Looney Labs Icehouse Mailing list Archive

[Icehouse] Quick Twin Win report

  • FromCarl Worth <cworth@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateFri, 07 Sep 2007 15:22:41 -0700
On Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:15:45 -0400, Andy Looney wrote:
>
> this fortnight in our news...
>  <http://www.wunderland.com/WhatsOld/2007/WN.09.06.07.html>
> -----------
>  - Andy's Article: Twin Win at HersheyPark

And there he said:

> However, don't play this yet if you haven't finished testing out and
> voting on the new games in the current Icehouse Game Design
> Contest. The deadline for voting is September 17th, so whatever energy
> you have for trying out new Icehouse games should be devoted to that
> before you try out Twin Win.

Sorry, I cheated. But my excuse is that my IGDC partner was at school,
so I played 3 quick rounds of Twin Win over lunch today.

My quick response is that the game is every bit as good as I had
hoped. Here are some reactions from me:

  * Any given game plays very quickly, which makes it a lot of fun! My
    wife loves games that are really short, but are enjoyable to play
    several times so we can fill whatever time slot we get, (generally
    until the kids next demand our attention). So this one looks
    perfect in that regard.

  * In all three rounds we played, when one player won, there was
    another player that was setup to win on the next move. And that
    makes for great "Oh, give me another try", re-playability.

  * My four-year-old was able to play quite well, (the colored
    diagrams on the card mean reading isn't strictly required), and he
    only needed a couple reminders about no diagonal nor
    counter-clockwise movement, (and probably no more reminders than
    my wife needed on the direction).

  * We didn't end up trading our goal cards very much, (excepting my
    4-year-old who decided his goal in the third game was to keep
    trading on every turn hoping to get both green cards---meanwhile,
    the other two of us played a fine two-player game). I think we
    just aren't very sophisticated players yet, (much like we didn't
    do much bluffing in our first few games of Black ICE).

  * We were also fairly unsophisticated about taking advantage of both
    goals. Again, this is something that gives the game appeal since
    we know we have things to learn to play better.

  * A rainbow set configured initially in mixed-color trees isn't
    actually all that pleasing aesthetically, (dark and ugly in my
    book---much less pleasing than the initial configuration of
    Treehouse, for example). Fortunately, it only takes one treehouse
    set of each color scheme, (and both pages of cards), to play with
    any color scheme desired.

  * Glossy photo paper definitely isn't thick enough to obscure the
    cards---mine still show through quite a lot---I'll have to mount
    them on something heavier for the next game.

So, well done, Andy! I love it!

>  - Don't forget to vote for your favorite in the Icehouse Game Design
> Contest #5!

Yeah, do as Andy says, not as I do...

And there really are some great games in there. I've got some thoughts
to share on some, but I'm saving them up until after the voting.

-Carl

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