Re: Is PP really that ZOG friendly?

[Clark D Rodeffer <cdrodeffer@...>]

> Im glad to see that we are closer
> to a ZRF for PP, yet what exactly
> would that ZRF look like?

Fundamentally, ZOG is a computer platform for designing and playing board
games, just as CyberBoard and Vassal are, and much as the piecepack is a
physical platform for doing the same thing. There could be any number of
ZRFs designed to play various piecepack games, ranging from the more
abstract turn-based games to ones with programmed simultaneous movements
or even random or pseudo-hidden elements. However, games involving
negotiation, flicking, and/or continuous ranges of placement for pieces
would be much more difficult, if not impossible to program.

> I think Zillions is too limiting for PP.
> could we have the frequency with
> fliping the pieces as we would want?
> Can we perhaps work it into the
> right-click menu?

True, ZOG does have some limitations, but the ones listed here are not
insurmountable. Flipping and changing the ownership of pieces is part of
the ZOG engine, as seen in the ZOG implementation of Reversi. Random die
rolls and moves have been done before (see Senat, Backgammon,
Tic-Tac-Doh, etc.), as have random draws and pseudo-hidden information
(see the various Domino games, Caving puzzles, Maze Maven, Battle (a
Stratego clone), Hearts, etc.)

> Also, Zilions possibly could tell the
> player what tile your on...  regardless
> of face...   I think that PP is just way
> way to big to force a fit into ZOG. It
> would be hard to look at say A Coin
> of Arms,,,  and could the computer
> say oh thats an Ace coin of arms,
> and not say oh thats a two coin of
> arms...     I mean... the fact that the
> value of a coin (or tile for that matter)
> always carries two varibles (suit and
> rank) yet in actual life one hides the
> other.. I wonder if a ZRF for PP is
> possible.

The short answer to this question is "Yes." A recent discussion on one of
the ZOG mailing lists discussed the use of the notation commands within
the piece descriptions to hide information from other players. It's quite
possible to say that a given coin, for example, is an ace coin, or an
arms coin, an arms ace, or for that matter, just simply a coin. It can
say whatever you want. True, if you're playing against ZOG, the engine
would know what the hidden values (and/or suits) of those pieces are, at
least if they are indeed predetermined instead of being randomly
determined from a pool of remaining possibilities. Therefore, some games
of hidden information would be difficult to code for play against ZOG
itself. Still, this is not a limitation against programming puzzles or
games for multiple human players over the internet, at least as long as
the players trust one another not to cheat by showing the moves list. In
such games, ZOG could merely act as a referree. (See, for example, the
ZOG implementation of Twixt and Battle.)

> I know for my program, I had to call
> each piece by its Suit (I used Color)
> Rank and what piece it was (Tile
> coin or pawn) such as Red Tile Ace
> (which I shortened to RTA) and like
> Blue Coin Three...   which of course
> gets at what I was talking about
> earlier.. Then again, LOGO (The
> Language I programed it in) doesnt
> annouce what "shape" (its term for
> sprite) your on,,, thankfully

Unfortunately, I'm unable to comment on this part, as I don't know much
about LOGO or MicroWorlds Workshop, although I have used your program a
bit. All I've done so far is manipulate Matt Worden's graphics library
into a format compatible with ZOG. (The easy part.) I haven't used it to
program any ZRFs yet, except just to see if the pieces overlayed on tiles
properly. If anyone else on this list has experience using or programming
with ZOG, I'd be happy to exchange notes. I will upload the ZOGpiecepack
library into the files area for anyone who's interested in using them.

Clark Rodeffer

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