Re: [piecepack] Solo: A solitare game for PP -

[Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe@...>]

On Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 03:47:18AM -0000, david_bruce_cousins wrote:
<rules for a new solitaire piecepack game>

Your game looks interesting, David.  I intend to try it at the
earliest possible opportunity, either tonight or tomorrow night.

> Exploring the Galaxy
> ====================
> Many themed games have quite a thin veneer of theme over what is 
> basically an abstract mechanism(s).

This is somewhat true, IMHO.  However, your game is not an abstract
game in the technical sense, because it (1) is for one player, (2)
contains chance elements, and (3) contains hidden information.
Mathematically speaking, an abstract game is a game for two players
with perfect information and no chance elements.

Loosely speaking, on the other hand, most piecepack games are pretty
abstract, in that piecepack tiles don't have (say) grass and dirt
printed on them, even when they are used to represent dry land, as in
Silver Isle, unlike (say) Settlers of Catan.  The best you can ever do
with a piecepack (without adding extra components) is something like
your layout below that represents a galaxy.  You just have to use your
imagination!

> The galaxy board is made as follows:
>         []
>       [][]
> [][][][][]
>   [][]  [][]
>     [][][][][]
>     [][]
>     []
> At the center of the galaxy is a giant black hole.

By the way, this board is virtually identical to the first one we
tried for Wormholes.  We eventually settled on the one we use now with
two long, narrow "spiral arms" because we wanted (1) a two-ended
board, and (2) more action happening in the tight squeeze in the
middle as players passed each other with their starships.
 
> Copyleft David Bruce Cousins 2001. yadda yadda yadda
> All rights reserved.

OK.  You have just made a statement equivalent to "Black is white".
Insofar as the word "copyleft" has any legal standing, it pretty much
means the opposite of "all rights reserved".  I recommend you follow
this link, which explains some of the issues involved:

  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#WhatIsCopyleft

When you state, "all rights reserved", this means that no one can copy
your rules, including the people who manage the Piecepack.org site.
That's not what you want, is it?

As far as I know, "yadda yadda yadda" has no legal standing
whatsoever. :-)

Ron H-E

-- 
         Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@... & rwhe@...
           Center for Ludic Synergy, Seattle Cosmic Game Night, 
Kennexions Glass Bead Game &  Positive Revolution FAQ: http://www.ludism.org/
Home page & Hexagram-8 I Ching Mailing List: http://www.apocalypse.org/~rwhe/
    == You meet the most interesting people when you're a solipsist. ==