Re: [piecepack] Croquet, Everest, King Arthur's Court

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

On Sun, Sep 15, 2002 at 07:39:11AM -0700, Mark Biggar wrote:
> I used that free online conversion service www.gobcl.com and all I have
> to check out the results is acroread on my windows laptop.  It looked
> okay.  The main body of the text is suppose to be 12pt Times Roman.
> I'm attaching the word file.

Well, your Word file used Times NEW Roman, which may be part of the
problem.  This is not one of the "standard 13" fonts that most
PostScript (and PDF) printers and renderers can handle; it is a
proprietary Microsoft font, and many non-Windows computers don't have
it.  That would probably explain why I couldn't see the text under
xpdf on my Linux box.  I haven't used the free conversion service, but
they probably have an option called something like "include
non-standard fonts".  You want to choose this if you're using
proprietary fonts -- however, it will make your PDF _much_ larger than
if you use standard fonts, and probably look ugly on some setups.

I converted your text to plain old Times and created a new PDF, which
I uploaded.

> > I am eager to read the Croquet rules and try the game out.  By the
> > way, have you heard of Castle Croquet?  It was invented by Lewis
> > Carroll and might be adapted rather well...
> > 
> > http://www.thebiggamehunter.com/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=18&page_id=16
> 
> Yes, that does look interesting and easily adaptable as well.  It also 
> looks big enough to be a separate rules doc.

Yes, probably.  Also, the current rules are copyrighted; you might
want to look for the original Lewis Carroll rules with Google or
something and adapt those; they are in the public domain.  Of course,
nothing is stopping you from paraphrasing the copyrighted rules.

> > I just got home from Seattle Cosmic Game Night.  We managed to squeeze
> > in a four-player game of King Arthur's Court and a two-player game of
> > Everest.  The players had some important criticisms of both.  Would
> > the authors prefer the playtesting results on the mailing list, or in
> > private email?
> 
> Either is fine with me.

OK, here are a few points about Everest:

1. I like the fact that the tick marks on the coins are relative to
   the board and not to the player, as you state in the rules.  In
   Roborally the direction cards are actually relative to the _robot_,
   so it's hard to keep them straight.  This way is much easier and
   less frustrating.  However...

2. That means it's really easy to move around and get to the top
   quickly.  Tim Schutz and I played a 2-player game last night, and I
   won on the second turn.  I got to the top on the first turn; Tim
   miscalculated and couldn't stop me.  He managed to get to the top
   on the third action of his second turn, but by then it was too
   late.

3. There was some question about whether he would make it to the top
   or whether I would knock him back with a snowball first.  We
   couldn't find the rule about how to resolve action conflicts.  It
   turned out I would have won either way; even if he had made it to
   the top, that was the last thing he could do on his second turn.
   In any case, the rule about resolving action conflicts needs to be
   emphasised, maybe broken out into its own section for easy
   reference, instead of being buried in the "Executing the plans"
   section.

4. Other things that need to be emphasised and clarified: "steps" are
   1-high, cliffs are 2-high; you can push another yeti up a step but
   not up a cliff; under "Yeti Movement", you should reiterate that a
   yeti that falls off the board goes back home but does not heal;
   under "Roaring", in the phrase, "it must also make a die roll and
   acts accordingly", "it" refers to the other yeti.

5. Questions: Can Yeti A at the top of a step hit Yeti B, one square
   away at the bottom, with a snowball?  What about a cliff?  What if
   Yeti B is more than one square away?

6. Under "Making a Plan for your Yeti", you state, "a coin showing the
   ace-5 [this is unclear, BTW--Ron] specifies that the yeti will move
   that many steps in the direction shown by the tick mark."  This is
   incorrect: the yeti will move that many _movement points_ in that
   direction; for example, if the yeti is next to a step, it will move
   only two squares because 1 MP is expended climbing the step.  Or am
   I missing something?

7. In general, the board is so small that "30-40 min" is an
   overestimate for game length.  Once we figured out the rules, it
   took us probably 5-10 minutes to play.  This may be because it
   doesn't work as a two-player game, but I'm afraid that even in a
   four-player game, three people might be tied up in fighting while
   one person gets a clear shot to the top and wins on the second turn
   or shortly thereafter.

8. It would be helpful if you could clarify where to put yetis in two-
   and three-player games; we put ours diagonally opposite each other
   to start, which may be one reason I had a clear shot.

9. Since there's a chance that a yeti will automatically roar back
   when roared at, there's a possibility of "roar cascades", in which
   yetis roar back and forth several times in succession (I think).
   The rules need to be clearer about what happens in this case.

10. Perhaps placing obstacles on the board (such as unused coins in
    games with less than 4 players, which need them more anyway) might
    slow things down a bit and make things tougher to figure out for
    the players.

Overall, I enjoyed this game, even though I hate Roborally.  I think
having the tick marks be relative to the board rather than indicating
which way the yeti turns helps a lot.  However, it may make things too
easy on the players, so the board might need to get more complicated.

Keep up the good work!

Ron

-- 
         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/