Re: [piecepack] Let's nip this problem in the bud.

["Mike Schoessow" <mikeschoessow@...>]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Electronicwaffle 
  To: piecepack@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 9:50 PM
  Subject: [piecepack] Let's nip this problem in the bud.


  >As the most recent posts have brought forth, a fairly uncommon (in 
  >terms of popularity) dice concept is now before the community. I had 
  >discovered this concept on my own some time ago. (Im not claiming I 
  >was the first to discover it by any means, just that I had it in my 
  >mind to develop further as well.) It seems that I can discern from 
  >Mike's post that this indeed a concept he is using for the next 
  >contest. I currently have a few games Im working on for December, 
  >and while none use this Dice Rotating concept, I personaly will give 
  >Mike the common curtesy and not develop any rulesets with this 
  >mechanic before the contest is over. (To protect his chances of 
  >wining) 

  I did not mean to imply that I was currently working on a game design that utilizes rotating dice as pieces. I'm not working on such a game, and I don't intend to enter a game of this type in the contest. Thanks for the thought though, and everyone please feel free to use dice as pieces that rotate.

  The idea of using dice as pieces is not new. There are quite a few games out there that employ dice this way, including ones in which the dice rotate as they move, but I can only remember a few of them off-hand. One of the nicest looking of these (for those who like attractive coffe-table games) is Cubulus, and can be seen at www.abstractstategy.com/cubulus.html . Another game using dice as pieces, in this case on a hex board, is Chase. The rules for Chase are at www.panix.com/~sos/bc/chase.html . Two recent games, still in production, are Knockabout, and Warp-6. I own both of these and they are both very good games in my opinion. They each utilize a combination of D4, D6, and D8 dice.

  Regarding dice pieces that rotate as they move: This sounds like a useful idea at first, but it has a significant flaw; games that utilize this mechanic invariably suffer from poor clarity, and this results in a game without much depth because strategic planning becomes excessively tedious.

  -Mike Schoessow