Re: [piecepack] Re: idea for ace and null symbols

["Daniel Ajoy" <da.ajoy@...>]

On Tue, 15 May 2012 00:50:09 -0500, Ben Finney <ben+yahoogroups@...> wrote:

"Daniel Ajoy" <da.ajoy@...> writes:

> Here is a crude design for ace and null symbols:
>  http://i.imgur.com/3YENs.jpg


> These are good characteristics.
>
> > * Ace and Null have a similar look
> > * Null looks like 0 or 6
>
> These don't seem good.
>
> Nulls should, as the Anatomy describes, have the *absence* of a symbol
> in the place where the other ranks have one. So aces and nulls should be
> quite different, not similar; and nulls should not look like a number.



I would argue that, as shown in the "crude design", Ace and Nulls look different between themselves:

* The Ace symbol has straight line going through the center of the symbol, and a spike
* The Null symbol has a circle in the center of the symbol
* The curves that join the outer circle with the inner stuff exhibit chirality
* The Null symbol does represent "absence" because it looks like a  O  within a circle. But it is certainly a symbol. That's why I ask you: Do you know of a piecepack game where nulls (tiles, dice, or coins) *have* to be the absence of a symbol?


These Ace and Null symbols do look different from numbers. Both Ace and Null look as "set apart" from the numbers-proper because they have that external circle around them, and they are not abstract symbols, not numbers.


Daniel