Re: www.piecepack.org

["karlvonl.geo" <karlvonl@...>]

--- In piecepack@y..., "Karol" <karol@m...> wrote:
> Greetings All!
>
> We are happy to announce Dave has completed his updates to www.piecepack.org. The site now features PDFs for the 14 games listed on the site. The games may be rated, and the game list may be sorted by any of the following criterion: Title, Rating, and Equipment Used for Play.

Good page! Overall, I like it, and I look forward to seeing the list of games grow as more games are invented.

However, there is a general comment I would like to make about what games are listed. Specifically, I feel that it would be better if some traditional games, especially those least suited to be played with a piecepack, are omitted. Specifically, I am thinking of Reversi.

Reversi strikes me as particularly ill-suited to be adapted to piecepack, and it's inclusion in the standard list just sticks out like a sore thumb to me. First of all, it requires no fewer than 3 piecepacks just to have enough pieces. Second, I imagine that in practice it must be unwieldly to play. With a traditional Reversi set, you can comprehend the game state at a glance, because all the pieces are black or white. With the piecepack, you have to mentally distinguish between symbols and numbers, where there are 4 different symbols, and the "numbers" group includes a black spiral shape and even a blank. I can't imagine that this is mentally comfortable to play.

I don't object totally to adapting traditional games to the piecepack, so long as they are well suited to that format. Checkers seems like it would have been a much better choice than reversi, requiring only one piecepack; if each player uses two suits, then there is exactly the right number of pieces.

Also, it strengthens the uniqueness and allure  of the piecepack in general if the majority of the games present in the canonical list were designed specifically for the piecepack. Of course, that's already the case, so this is a minor point.

Anyway, that said, keep up the good work, and let's all see how quickly we can double the length of the piecepack game list!