows those rules itself at the same time.
Basically you define a puzzle where the solution is the puzzle itself.
 
Best explained in some examples:

Code:

ONE LINE WITH FIVE WORDS

Code:

TWO WORDS

Code:

EVERY LINE
IS TWICE AS LONG
AS THE PREVIOUS ONE, WORDS TAKEN AS ELEMENTS.
FOR THE TEXT ITSELF, IT IS NOT LESS AND NOT MORE THAN FOUR LINES IN TOTAL.

Code:

THE AMOUNT OF SYLLABLES IN THE FIRST LINE
ADDED TO THE FROM THE SECOND
WILL BE THE AMOUNT OF SYLLABLES USED IN THE THIRD AND LAST LINE OF THE TEXT

Code:

EVERY LINE HAS
THREE WORDS
EXCEPT THE EVEN
THEY HAVE TWO OR FIVE

(silly)

Like I said I'm only playing with it for a couple of hours, so it's not really mindbreaking yet, but I find it very entertaining and just wanted to share.

Trying to describe ruleset of a fib in a fib (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fib_(poetry))

So does this have a name and niche already?

Conway's game of life:
http://www.vjn.fi/pb/p422562455.txt
 

Ok great!

fyi:
There's a lot of discussion on the language going on at
irc://freenode/esoteric

[not]

Okay so here's the interpreter written in C++. Simple:

Code:

paintfuck < script-file >

This is quite late because I had a few issues to take care of, so I'm genuinely sorry for being late. Other than that, this is not the last version! In fact, I'll keep developing it. So expect a new version soon .

I asked whitespace for permission to maintain a webpage for paintfuck, and it will soon be located at http://beskrajnost.com/paintfuck. So, this is just an interpreter for now, but I'll make sure it becomes a cross-platform IDE for paintfuck.

You can get the Win32 binaries from here. Linux 32/64 is comming, as well as an OS X port.

Enjoy.

Cool, I like to drag and drop file instead of commandprompt
Looks nice, looks fast,
but when I inserted a neverending program it went mad, took all my cpu and terminated.

I told a friend about this language the other day, and he thought it looked lame.

Then you entered #esoteric (or whatever the name was), and now he's hooked.

Yeah those esolang-people are pretty grumpy in the beginning