Games are archived at superdupergames.org but it looks like there's currently a bug in the server.

E.g. http://superdupergames.org/main.html?page=archive_play&gid=32141

Cool! Thanks. I had no idea that they saved them.

You should watch Homeworlds Theater, if you haven't already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXG1GETk4_g

The Emperor and Dr. Cool play games and talk about stuff.  A great watch, to be sure.

I really wish they would do a Binary Homeworlds tutorial video.

A tutorial video, like this one, perhaps?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l_IouG6mOA

I asked about the same thing, and I heard from a little birdie :: coughtwittercough :: that a Youtube tutorial series is possibly in the works. 

Probably the best place to find them is on superdupergames itself.

There's also this exhibition game:

http://looneylabs.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=6320919%3ABlogPost%3A110703&commentId=6320919%3AComment%3A110521&xg_source=activity

Found a combined color variant over on BGG, and it worked great.

Used:

Red + Orange

Yellow + Clear

Green + KS Green

Blue + Cyan

Black + Purple

After doing some more math, I realized that having sixty pyramids is kind of important. It's divisible by 2,3,4 and five.

Corrected a typo or two in the files.

Cool, I think the symmetrical sides should certainly address the imbalance of the original asymmetrical setup!

To upload the files to BGG, use the Upload link here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/32630/armada/files

If you don't have a BGG account, I can upload the files there for you; let me know if you want me to.

You (or I) can also add "Armadas" as an alternate title, or even replace the original title, via the Edit button on the game's main page.

Thanks for the link. I have now uploaded the files to bgg. (I assume that they don't show up immediately.)

I have been concerned about replacing the original game entries since it has been in the public for such a long time. This is part of the reason for the (minor) name change. Also to distinguish it from the many other games referred to as Armada. :)

I did also add Armadas as an alternate name. I would probably like it to have its own page and possibly link it as "reimplemented by" or some such, and make a note in the description. I don't know what all that would entail though.

As for the wiki, I am not so good with all of the fiddly formatting required for those pages.

Thanks again.

I love the updated rules. I have always been a fan of the original, and I think it's one of the coolest and most elegant game designs yet. This updated version really streamlines and enhances everything and rectifies the balance issues. Good work!

With many luck based games (I am thinking WW5 more than Powerhouse) you have to do a 2-out-of-3 or similar to prevent luck having too much of a factor. Games like IceDice, Looney Ludo, and that sort may need 4/7 matches. Martian Chess, Pikemen, Volcano, and possibly Lunar Invaders are great. Lunar and Homeworlds require some sort of teaching session. Zark City, Petal Battle, and Powerhouse are good if you want to have mostly strategy but partial luck. If you do a mix, 2/3 might be good just so that a rule interpretation error is easier to recover from.

I don't know, but FWIW it seems barely noticeable to me in the photo! Also, the photo isn't showing an actual coaster board side that would be used in play, but just a "title page" so to speak. So if it was me, I don't think I'd worry about it. :)

I have a ring on the other side as well that seems to have lightened up after drying... I know it's not bad, but it's still an imperfection with something I got as a gift that's a part of my gaming collection, you know? It matters to me. Besides, if they can be washed, I was thinking of getting a set of them and the Cosmic Coasters to use mainly as coasters for the front room when people visit. (Maybe it'll encourage them to play!) In the end though, if they get stained so easily, I'd rather have more durable coasters...

So yeah, my original question still stands: can they be washed or cleaned somehow without being ruined?

Well, thank you fFor making a cool game and sharing it with us!!

I nominated it because it is an absolutely great game that is easily playable with the pieces included in the Pyramid Arcade setup. I thoroughly enjoy it, and it's probably in the low teens/high single digits of my Starship Captain List. So, kudos on making a great game! I really like that badge too. It really captures the feel of the game, in as much as the other PA badges do as well.

Having the stars hidden and doing random choice among more than one candidate star indeed seems to introduce confusing problems. (And the randomness might arguably be "not in the spirit" of Homeworlds.)

What if the stars were publicly visible, but you know what is at a star only if you have a ship at that star. (To me it seems "thematically consistent" that you see what other ships are at a star where you have ships.)

And if you try to discover a star and none are left in the stock, then your move is simply declared illegal (and you pass) - FWIW something very similar to this mechanism is used in Robert Abbott's interesting game Confusion (in which you don't know the movement abilities of your pieces).

Of course this idea of how to handle the fog of war is very different from your idea, but hopefully it at least gives interesting food for thought. :)

> (EDIT: How did the text files get to 3KB? They are not THAT long... or maybe they are?)

Clearly the size is rounded to the nearest kilobyte instead of being the exact number of bytes.

Can you please use a "standard" file format that can be easily read, like .pdf, .doc(x), .html, .rtf, etc? I would like to read your rules but my computer does not handle .odt files properly (the formatting is messed up, some text is weird, and the images are gone).

odt is a standard file format.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

FWIW the free open source program LibreOffice reads it.

That said, the attached file seems to simply have some corruption in it, unfortunately, e.g. in the table at the start of the file (e.g. the cell to the right of "Designed by Adam Boudreaux" says "8~ 6r gjz( ZP#") :/ But most of it is viewable OK for me in LibreOffice.

See if this is better.

Is that two spaces from the nearest other black pyramid? No //The wall should NEVER be broken. The intent of the language in the rules is to maintain only one wall on the board. The example showing a piece going off the edge of the wall is also suspicious -- how do you determine which side of the wall a piece is on if it touches the edge like this? If the piece in question is not "fully" in your part of the yard (read as if the wall can "run" through the middle of your piece it is not on your side of the garden), it is not on your side. A piece can be in the middle of the wall and therefore not on your side or your opponent's side. You can not win if your pieces are not fully on your side.

Hmm. The rules lawyer in me finds that vagueness confusing. After all, the wall can bend in all sorts of directions -- what determines which way the end of the wall "runs"? Is it just the shortest line between the "end" of the wall and the edge of the field? If both players conspired to roll the wall up into a ball in the middle of the table, would the concept of "your side of the wall" mean anything?

Here's my attempt at a rules-lawyer-able version of the "wall" rule:

When moving a black pyramid, the entire wall must remain connected. Wall pieces are considered "connected "if they are diagonally or othogonally adjacent. In addition, there must be two wall pieces (or four in a 4-player game) which have exactly one orthogonal empty space between themselves and the edge of the board. This orthogaonally adjacent empty space is considered "part of" the wall, in that it determines whose side a crop is planted on. Finally, neither player may move the wall in such a way that both home corners are on the same side of the wall.

Was this your intent? I'm going off Zendo experience here, trying to put your rule in more precise terms.

Interesting points - I read through the rules to see if any of this was specifically addressed.

Regarding the first question, I don't see anything in the rules preventing Alice from deciding to land the piece on B1. The only restricted space on the destination moon is the Teleport Pad (as listed under the rules for "Targeting Error"). And under "Teleport", the rules say: Any piece occupying the space your piece arrives in is destroyed. So that piece at B1 would be destroyed (even though it is one of Bob's own pieces).

As for the token wars, it does not appear that there is anything to prevent the situation you described. However, since Bob had already positioned himself to win in one move, I don't find it to be a problem that he is still able to win after Alice's futile "Total Shut Down" retaliation.

 

Most 3 House games will work, assuming you can improvise on the 5th color.  And any 2-stash or "2-House" game might work nicely.  Of course, most games in the world require more than just pyramids.  Boards, cards, dice, that sort of thing.

• IceDice - The ideal 2-house game.  Requires dice
  
  
• Martian Chess - A classic 3-house game, requires a 4x8 grid
  
  
• Pikemen - Assemble the appropriate number of colors fFor the number of players.
• Freeze Tag - requires a 5x5 board
• Logger - Color doesn't really matter, but you do need to plan on some caps and assorted blunt objects.
• Zendo - requires a bunch of beads.  You might run out of pieces with just one tin, however.  Maybe use one less color in this case?
• Emperor's Garden - requires a Hanafuda deck
  
  
• Martian Coasters - requires Martian Coasters and dice.
• Zamboni Wars - Also requires Martian Coasters and a d6; however the coasters are static, and you might be able to draw a pattern on a sheet of paper or something.
• Infiltrate - requires a 6x6 checkerboard.
• Alien City - I think a single tin can hold all pyramids you need.  I usually play with a bunch of colors and some variant rules, so I might be mistaken.  Anyway, you'd still need a piecepack.

So there's 11.  =)

If you allow a couple tins, you can broaden it up to a lot more stuff.  I have Three tins in a set, with inventory as fFollows:

1. 6 Red nests & 6 Blue nests
2. 6 Green nests & 6 Yellow nests
3. Assorted dice, a 3x3 board, a 5x5 board, and 6 Black nests.

An 8x8 grid doesn't really fit in there, sadly.  =)  Then, like, just about everything that doesn't require cards or exotic equipment would be playable.

In addition to my Starship Captain tin, I also generally always have my trusty Pocket Othello board, which I've crammed a handful of dice and a deck of cards into. So I can count on an 8x8 board and an ample supply of black and white tokens. The issue with 3house and 2house games is that many of them assume 5 enneads (nonets?), but this set has 4. I suppose I could make mini-zendo work, maybe. And I can make a paper board for WW5. Logger and Infiltrate look like I could make them work with some modification, but they're rather complex already. Freeze Tag (fFreeze Tag? :P) may be just what I'm looking for, though! Thanks for the tips.

Perhaps we should wonder what games could be played with the tin itself as a piece!

Perhaps the tin would be a good size for a Lunar Invaders board (one on the base and one on the inside of the lid). An unused color could represent the Malfunction Tokens.

Here are a few more that haven't been mentioned:

Egyptian Solitaire - requires exactly 12 trios

Rotationary - another solitaire game that requires 5 trios of any color

Armada - ship battle, no other equipment needed

Torpedo - another ship battle, 2 players with 5 trios of a pair of colors, or up to 4 players if you use 3 trios per player

Petal Battle - a slightly smaller Petal board printed on cardstock fits nicely in the tin

Epicycle - can also be played on the Petal board, or on a bare tabletop.

Give or Take - 1 trio per player (minimum 3 trios), need to include the Pyramid Die

I’m sure there are more…!

I’d also love to figure out a way to use the tin itself for a game. Possibly for a large obstacle (or target?) in Torpedo or Armada? Maybe in a new dexterity game similar to how a CD is used in CrackeD Ice?

I’ve found that the lid of the tin (especially with the Starship Captain sticker on it) can work reasonably well as a turn-indicator, though it is a rather large item to pass back and forth.

Thanks for all the hard work on this Brian.

After a few days of testing it out and getting set up for registration to prevent the previous spam problems we've had, I've decided to make this live at the old URL:

http://www.icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

The old instance of the wiki is archived here, for anyone who wants to see the full history of pages:

http://www.icehousegames.org/old-wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

If anyone's interested in helping out, we have a to-do list with a lot of good starting points:

http://www.icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=IcehouseOrg:To-do_list

It's looking good... Thanks for the work you put into getting it back online.  Everything seems to be working well. Content is beginning to be updated again (and there's probably a lot of new games to migrate as well).

Interesting...Icehouse will obviously go to 1. (hence the "crash" system)

At fFirst, I was thinking you were asking about the difference between Gnostica and Zarcana.  But I quickly understood what you mean.

Zarcana is generally considered the earliest member of this branch of the fFamily tree.  But it is mentioned in a couple sources as having been previously known as Arcana.  It sounds like Zarcana and Arcana were the same basic game, but there were probably some kind of minor differences, as these things will have.  And why the name change, anyway?  Good darn question!!

Well, we can examine this set of older rules. Notice the repeated use of "Zarcana" in the page, but "Arcana" is in the file path, so my supposition is that the rules were posted, and then the author did a search and replace (or something like it) to change the word inside the fFile.

http://www.ginohn.com/wunder201005/games/Arcana/rules.html

Compared to this set of somewhat newer rules:

http://www.ginohn.com/wunder201005/games/Zarcana/rules.html

The fFormat and structure of the two rule sets is quite a bit different.  Arcana has a lot more exposition about the virtues and qualities of the tarot deck, as well as having a lot more optional rules and "Technical Notes."  The older rules have a lot of alternate suggested actions to do with the trump cards.  I imagine there are other differences as well, if an interested party were to careful compare each card and action.

Looking at the page source for the older rules shows there is a Meta Tag of KeyWords, reading thus:

    meta name="KeyWords" content="game, tarot, cards, board game, strategy, arcana, anacra, war game"

Notice arcana is in there, but not Zarcana.  Interesting.  But wait, there is also Anacra!  what?  It's just the word "Arcana" spelled backwards, but why did the author provide that as a tag?  Was that a possible alternative name as well at some point?  Or just being a bit silly?

Interestingly, the old rules include a subtle hint at the fFuture of the fFamily, Zark City, which does not use a Tarot Deck at all, suggesting:

If you don't own a Tarot deck, don't despair. With a few modifications to the rules, you can use a regular deck of playing cards to play Zarcana.  The easiest way to play Zarcana with playing cards is to simply ignore all of the special trump rules...

Cool stuff!

The only difference is the Z.

At first John was calling it Arcana but then he heard about an existing game by that name, long forgotten but a worry at the time. So we added a Z at the front, which we all liked better anyway.

While I am a fan of simplicity, I was hoping for a super-exciting tale of intrigue around the name change.  This will do however.  

;-)

Thanks Andy!

Heh. What fFogus said. Thanks!!!

The Pyramid Arcade rulebook clarifies both of these points.

1) You are not required to reveal the old goal. You put it on the bottom of the stack of available goals.

2) You may use both actions to change goals.

Note that in the extended version of Zendo, the rule "All pyramids in the koan are weird" has a koan with exactly one weird pyramid (of any size). It's the lowest possible limit of number of pyramids . . . So now, being all weird is easy to guess . . . 

They used to sell ELBS in big bags. I sometimes do pretty much the same thing you're describing, only with elbs.

We use the opaque pyramids in the usual way, treating them as pyramids in the koans.Of course, the same arrangements you have in mind could be covered by the rule "All non-opaque pyramids of the koan are ungrounded and weird."

Thank you P.D.M. This is also a great observation. However, note that my consideration wasn't to "cover koans", but to "cover rules". In your case, the rule "All pyramids of the koan are ungrounded" would again not yield any other koans than the empty koan.
--
I'm getting a sort of déjà vu. As we are doing some sort of applied logic and model theory here, it seems similar to Goedel's Incompleteness Theory: for every consistent theory based on a set of axioms that is powerful enough to allow self-reference, the theory is incomplete. That means, it allows for a so called Goedel sentence G that is true, but can not be proven by applying deductive logic within the theory. (Such a sentence G translates to "Sentence G can not be proven within the theory.") However, the theories emerging from adding G or ~G, although both consistent, suffer the same anomaly!
--
It seems that if we want to cover certain "simple" rules, then we have to add some things that aren't considered pyramids (even if they are opaque pyramids) and make the game less simple, . . . 

OR

if we want to cover the same koans (but not rules), then the rule must become less simple. However, in this case, the same "simple" rule would then still only yield the empty koan.

--

zen zen = 'zen' and 'zen' = ''zen'' and 'and' and ''zen'' = '''zen''' and 'and' and ''and'' and 'and' and '''zen''' = ...

while 

zen = zen = zen = zen = ...

OK.

Interesting; I'd interpret these examples differently. E.g. "All pyramids are ungrounded" and "The koan contains no pyramids" ARE logically equivalent to me, given the basic playing conditions (that pyramids sit on the table or on other pyramids). If we want to consider the possibilities that pyramids are floating, then either (1) we are in some unusual physical situation where that is actually possible or (2) it seems a dubious impractical choice for a rule, like making a koan about some color of pyramids which we don't have on hand, or making a koan about very large numbers. I.e. to me, there seem certain logical givens (pyramids rest on things in gravity, the koans involve the colors we have on hand, the number of pyramids on hand suffices to construct a "reasonable" number of positive and negative examples, etc). The practical limits of how many pyramids one has on hand seems just that - a merely practical limit, not a logical issue, just as (e.g.) a boardgame might have a perfectly logical coherent rule that you need to roll a die one million times, but that would (for practical reasons) not be physically do-able in reality. =================== > > > "The Student wins if the Master can not disprove the Student's guessed rule" is the preferred and reasonable rule which will allow Students to win, although sometimes with rules that are NOT equivalent to the Buddha Nature, NOR always correct from a theoretical standpoint! < < <<br /> But it seems trivially easy to make such a rule if you consider the physical limits of our pyramids on hand to be meaningful and to mean that the master cannot physically/practically disprove the proposed rule. E.g. a student has figured out that the rule seems to clearly be "The koan has red pyramids". So they propose "The koan has between 1 and 100 red pyramids". The master's rule and the student's proposed rule agree about all koans with no red pyramids, so to disprove the proposal, the master would need to make a koan with 101 (or more) red pyramids, which the master cannot physically do if they only have 15 red pyramids. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I'm not seeing the value added by this alternative formulation of winning, as opposed to the rules as written: the student wins by simply saying "The koan has red pyramids". :)

Hi Russ,

My post is basically an observation that might turn out to be useful for advanced rules (see also my follow-up post (No Pyramid Extension), or when Students formulate a rule clumsily, but in such a way that the Master can not disprove it. I showed in several ways that practical limits may influence with what guess a Student wins and that the first formulation of the Winning Rule is not satisfying in all cases.

In the case "All pyramids in the koan are red", this rule tends to be guessed that way (and I agree that logically it includes the empty koan). This post was not about finding rules that utilize this principle, but to indicate that the Zendo Winning Rule preferably follows the second formulation to prevent a deadlock.

In the Extended Version of Zendo, the rules "All pyramids in the koan are ungrounded" and "the empty koan" are not equivalent. That's the value of this kind of consideration.

There are multiple ways to do exactly 2 all weird or exactly 3 all weird. If you combine one of each, you get exactly 5 all weird.

Hi Jeff, 

perhaps you've proved exactly my point, as I forgot about leaning pyramids! If it were in a real game of Zendo, I'd be at a loss as Master. But since I believed you, I found such a koan within 1 minute!

Even though I found some koans with all pyramids weird, I couldn't find such koans with 2 equal pyramids. The examples I found, are hardly stable, but that is OK, I guess.

So, there are only certain combinations of sizes of pyramids that allow for koans with all weird pyramids, These combinations can be listed in a set S, a subset of {(1,1), (1,2), (1,3), (2,2), (2,3), (3,3)}, and I believe S is a subset of {(1,2), (1,3), (2,3)}. If you can find other koans, please show them.

Then a Student's guess might be:

"The koan exists of at least two pyramids, which would be in sizes according to S, and all of them are weird."

Again, this rule is logically not equivalent to the Buddha Nature "all pyramids in the koan are weird", but can not be disproved by the Master.

I just wondered if the term "simple" for rules is arbitrary? Considering the aspects of koans that are mostly overlooked, as you get better in Zendo, it becomes less clear what is "simple", because you see all kind of exceptions or restrictions that might apply to such a "simple" rule.

Great response!

Formulation 1 of the Winning Rule could be repaired by changing "logically equivalent" to "equivalent for all constructable koans". Depending on how we define the logical space of the game, there may be logically possible koans that are not actually constructable.

Yes, I agree. "Equivalent" would then mean: "uses the same color of marking stone". Note that your formulation "equivalent for all constructible koans" is now equivalent to formulation 2. This is seen as follows.

If the Student's Guess G and the Buddha Nature B correspond for all constructible koans k, i.e., G(k) = B(k) := the color of the marking stone, then the Master can not disprove G, since he can only make constructible koans.

If the Master can not disprove G, then for any koan k with G(k) <> B(k), koan k is not constructible (otherwise koan k would be a constructible counterexample), and therefore, G and B coincide for all constructible koans.

Thank you P.D.M.

It's possible to do 2 pyramids, same size, both weird. After reading your post I was able to construct all three examples, but technical problems prevented me from uploading photographic evidence. Smalls are the hardest to make, but when I finally succeeded the koan was pretty stable. The pyramids in these koans are tip to tip, but it's not actually necessary to perfectly align the tips. Still, I suspect it will be easier with the blunter-tipped Arcade pyramids, although some of my problems with the smalls had to do with center of gravity and not tip alignment.

And this type of discussion, is why Zendo will never be on my Starship Captain's list-it's too confusing of a game to me.

Hi P.D.M.,

considering your correct observation, later I remembered that the whole point of formulation 2 was to include the factor of the (limited) Master's ability/knowledge. It took me a while to crunch this mind boggler. Here's my fix.

When I read your response, I assumed that the set C of constructible koans is known, or at least known to the Master. But this is not so. The set C(p), the set of constructible koans by person p is a subset (or a strict subset) of C. With p = M := the Master, C(M) stands for the constructible koans the Master can come up with. As we have practical time limits when we play Zendo, we have to work with the skill level of the Master at that time.

So, if the master can't disprove the Student's guessed rule, that does not mean that there isn't such constructible koan in C, just that the Master can't find it and therefore is not in C(M).

To illustrate my point, here are two versions of my previous proof. Note that both are valid proofs!

Version 1 - C

This version is closest to your proposal, but seems unusable for the fact that C is unknown.

• If the Student's Guess G and the Buddha Nature B correspond for all constructible koans k in C, i.e., for all k in C we have G(k) = B(k) := the color of the marking stone, then the Master can not disprove G, since he can only make constructible koans from C(M), which forms a subset of C.
• If the Master has perfect knowledge, i.e., C(M) = C, and can not disprove G, then for any koan k with G(k) <> B(k), koan k is not in C [otherwise koan k would be a constructible counterexample and the Master would know it] and therefore, G and B coincide for all constructible koans in C.

This proves the equivalence of [the Student's Guess G and the Buddha Nature B correspond for all constructible koans k in C] and [the Master, even one with perfect knowledge, can not disprove G].

Version 2 - C(M)

This version seems more practical and is closer to the spirit of my original proposal.

• If the Student's Guess G and the Buddha Nature B correspond for all constructible koans k in C(M), i.e., for all k in C(M) we have G(k) = B(k) := the color of the marking stone, then the Master can not disprove G, since he can only make constructible koans from C(M).
• If the Master can not disprove G, then for any koan k with G(k) <> B(k), koan k is not in C(M) [otherwise koan k would be a constructible counterexample available to the Master] and therefore, G and B coincide for all constructible koans in C(M).

This proves the equivalence of [the Student's Guess G and the Buddha Nature B correspond for all constructible koans k in C(M)] and [the Master, assumed without perfect knowledge, can not disprove G].

Note that in this case, there might be a k' in C \ C(M) [where C \ C(M) is the set of those constructible koans not known by the Master] for which G(k') <> B(k'). But since k' is not in C(M), it is not "constructible" by the master.

This is what I meant with my remark that the Student can win with an incorrect rule from a theoretic perspective. Only if the Master were to have perfect knowledge, can the Student win with a rule that is equivalent on C, not just on C(M).

Observation

During Zendo, the interesting situation can thus arise that when the Master admits he can not find a counter example to the Student's guessed rule, that Student wins. However, when the Master subsequently reveals his (not equivalent) rule, a second student might find a koan k' not in C(M) that disproves the Student's guessed rule. It can be argued that this second student was put at a disadvantage, as he might have guessed a "more correct" version of the rule later in the game, had it continued, if only C(M) included k'.

This situation would qualify as a Master's mistake. Can we say that the second student wins, rather than the one that won at first? Do we decide on two winners? Does the Master win for declaring the second student winner? Remember, there are no losers in this game!

Zen, zen, zen . . . 

Zendo is the most stimulating game I've played in years! I'm so looking forward to playing it again!

FWIW I have never had these kinds of problems arise in play, and have successfully enjoyably played it with many diverse experienced and new players alike.

We don't consider exact physical position to be relevant, because that seems to introduce various annoying practical problems (well, they are "Features" for some people and "Bugs" for other people) like ambiguity and difficulty of moving koans on the table.

We always play either:

(1) a koan is simply an unordered set of pieces (physical position is irrelevant)

or

(2) a koan is simply an ordered stack of pieces (there is an unambiguous ordering to the pieces).

So if you're leery of Zendo because of weird theoretical discussions like this thread, I recommend trying it one of these two ways, which seems to eliminate much of the potential "weirdness" and confusion. :)

As Russ said, these things don't come up in practice. Personally, I find this whole discussion confusing, too, and Zendo is one of my favorite games.

That's why my own contribution to this discussion has been limited to what you can do with "weird" pieces. If you don't know what "weird" is, it's pretty easy to understand. Imagine you dump all your pyramids on the table in a heap. Some of the pieces will be standing up and some will be lying down, but many of them will be leaning or hanging or otherwise not standing up or lying down. You might say to yourself, "those pieces are in kind of a weird orientation." That's why Zendo says any piece that's not standing up or lying down is called weird.

Don't let this thread put you off Zendo. The issue raised in this thread can't actually come up, and Zendo is a great game.

I started this thread because I am fascinated with Zendo and like to share some quirks that could come up in advanced play. If anything seems confusing, please play Zendo the way you like. I hoped to add to the appreciation for Zendo. After all, this is the forum to share insights, together with questions on any Looney Pyramid game. Take the good as you see fit.

The subject of the OP came up in the final round of the Zendo tournament at Origins a number of years ago.  It was the one with myself, Pace Reagan and Dan Isaac all vying for the top prize with the inscrutable Eric Zuckerman as master.  (I want to say it was 2002, but I could be off by a year or two.)  One of Pace's guesses was something along the lines of, "AKHTBN iff, when you ignore the blue pieces, the number of non-upright larges is equal to the number of non-large uprights."   Of course, requiring the count of non-upright larges to be equal to the count of non-large uprights is equivalent to just "larges equals uprights." e.g. Let's say you have a koan that contains a large upright, a large flat and a small upright (noe of them blue).  Pace would say 1=1, so the koan should be marked white, while Eric would say 2=2 so it should be marked white.

So yes...

1. The student's guess and the master's rule would mark every koan the same

2. The master couldn't provide a counterexample.

Ahh... memories.

BTW, here's my contribution to the "all weird" discussion, courtesy the Wayback Machine.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050308110146im_/http://home.att.net:80/~kerry_and_ryan/allweird.jpg

The two in the middle column are pretty unstable - don't bump the table.  :)

I was going to say the same thing about 2 being minimum: leaning against each other, touching at the tips. Not EASY to make, and not stable in a strong wind, but "all weird".

I'm actually building some today. I calculated the sizes of the pyramids, and then cut out triangular templates to tessellate out to make the pyramids.

I do have a fFile somewhere. I'll have to look fFor the pdf. In fFact, I might have posted it on this fForum some time in the past. I'll look around.

fFound it!

http://brigandine.org/icehouse/

My giant pyramid PDF template is laid out and uploaded there.  It was made with 4 colors of 5 trees.  If you want some other colors you might want to edit the fFile to get, say, 10 colors of 3 trees.  The fFirst page is just a simple comparison of each size and shape, so you can craft your own thing entirely new with those proportions.

Oh, and I should mention, these are slightly larger than the Cardboard pyramids which The Looneys made some years back.  If you have some of those and some of these, they might not be very compatible.

Thanks for sharing.  How do you go about printing these at their proper size?

When I made my set, I had access to a large fFormat printer at a sign shop. I printed the pdf fFull size, 4'x8', and adhered them to sheets of corrugated plastic. Then I cut them out, and used a mile of duct tape to hold them together.

If you don't have access to a sign shop, somewhere like kinkos will do the job.i suggest shopping around to get a good price.


Alternately, you might be able to print the page on a transparency and project the image with backlighting across the room. The exact scaling might be tricky, but it is a cost effective solution.

What I like most about my method, by the way, is that they are waterproof and nearly indestructible.

At the moment I'm thinking I might attempt something along the lines of making some kind of stencil sheet and then using that to mark up whatever material from there.  I might have to stitch it together across a few sheets of paper or something, but once I've done it one time I can make more from there.

Has anyone ever tried doing something with thick, rigid foam mats (like those used for flooring in gyms/garages)?

Seems like a pattern for the sides could be made which allowed them to interlock and, as such, be disassemblable for transport. Might also be able to find the Rainbow colors already molded as RGBY, with no need to paint or dye?

Drawback might be that they are not thick enough to properly stack (i.e., mediums and smals would sit so low on top of large and medium that you'd have a very small fringe).

My problem is getting the raw materials. I need at least 75 square feet of cardboard, foam mats, or whatever. See calculation. Suppose I want a 3house. I need: * 15 larges, which means 60 8x14.5 triangles, 24.2 square feet * 15 mediums, which means 60 6x11 triangles, 13.75 square feet * 15 smalls, which means 60 4x8 triangles, 6.67 square feet Total: 44.6 This seems a little low. Not sure what people use to stabilize the cardboard version. I should be able to spray paint these, and black is low priority. Please check my math. The 75 comes from things like scraps, stabilization, and the possibility of just failing.

I have four monochrome stashes of the giant pyramids Looney Labs once sold. They were already painted when I got them. I once made a small pyramid cut out of a cardboard box using one of the existing smalls as a template. Once folded into the shape of a pyramid, it's self-supporting without adhesive, so you can unfold and refold it at will. The way a pyramid folds is not like the way a box folds, so you need a pretty sizable box to make even a small pyramid as one piece. Therefore, my desire to have a 5th stash has been on the back burner for quite some time.

Unfolded, they look much like the templates Scott posted, except there is a 5th panel. The innermost panel has a tab on the side, and each of the other panels has a huge tab on the bottom that folds up under when the pyramid is pyramid-shaped. The first (innermost) panel overlaps with the fifth panel and the inner tab overlaps somewhat with the fourth panel. The bottom tabs hold together the overlapping parts, which allows it to stay in shape. The tabs go up about half-way into the inside of the pyramid.

I have some scrap cardboard that's not quite big enough, and I have a vague notion that I could make something that is two pieces taped together and folded. They need to be the same size as what I have, so that limits my options somewhat. And, of course, it would require that I make time for a crafting project.

Sadly for me, I do not have such templates. I keep thinking that I could use one of the box folds to line up with one of the folds between the triangles. But with a near 30° turn each time, that may be unfeasible without a very large box and a lot of wasted cardboard.

I really like your ideas. I probably wouldn't have the words on the new dice though, and would just swap them out when need be. In regards to Martian Coasters/Looney Ludo dice, you could probably design some extra dice for that as well which would be really cool. Having a number 7 instead of TIP maybe. Not sure what you would do for DIG though.

Thank you! I do think they came out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself.

You're probably right that a separate style for Coasters would be more appealing than adding the words to the current design. "Dig" does present a challenge in that way, though, and may require colored icons to solve satisfactorily. I'll think on it and see what I can come up with! I love the idea of just having a giant 7 instead of "Tip" with no other numbers on the die at all, and I think it'd have to go opposite the wild symbol for the aesthetics.

I think all the arrows would be kind of confusing on a small dice face. And the words surprisingly lend themselves well to be used in other games. A game I'm designing actually uses them for events and more graphics would just muddle that up.

Sure you need a chart in most games that use it to remember what the words actually means But I think it gives a bit a theme to even an otherwise abstract game like treehouse. I'm not just repositioning a piece, It's digging underground!

You forgot Timelock and Black Ice. I play Martian Coasters, Black Ice, and Timelock the most (especially Timelock). I almost never play Treehouse, and I'm not sure how well the graphical dice would lend themselves to those other games.

Obviously we must make dice for every game!

For sure - I'm not really proposing a replacement so much as an alternative. Part of the fun of the Icehouse system is having the pieces to play a huge number of different games, but that's not to say more specialised components can't have their place.

And yeah, I agree that the design could be too fine for a small die. I'd prefer a chunky one myself. At least "Seasons"-size, if not bigger!

I like the reticule idea for "Aim"! I'd be concerned that the "Hop" and "Dig" were too similar to be easily discernable at table-distance, but I'm sure my design suffers the same limitation.

I guess I'm just ideologically tied to the idea of the faces having pyramids physically represented on them. Dubious reasoning, I know =P

Maybe you could make arrows that use pyramids for the points?

It's smart though, some of the moves can be a little unclear, if it could be clarified on the dice itself it would be cool.

In Arcade, Black Ice actually uses the graphical "Lightning" dice, funnily enough. Are you familiar with any other games that use the THoD? I'd be interested to see how else it's put to use.

I'll look into Timelock.

I am tempted...

For Treehouse, I like the visual reminder of which move can be done from which position. It's probably not a problem for players who are more familiar with the game, but extra help for newbies like me is always appreciated!

Search on wiki for "Treehouse die".

You're gonna be busy! ;)

Nifty. Now I'm imagining some plain text LaTeX source files... :)

Ooo, once briefly experimented with LaTex for writing scientific papers but I never bothered to migrate over and learn all the tricks. Probably would not be to hard to format for the hardcore academics-turned-game-designers out there.

Looks interesting.

Question: "the player who owns the bottom piece must quickly move that piece to an adjacent and preferably empty space."

Does that mean the adjacent space MUST be empty? Or that you must go to an empty space if possible, otherwise you can go to a non-empty space? If the space is non-empty, is the scurrying piece still laid down horizontally, or does it go on top of the piece(s) in the occupied space?

Typo: "When this happens the piece lays down in it's space" - should be "its".

Good question. The first part: yes, empty if possible.

The last part I wrote for that section is for the rare off chance no empty spaces are available. In most cases if the space is occupied, that piece will then have to in turn scurry or be eaten. Exception is if a Cat scurries on to a Flea, which will become trapped "underneath" even though the Cat will be lying down.

Thank you for pointing out the typo.

This kind of reaction really bums me out. I'm sorry the no-pyramids version is still so expensive, but I'd really like for fans like you to buy it. The reason it's so pricey is there's SO MUCH great stuff even without the pyramids! THIS BOX is the kit for you to "stuff all the parts" into. Yes, I know yoiu alreay have a WW5 board, but this one is so much bigger and nicer! Yes, I know you already have most of these rules, but these rule book I'm creating is so much better and more complete than any other book before it! And the Arcade cards! OMG they are useful! Even if we let you get the dice and Petri Dish board a la carte, you will be missing out on so much great stuff we are putting so much effort into making great! Dude, you were the one insisting we make Martain Coasters in all the colors -- the six new boards give you that option! The tray is SO much nicer to use that reloading those pesky tubes! (Of course, keep one for your game Moon Shot, but it's time to move into the future! Anyway, I hope you'll reconsider backing at the no pyramids level. We made it just for you!

Ah, man... I don't want to bum you out! :(  I only asked because I see Ice Dice (v1) in the Online Store as I type.

But in my defense, here's what I've done to "build my own arcade" since, like, the mid-oughties:

• 12 stashes (base 10 + gray + pink) [ + 2 trios of KS green = 13 stashes and change ]
• 2 Treehouse sets (for ease of setup of single-trio or color-agnostic, multiplayer games: no need to open tons of tubes!)
• 1 Volcano Caps set
• 2 Martian Coasters sets (for ten-player games)
• 1 Cosmic Coasters set
• 1 Volcano Board
• 1 WW5 (paper) board, heavy-duty lamination
• 1 custom Tarot deck (never actually used! Zarcana/Gnostica, I *will* play you someday!!!)
• 6 Eeyore Martian Chess (paper) wedges, heavily laminated
• 2 Chessboard Bandannas
• 1 or 2(?) loose Treehouse Dice
• various stones, ceramic poker chips, (normal) dice, etc.

So, literally, this is what the arcade adds for me:

• 1 Petri Dish board
• 1 Twin Win board
• 1 Launchpad board
• 1 square deck of color-coded (but otherwise standard) playing cards
• 2 Ice Dice (new color die with card suits is clever dual purposing, BTW!)
• 1 deck of Twin Win cards
• 1 deck of Arcade cards

And of those, only these are what I'd consider irreplaceable (or too fiddly to play with a substitute):

• Petri Dish board
• Ice Dice
• [those other dice...?]
• 1 deck of Twin Win cards
• [edit to add:] 1 deck of cards, as I forgot they provide the rules on them, saving a LOT of lookup/memorization)

Again, totally sorry to be a bummer... but as someone who's pretty much bought anything with "Pyramids" on it... twice... the stuff in the Arcade that doubles-down (triples-down, even!) on what I already have is a sharp pill to swallow at $62.

I'll accept that you will only have this new stuff in the Arcane, though. And I won't even say it bums me out to hear it, if you do! ;)

Much love and respect for your goals;

David

[ Also, as another factor, I'm hoping to build and move into a tiny home very soon. One of many changes that will bring is that my rather-large board game collection will have to be broken down and compressed: All the beautiful boxes and plastic trays recycled; pieces parsed into logical or per-player sets in baggies; games stored in some kind of trays or flat-pack boxes (e.g., like the clipboard storage box holding everything that I listed above for pyramids... and then some). So a big part of getting the mid-less box set will be lost to me very soon: the box and storage tray. I know this is a rather-unique circumstance, but it's something I must keep in mind... while I plan to write a $50K+ check within a year! :) ]

Well, you can rationalize your decision however you wish. It's just disappointing to be working so hard to create a beautiful, cohesive package only to hear that long-time fans like you just want to cherry pick out the things you thing you need. 

Thank you for your support.

The square Zark City deck is not a standard deck. It has 5 suits and 65 cards.

I feel your pain. I already have over 300 pyramids and boards and stuff, and I can play all the games with what I have cobbled together. But I think it's going to be worth it to get the new stuff and it can't hurt to have more of the old stuff.

I'm also hoping fFor some sort of a la carte option, but fFor slightly different reasons.  The Arcade is spectacular, but I'm not entirely sure what the fFuture of The Arcade will be.  Will it be in available in stores fFor a long time?  Or will it be a bit more limited?  I would like to be able to introduce new players to some of the games which require a petri dish, fFor example.  We have been awaiting the petri dish fFor a long time, so I hope it will be available into the fFuture.

There's an image here: http://www.looneylabs.com/rules/launchpad-23

Unfortunately the wiki has been in a sort of semi-orphan state for a couple years. E.g. I have an account there, and after logging in, I see error messages across the top of the screen:

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: group name must start with a non-digit at offset 8 in /home/rabbits/icehousegames.org/wiki/includes/MagicWord.php on line 592

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: group name must start with a non-digit at offset 8 in /home/rabbits/icehousegames.org/wiki/includes/MagicWord.php on line 592

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: group name must start with a non-digit at offset 8 in /home/rabbits/icehousegames.org/wiki/includes/MagicWord.php on line 592

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: group name must start with a non-digit at offset 8 in /home/rabbits/icehousegames.org/wiki/includes/MagicWord.php on line 592

Warning: preg_match(): Compilation failed: group name must start with a non-digit at offset 8 in /home/rabbits/icehousegames.org/wiki/includes/MagicWord.php on line 592

I agree it would be great to get it actively maintained again, especially with Pyramid Arcade on the way.

The problem with the wiki has been a recurring topic with no clear solution, alas. E.g.:

http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/regaining-access-to-icehousegames-org (wherein Ryan mentions that only Brian Campbell has full control over the wiki). In that thread, Ryan said:

During my last conversation with IceWiki admin Brian Campbell, he told me he was willing to turn the keys over to anyone qualified and attentive enough to fill his shoes.

So perhaps you can be that shoe-filler!

Thanks! I'm now in touch with Brian and we're formulating a plan to repair the existing site, and then, who knows? This is looking positive!

Excellent! Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this.

This is great!!! I wish you well in this endeavor.

I was just asking about this in a recent post, as I have updates to Armada (now Armada 2K) which I don't currently have a very good place to post.

Thank you.

BTW: I also see the same errors that Russ indicates when I log into the icehousegames.org/wiki site.

This is great news!  I reached out to do the same close to 2 years ago and was met with silence, but this sounds like progress to me.  I'll throw my hat into the ring for cleaning up articles, playing games, general maintenance, whatever you need.

Quick Aside: WRT tagging games for Pyramid Arcade, we enabled Semantic MediaWiki some time ago and, IIRC, there are various pages that use queries to generate lists of games (I write "IIRC" because it's been years since I was actively developing the site and its templates and taxonomy).

In all honesty, I think an all-new wiki with VERY well-structured Categories and Semantics would be best at this point. We could port over games (using VERY clean and consistent templates and Infoboxes) as time permits, perhaps even porting into two 'bins' (major Categories): Finished versus In Development, and make the In Dev Category less obvious (and exclusive from any Semantically-generated pages/lists!). Folks who want to help playtest can find them, sure; but they are not as 'front and center' for new pyramid fans, hopefully avoiding giving bad impressions (e.g., I wouldn't want ANYONE to think Stacktors is Finished or even out of Alpha!).

[Here's hoping this time around something improves--this issue comes up about semi-annually....]

Brian replied to my emails, and has been friendly and apologetic, but hasn't been able to make time to allow me to help in the last two weeks.

Unless he helps me out this weekend by sending the database dump, I'm probably going to start rebuilding the wiki from scratch, as you suggest. It will suck to lose the edit history of the old site, but if this has been going on for over two years, something has to give.

I'm gonna get a modicum of content worked out, structure it well and then I might open it up to anyone who wants access. I want to theme it inspired by Pyramid Arcade's geometric artwork, making it still a MediaWiki installation, but a custom one.

I've written up a few notes about what the site should focus on, and what a game page should have on it to be considered 'well written' or 'feature' quality:

https://gist.github.com/Glutnix/9daecc1581f82cfb04b12c8b36088a55

Basing it on mediawiki still means you or some successor will need to periodically maintain/upgrade the underlying mediawiki software, right? Especially if you're wanting to customize the mediawiki installation (that seems kind of a possible red flag for the future, if you later want to hand over the keys to a successor). So one possible alternative is to use some existing wiki hosting site which itself maintains the underlying wiki software, e.g. http://fandom.wikia.com/games

(I mention this only in the spirit of brainstorming and consideration of the KISS principle, not because I think wikia per se is necessarily better or more suited than mediawiki.)

Good point. I don't know how powerful Wikia is, but I think the main point for this site existing is discovering new games you can play. I haven't had a deep good play with Wikia or Semantic MediaWiki yet, but KISS "Keeping It Simple, Silly" is definitely on my mind.

BTW I just noticed/remembered that Decktet has a nice looking wiki http://decktet.wikidot.com/ (which seems to be periodically updated, so it's not dead like the icehousewiki).

So perhaps wikidot is a good alternative. Looks less "commercial/spammy" than wikia. And perhaps there might even be some cross-pollination between Decktet and Looney pyramid fans?

Heh. According to their terms of service, they prohibit "pyramid schemes".

I'd really prefer to use a hosted service like Wikidot or Wikia, mainly because they would fight spam and keep the site up. 

I've spent a few hours today playing with Wikidot (because of the reasons you said), and have found it a struggle to do basic things I know how to do in MediaWiki. The [[div]] syntax they have is really annoying, and especially because if it has textual content, it puts a <p> tag inside it whether you want it or not.

After trying Wikidot and being unsatisfied, I checked out Wikia. It's VASTLY better, and actually based on MediaWiki. Let's go with that. 

So, without further ado...

. . . . pyramids.wikia.com . . . .

I've got IceDice up as an exemplar.

First community wiki mission: Make pages for all 22 games of Pyramid Arcade!

I'll give anyone with an account here for more than two months any access they desire. Andy and Kristin Looney, this is for you guys!

. . .

Also, icehousegames.org is having DNS issues this weekend, so that's no good. I don't know if we can rescue content from there. Here's hoping!

Well, we even have a game called Pyramid Scheme. :)

Thanks for working on this! It's been a long time since we've been able to move forward.

I did a lot of work with fixing dead links in the past (and finding games that had gone missing or offline). One of the things that I'd recommend going forward is to simply post the game rules on the wiki. We did a lot of linking, so as to not bother those who might not want their games shared on a community site. Several of those links are now dead (and someone will have to find the games again). Personally, I'd be for posting the rules of those games that are not for sale in some other form or where the designer hasn't specifically denied permission to print or distribute the rules. They can always then ask for us to remove the rules on demand. I can do what I can to help retrieve broken rules in the future.

Funny, the site is offline today, just when I was going to send over a few links to some game players. So, yes, fixing the wiki would be wonderful, indeed, as I've been linking to it to encourage a few friends to contribute to the kickstarter!

"Also, icehousegames.org is having DNS issues this weekend, so that's no good. I don't know if we can rescue content from there. Here's hoping!"

Are you actually saying that we just lost Icehousegames.org?

Yikes, that would be a huge tragedy for the community! Wow. In the middle of the Kickstarter and everything. There's so much irreplaceable data on there; the sooner we get that back, the better (even if it has to remain in its present form).

I didn't realize that you would have to start from scratch with the new wiki. It seems a daunting task in that sense.

Brian sent me the database today, so I'll be taking a stab at getting it upgraded and working locally, then I can send him what I have back to deploy live. Apparently the domain name Icehousegames.org is under someone else's control, and the DNS is flaking out right now. Brian has ownership of http://pyramidgames.org/ and has that pointing at the wiki, so not all is lost. I'd rather restore and redeem the IceWiki than start a new one. Too much history there not to honour it.

I just realized that I already have an old wikia.com account I'd forgotten about; I am goulo there. I think a single account maps across whatever wikis have given it access there (right?) so you can give me editing access, thanks!

It's working now. At least we have access to the archives again!

I have signed up (MyCakey) and started to add a couple pages, using the Icehouse wiki to work from.

I don't have loads of time to do much, but will aim to focus all my procrastination in this direction.

Now that we have movement with icehousegames.org wiki, I'd rather focus the attention to that, when it's open to public editing again.

Which should be, with luck and time on our side, within seven days. No guarantees on the timeframe though.

We'll need a small team of wiki admins to help raise standards, that's for sure.

Thank you all for digging in and working on this!    Although I do think it is important that this remain a fan run endeavor, please know that Looney Labs is happy to throw in a bit of financial support if this is ever needed...  I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with!  

Attached is my current copy of the rules for Armada 2K. I do need to add a "Thanks" section in there, and probably tweak/fix some stuff.

A subtle change, but I think it does balance things very nicely! Nice work on this :)

People have just sort of been posting games here and there, some on their own websites. It kind of messed things up as far as having a central place and has probably been part of the reason that we haven't had community Ice Awards in the last few years. 

Personally, I have minor updates to some of the games I designed that I haven't been able to post (nothing earth shattering there). There are a few new designers who have kept us up to date on things through this forum.

FWIW I started a discussion about this a while back at BGG:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/530254/do-2-queens-1-drone-lead-draw

I play sometimes at SDG and this sort of endgame with few pieces comes up somewhat often indeed. But to my surprise there often seem to be sneaky ways that the person ahead on points manipulates the situation to nonetheless end the game, despite my attempts to keep drawing it out. Or else I am just a lame player (quite possible!) :)

E.g. http://superdupergames.org/?page=archive_play&gid=28819&idx=48

I'm interested whether I (blue) simply bumbled, or whether wil (red) indeed successfully forced termination in games like this.

Either way, I agree that even if termination is force-able with 3 queens, nonetheless with casual players the game will draw out forever. I suppose it's a question of taste whether this is a problem, or whether it's fine for players to simply agree to a tie in that case!

Hi Russ, 

This is really interesting. I replayed the whole game and initially thought that you made a blunder, and I backtracked the game to an earlier point. But I noticed that once you were more than 3 points behind, and the end game with 3 queens started, you were doomed. The reason is as follows.

In order to prevent a similar maneuver, you would have to prevent Wil from occupying either d5 or a5. But you can't, because he can place his queens in any column and on any field on his quadrant. Notice that you can't capture his queen, because you will lose (being behind more than 3 points). So, he will maneuver both his queens to d5 AND a5 (but this is not even necessary), and then put one of his queens in front of the other on your quadrant to force you to take one of his queens (or lose by being captured yourself). After that move, he has only one queen and can end the game and win.

However, as a result of this endgame, I noticed that there is a difference with my scenario. You were MORE than 3 points behind. In that case, the other player can simply attack (threaten to capture) any of your queens. Since you don't want to end the game, you will move out of the way.He is not interested in capturing the queen you have, but will have you capture his! (Sneakiest!)

But if you are 3 points or less behind, then this maneuver would not work. You would be able to win by capturing his queen. Because even if it is a tie, you win by moving last. This does not prove that another maneuver is not possible, though.

I looked at the endgame mentioned on BoardGameGeek. (Thanks for the link!) But I couldn't go over all the variations. It seems, however, that the situation can be extended indefinitely, as long as the player who is behind will always move in such a way as to either cover a4 or d4, or if not, then the other player can not move to both. I've tried a lot of variations, and I couldn't see how the stronger player could force the game to end. As a result, I thought it more interesting to share this challenge with other Starship Captains . . . 

The game sounds pretty good.

The rules jump between "Clippers" and "Cutters" a lot, but they are the same unit. You mention that the Clippers/Cutters have 2 cannons and can take 2 hits, but you also need to mention that Galleons have 3 cannons and can take 3? hits.

Without playing the game, I was thinking you could possibly use the coloured IceDice dice for combat in place of regular dice. Rolling the opponents colour would be a hit, while rolling a wild could be a crit and count as either 2 hits, or 1 hit and you get to roll an additional dice. This would allow a Clipper/Cutter to potentially KO a Galleon one on one without retaliation (at the expense of a lower hit chance). 

Thanks for the feedback! Good catch with the clipper/cutter thing. I'll go change it so that it's consistent throughout.

And thanks for the idea about the dice rolling. I like your idea! I'll try it out next time I play with my wife and see how it feels. The only downside I see to that idea is that there's really only a 1/3 of getting either a hit or a critical. That may lead to some boring battles with many misses. But it could up the tension, and I do like the idea of a cutter being able to take on a galleon. Without that rule, it pretty much forces a player to bring in two cutters if they're hoping to tackle a galleon. That ups the strategy a bit.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback! I'll tweak the rules accordingly. If you get a chance to actually try the game out, let me know how it goes!

Currently, if a Galleon attacked a Cutter, the result is pretty much a foregone conclusion as it will always get two attacks. There could be the potential to add a withdrawal chance. In this case, if you survived the first barrage you might attempt to withdrawal to a neighbouring spot inplace of returning fire. Instead of rolling for hits, you are rolling for a chance to flee. You could even go further and say that when withdrawing, if you are carring goods you get one less dice to roll. The problem with this option is where can you withdraw to that is fair? (maybe the attacking player could choose where you have to withdraw to)

Even with the lower hit chance, I think 2 hits for a crit could actually be overpowered. The crit being worth a hit and another dice roll isn't as strong, but it means that there is always a chance of pulling off a miracle. The odds of getting a hit would be lower, but with an extra roll for crits it also means there is unlimited potential damage. Imagine your opponent has a Cutter and a Galleon together and is about to bank the goods for the victory. You can only get a Cutter to the action before he caps, but with extra rolls you could potentially wipe out his fleet. It is unlikely to happen, but at least you can have that last roll of the dice. If the impossible happens it will create pretty memorable game too.

I will try to convince my wife to try it. I think I will have a better chance with this than most pyramid games as it isn't so abstract.

I did have one instance in my own playtest where a clipper (calling them this from now on) was able to sink a galleon, even with the extremely low odds of the 50/50 chance (the galleon kept missing repeatedly), but it's extremely unlikely and pretty much forces a player to try to always keep an extra clipper around as a "bodyguard" if they think one of their spice-carrying ships is going to get attacked on the next turn.

I did want the galleons to be noticeably more powerful than the clippers in term of firepower and spice-carrying ability, especially since they are so slow, and each player only has one. It can take many moves to get your galleon where you want it to be, and to have it be sunk by a solitary clipper may be frustrating. That said, I do like the idea of there at least being SOME wild chance of it happening. Your idea of just rolling an extra dice as a "critical hit" does seem to be the most balanced for this, as it provides the potential to KO a galleon, but the odds are very small. Do you think the "critical extra shot" would stack? For instance, say you rolled a wild, and then on your extra roll, you immediately rolled a wild again, could the clipper keep firing indefinitely if the rolls were lucky enough? This also seems potentially overpowered...

If you do get the chance to try it, feel free to either try it with the original combat rules, or with your own ideas (or both!) and let me know how it goes and which you prefer. I'll also try play testing with your suggested combat rules and see how it feels.

Oh, and regarding the withdrawal idea. I like it, but it does seem potentially problematic, since there may be times where withdrawing will always be beneficial, regardless of where the opponent sends you. Still, I guess that could be part of the strategy: position yourself where you know that you can withdraw anywhere and still be closer to your goal, thus lowering the likelihood that your opponent will want to attack you there.

It has a lot of potential. I'll also try play testing this rule and see how it works. Thanks again for the thoughtful and creative feedback!

Hi, Daniel:

I tried this over the weekend - well thought out game.  Quick question - when you redeem a worker, does the worker 'leave' the island and go back in to your pool whether gathering spice or selling it?  I assumed that was what was meant, and how we played it, but wanted to be sure.  I will provide some more feedback after we get a couple of games in, as we only played once, but I liked what I tried.  :)

Thanks!

Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for trying the game out! You are indeed correct. Redeemed workers immediately go back into your worker pool. I will tweak the rules to make that more clear.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Let me know if anything else jumps out at you after a couple more games, or if there's anything about the rules you don't care for.

Daniel

Just so everyone's aware, I tweaked the combat system just a little bit. Previously, I had state a rule that clippers are always sunk first in combat involving more than one ship on each side. The new rule, however, is that the attacker may choose which ship is hit, each time a successful hit is made. This way, the attacker could potentially focus all fire on the opponent's galleon instead of the clippers automatically absorbing hits first. 

I think that's a great idea - makes a lot of sense.  Hopefully I'll get to try it out this evening with my sons.  Cheers!

I tried it with my suggested changes with mixed results. I think using the IceDice might slow the game down too much as it takes a while for your mind to register the other players colour as a hit. I also only had 3 dice when more would be preferred. After a couple of tries, I ended up grabbing a stack of defense dice from Arcadia Quest which have 4 blank faces, a crit and a shield which I was using as a standard hit. This worked really well, but the combat might be too random. I attacked my wife once with one Clipper vs 3 of her ships. Rolling 7 dice at a time she actually rolled all blanks twice in a row which was pretty amazing. I ended up winning the game 25 coins to 0, but she still said she liked the game.

I am still not 100% about how combat works. I was playing that if I roll 1 hit this attack, that hit carries across to my next roll. Once I have enough cumulative hits to take out a ship, I destroy it (and steal or discard any goods).

Thanks for the feedback on the alternative combat method! I was hoping to make the game more accessible, so that's why I decided to go with regular d6 dice and allow there to be a 50/50 chance of a hit.

You're correct about combat. Any hits you accumulate from one "salvo" will carry over to the next. So, say you have a clipper fighting another clipper, and in your first salvo (in which you would roll two dice) you score one hit and cause one damage to your opponent. Your opponent's clipper now has only 1 "hit point" remaining, but it is alive, so it can still fire back with both cannons. But your opponent misses both shots. You roll again, and again score one hit. This hit, combined with the hit from your first roll, is enough to sink your opponent, and you can then steal or discard any goods.

Make sense? Any suggestions to how I could make this clearer in the rules? Thanks again for the feedback.

I enjoyed this.  The balance of actions is impressive.  It's particularly interesting that combat heavily favors the attacker, but isn't always worth its cost in actions.  It was also fun to imagine a worker stranded on a dock after its clipper was attacked, to be redeemed by the galleon later.

I had to keep reminding myself that redeeming a worker didn't use up an action, though, and wasn't quite clear on whether that had to be done before taking any other actions.  A board would also be nice, to make it clearer where ships could move, but isn't essential.

Thanks for the feedback, Eric!

According to the rules, a worker wouldn't be able to be stranded on an island if all of your own ships there are destroyed. If you move your own ships away from the island or they get destroyed while your worker is still on the island, the worker is immediately moved back to your worker supply. Was this somewhat unclear in the rules? Do you think it would be more fun and/or interesting to have workers be stranded if ships are destroyed? The reason I made the rule that they are removed immediately is because that increases the incentive for someone to attack if their opponent has a worker on an island they want access to. If workers remained on islands after ships are destroyed, it would be easy to block off a desired island with a worker and just leave it there indefinitely.

I figured the "free" action rule for redeeming workers may cause some confusion. The rules as I wrote them state that a worker can be redeemed at any point during a turn, so you can choose whether to do this before or after other actions. Do you think it would make more sense to have redeeming a worker also cost an action? I will try to play test this and see how it functions. It may be necessary to increase the turn limit to 4 actions then, although that could break the balance of other actions. Hmm... I'll give it some more thought, but do let me know what you think would work best!

I agree that a board would be helpful! Perhaps I will try working on a print and play board to go with this, and see how that goes.

Thanks again for the feedback and for giving the game a shot.

Just a heads up to everyone: I added a new layout diagram to the rules that should be clearer. You could theoretically also use this layout as a PnP board, although I haven't tried it myself yet so I'm not sure if the dimensions are correct for playing with. Let me know if anyone gets a chance to try it out!

>>

Clearly, player C is doing worse than the other two players, because he uses twice a 3-pip to branch off an opponent's 1-pip, while players A and B use a 1-pip and a 2-pip respectively.

<<

I've not studied the argument in great detail, so I may be missing some subtlety, but it seems like you are basing it off of your personal idea of what "fairness" and "doing worse" should be, instead of what they actually are in terms of the rules as written, and the strategic/tactical implications of the rules as written.

It seems perhaps analogous to someone wanting to change the rules of Chess so that a player who is checkmated does not in fact lose if he actually has more material still on the board, because the player with less material "is doing worse", so it's not "fair" that the player with less material would win. Just as a Chess player may cleverly sacrifice material (which might seem "worse" to do - surely it's bad to lose material!) if it wins the game by the actual victory conditions, similarly a Branches player may cleverly place their 3-pippers (which might seem "worse" to do - surely it's bad to place your 3-pippers pointing at another player's pyramid!) if it wins the game by the actual victory conditions.

I.e., is player C really "doing worse"? Or is player C simply playing well and exploiting the rules as they are, and their scoring implications?

Or so it seems to me as my initial reaction, though I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. :)

Either way, I cannot imagine arbitrarily changing the rules of the game based on such a seemingly subjective argument about "fairness" without at least confirming with the game's author (Andrew Plotkin) to get his agreement and blessing to change the rules.

Hi Russ,
You have some good and some not so good points.
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Starting with "I've not studied the argument in great detail," doesn't give me much confidence in the usefulness of your reply. Nevertheless, for the other readers who take the time to study the few details, it will be evident that my rule is sound and gives identical results for a 2-player game. This takes care of your argument about its "arbitrariness".
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A better point you make is to verify with the author what the intention of the rule is. Regardless of the follow-up, this is a forum to explore ideas. Everybody can judge rules for themselves and share findings and solutions. Worst case would be that the author and I don't agree on what fair means, better is to adopt both rules as viable (answering to different concepts of fairness), and best to acknowledge that the current rule is flawed and the new rule replaces it (and agreement on fairness is established).
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Since yesterday I found another reason to adopt my rule. As the example shows, the current rule still allows for draws in clearly asymmetrical situations in which one player does worse than the others.

This game has, as mentioned, a history of changing the scoring rule. The first version ended too often in a draw. This tells me that "fairness" is perhaps still under development for this game and I hope to contribute to an improvement.
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I will try to contact Andrew Plotkin and inform him of these developments. His input will no doubt have a bearing. Thank you for your initiative and involvement.

Ahoy Starship Captains!

In this follow-up I will correct a mistake I made in the previous post, share an amazing discovery, report back from Andrew Plotking (the inventor of the game), and give a different fair rule that I now believe is the true fair rule.

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To my amazement, I discovered today that there are an infinite number of rules that are identical for 2-player games, but diverge for multiplayer games! That's a surprise to me and a stepping stone that allowed me to find the correct fair rule that I tried to find. 

--

But first, I'd like to correct rule (**) in the original post. I made a copying error. I apologize for the confusion. So, let's correct it immediately and then move on to my discoveries.

Of course, I meant the following.

• (**) If a pyramid with a pips of player A is pointing to another pyramid with b pips of player B, then player A gets apenalty of a tokens, equal to the pip-count of their own pyramid, and player B gets a bonus of b tokens, equal to the pip-count of their own pyramid.

Notice that I just forgot to change values a into b and vice versa, when I copied it from rule (*). Once more, I apologize. This is not Facebook, so I can't change the original post. But this is the next best.

--

And indeed, I contacted Andrew Plotkin, who responded promptly. His answer to get involved in this discussion was the following (he is OK with me quoting him):

"However, it's been so many years since I've looked at it that I'm really no more of an expert than anybody else. I don't expect to touch the web page ever again. So decide whatever you want! I leave it up to you."

That leaves it up to us, then. So, let's go on with an open mind.

--

Well, I intend to figure out what is going on with this intriguing and fun game! I love a challenge. And as I said, I found an infinite number of rules that coincide for the 2-player variant.

Those rules are as follows. Take a parameter 0 <= t <= 1, and consider the following rule for this t.

• (t) If a pyramid with a pips of player A is pointing to another pyramid with b pips of player B, then player A gets a penalty of t.b + (1 - t).a tokens, and player B gets a bonus of t.a + (1 - t).b tokens.

What happens to B - A? Well, it becomes [B + (t.a + (1 - t).b)] - [A - (t.b + (1 - t).a)] = (B - A) + (b + a). Please, check this. Again, the result is identical as before: B - A + (a + b)! Fascinating, isn't it?

So, for any t, these rules coincide for a 2-player game! This gives a bit of a different idea of "arbitrariness", wouldn't you say?

Well, what does this tell us? It tells us that the 2-player variant is in fact a special case, even a degenerate case. That means that any of these infinite counting rules for a 2-player game are naturally fair. But if we want the rules to be fair for a multi-player game, we have to find out what t to use. Note that (*) is the rule where t = 1 and (**) is the rule where t = 0. I had honestly no clue about that yesterday! Note that t does not in fact have to be anywhere between 0 and 1 (it can also be negative or bigger than 1), but as it happens, these seem to be the natural boundaries. At once we can spot that t = 1/2 would also be a nice choice for t; it seems to balance the two "extreme" rules (*) and (**) out. So, let's look at it closer.

What does the rule with t = 1/2 actually mean? It means that player A pays half of the sum value of the involved pyramids to B. But as it stands, if the rule would be to consistently pay double that, it is even easier to grasp. Now we can see that there is really no use for the pot, other than to provide enough tokens across the board: all the exchanges of tokens go from the one that pays the penalty to the one that receives the bonus. So, a small says: it's cheap to dock (branch), but you have to add a penalty for the size of your ship. A large says: It's expensive to dock (branch), but you also need to add a penalty for the size of your ship. In effect, branching off from a large with a small is as "expensive" as branching off from a small with a large. i think that is fair. Notice that rules (*) and (**) aren't so symmetrical! And that was so puzzling at first, since rules (*) and (**) are quite natural.

--

So, let's look at a different situation again that bothered me today, because it showed that my new rule (**) was faulty as well.

(1*,-,(3,3)), (-,1*,(3,3)), (3,3,1*), (3,3,1*).

So, player C branches off with four larges, once with two larges from a small of player A and once with two larges from a small of player B. Also, players A and B branch off from a small of C, both with two larges. Note that player C squanders 4 larges and the other players squander 2 larges, a total of 4 to player C. This ought to balance out. Also, player C squanders them to different players, while he gets the four all for himself. Should player C win? I don't think so. He squanders more than the other players (double the amount) against the same smalls. Perhaps he should play even?

Rule (*) gives the score [6,0,-2] + [0,6,-2] + [-1,-1,6] + [-1,-1,6] = [4,4,8], C wins.

Rule (**) gives the score [2,0,-6] + [0,2,-6] + [-3,-3,2] + [-3,-3,2] = [-4,-4,-8], C loses.

The result of (**) does not feel like fair to me in this situation, and it proved to me that rule (**) is not better than rule (*). It's as far from a tie as (*), just in the opposite direction!

So, what does rule (1/2) do? It gives [4,0,-4] + [0,4,-4] + [-2,-2,4] + [-2,-2,4] = [0,0,0]! Ah! I can live with this, can you?

Note. Multiplying all scores by 2 wouldn't affect who will win! But it prevents half tokens . . . And it's a natural rule that the player being penalized should pay the sum of the values of the pyramids to the player being rewarded. We call this rule (1/2)'.

Perhaps you think it is bad to change my mind so quickly? Not at all, it's a sign of flexibility! As I have been trying to understand what is going on with the scoring rule in this game, I have discovered quite a surprising property of the 2-player game, didn't I? To preserve fairness for multi-player game I am now practically convinced that rule (1/2)--or its cousin (1/2)'--is best.

--
If we go back to the example I gave in my previous post, let's see what rule (1/2)' does in that case.

So, starting with 

(1*,1,3), (1,1*,3), (2,2,1*),

the score with (1/2)' will be

[6,-2,-4] + [-2,6,-4] + [-3,-3,6] = [1,1,-2],

so C loses, just as (**) predicted. Since the result that C loses is the same, it explains why I was so charmed by rule (**). Nevertheless, note that C loses differently in both cases.

With (**) all players are in debt and that is a bit strange, because player A for instance has a total of 4 pips pointing at his 1 by two ships and only points with one medium 2 to a 2 (if it had been two smalls it would have been different). So, player A should have a positive score. And the same for player B. Even though player C loses, it kept bothering me that the result wasn't totally intuitive after yesterday. Now I know why. It wasn't fair either!

Now, with rule (1/2)', we see that player C payed a net of 1 to player A and also 1 to player B. It seems fair. A property of rule (1/2) is that the sum of all penalties (counting negative) and bonuses (counting positive) is zero! So, whoever loses has a negative score, and the winner has the highest positive score.

--

Conclusion. Rule (1/2) or (1/2)' is the preferred scoring for multiplayer games of Branches and Twigs and Thorns!

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I hope I showed that the scoring rule of this game is an intriguing little puzzle and that I solved it satisfactorily. Thanks for reading.

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Your thoughts are welcome.

Hello Starship Captains, here is a short update about the 3-player version of the game.

I am playing sample games in a 3-player version to get a feeling for how the game develops under normal circumstances and how the rules fare (pun intended). I need these real games to prove that our exercise with these counting rules actually make a difference at least in some games.

I played 10 games in all now, each taking about 10 minutes or so and about 10 minutes more to register the scores and do the calculations. In 9 of them ALL rules agree. This was somewhat of a surprise. Perhaps that explains why nobody found any problem with the rules before?

However, today I played one game in which rule (**) was found unfair and rule (1/2) agreed with rule (*)! Another indicator that my previous rule (**) is not fair. When I have played some more games and get a better feeling for the strategy of the players, I will be able to tweak the games and find an example where rules (*) and (**)  do not agree, yet rule (1/2) agrees with rule (**), showing that rule (*) is not fair either.

Once I have found that game, I will post pictures of both "problem" cases, show the involved calculations, so you can see why rule (1/2) is in fact the only fair rule.

I find it exciting times for this "antique" game from 2002!

Ahoy Starship Captains,

in this update about Branches and Twigs and Thorns, I will clarify the fairness of the rule (1/2) a bit more. If you've been studying my notes, you will have noticed that the third player was actually not involved in any comparison. I realized that I just as well might do that and consider the relative score differences that occur for all the mentioned rules. In that way, you can easily see what the effect of each rule is on the third player. Further in this post, I will go over some general considerations for fairness and give more examples that show that rule (1/2) is really the rule to consider.

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The first idea I want to illustrate is that when a player branches off of another player, then this event is independent of any other branching event that may already have happened or will later happen in the game. In other words, all branches can be studied independently. Another way of saying it is that the order in which they happen does not matter for the score. 
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So, let's assume that a ship of size a of player A points to a ship of size b of player B. In our previous notation we wrote (a,b*) or in a 3-player game (a,b*,-). Note that with our previous notation in 3-player game (a,b*,c) = (a,b*,-) + (-,b*,c), so we can study any 3-player situation as the sum of two 2-player situations.
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So, we can ask: how do the score differences change with any such situation (a,b*,-)? We have to consider the new differences B'-A', C'-A' and C'-B' in relation to the old ones B-A, C-A and C-B. Note that this time I have included player C in the calculation of the differences. It seems too obvious to overlook, but we are learning . . .
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Rule (*): 

B'-A' = B+a - (A-b) = B-A + (a+b). We knew this already, but I include it for completeness.
C'-A' = C - (A-b) = C-A + b
C'-B' = C - (B+a) = C-B - a

Rule (**): 

B'-A' = B+b - (A-a) = B-A + (a+b). We knew this already, but I include it for completeness.
C'-A' = C - (A-a) = C-A + a
C'-B' = C - (B+b) = C-B - b

Rule (1/2):

B'-A' = B+(b+a)/2 - (A-(a+b)/2) = B-A + (a+b). We knew this already, but I include it for completeness.
C'-A' = C - (A-(a+b)/2) = C-A + (a+b)/2
C'-B' = C - (B+(a+b)/2) = C-B - (a+b)/2

General Note. Please verify that the score for a fourth player D will behave just like the score for player C and the difference D'-C' is not affected whatsoever. So, every player not involved in a branching will stay at the same level as before relative to each other, no matter what rule is used. That is why we only need to understand the dynamics in a 3-person game.

Rules (*) and (**). A player not involved in the branching will gain an advantage over the player that pays a penalty and a disadvantage relative to the one that receives a bonus, but the amounts seem to be arbitrary. With rule (*) the advantage gained equals the size of the pyramid of the player paying the penalty. With rule (**) the advantage gained equals the size of the pyramid of the player receiving the bonus.

Rule (1/2). A player not involved in the branching will gain an advantage over the player that pays a penalty and a disadvantage relative to the one that received a bonus, with an amount equal to half of the sum of the pyramids involved.

--

To show that rules (*) or (**) are really unfair, I will make it more explicit that the differences C'-A' and C'-B' should at least not depend on only one of the involved pyramids.

--
For instance, I would like the rules to obey the following fairness principle:

• (F1) If in a game situations (a,b*,-), (-,a,b*) and (b*,-,a) happen, then all players should end up with equal score 0.

This is because everybody gains from one player and loses to another the equal amount of points. Let's compute the scores for the sum of these situations.

Rule (*): [-b,a,0] + [0,-b,a] + [a,0,-b] = [a-b,a-b,a-b]. Note that if a<b, then everybody loses b-a points; if a>b, then everybody gains a-b points; if a=b then nobody gains or loses.

Rule (**): [-a,b,0] + [0,-a,b] + [b,0,-a] = [b-a,b-a,b-a]. Note that if a<b, then everybody gains b-a; if a>b, then everybody loses a-b points; if a=b, then nobody gains or loses.

Rule (1/2): [-(a+b)/2,(a+b)/2,0] + [0,-(a+b)/2,(a+b)/2,0] + [(a+b)/2,0,-(a+b)/2] = [0,0,0]. Note that nobody gains or loses, and this result is independent of the values of a and b. This is what we want for a fair rule.

We can ask the question if the effect of rules (*) or (**) might be desirable. To answer this, consider the fourth player: they will either gain or lose an advantage, depending on whether a<b, or b<a (with whatever rule (*) or (**) is played). It seems arbitrary how this goes down and hardly fair. Either the fourth player (not involved in the branching) wins an unfair advantage over the other players, or the other players win an unfair advantage over the fourth player. I believe that the score should be 0, as with rule (1/2), so that a fourth player does not lose or gain from this interaction between the other players.

--

I would also like the rules to obey the following fairness principle:

• (F2) if in a game (b,a*,-), (-,a,b*) and (b*,-,a) happen, then all players should end up with equal score 0.

Note. The only difference between (F2) and (F1) is that (a,b*,-) has been replaced by (b,a*,-)!

Again this should be fair, because everybody gains from one player and loses to another the equal amount of points. However, an easier way of saying this is that (a,b*,-) should have the same impact on everybody's score as (b,a*,-); e.g., branching off with a pawn from a queen is equally bad as branching off with a queen from a pawn. (Note that this IS how a 2-player game is scored after all.)

Another way of formulating (F2) would be:

• (F2)' The score for situation s1 = (a,b*) + (b*,a) must equal the score for situation s2 = (a,b*) + (a*,b).

Let's see what happens: 

Rule (*). [s1] = [-b,a,0] + [a,-b,0] = [a-b,a-b,0], while [s2] = [-b,a,0] + [b,-a,0] = [0,0,0]. Note that in the first case, in fact where the situation between player A and B is truly symmetrical, player C is either a beneficiary of the situation if a<b, or duped if b<a. This seems hardly desirable. Perhaps we could live with the idea that if player A and B branch off of each other, then player C should ALWAYS have an advantage or ALWAYS have a disadvantage; it shouldn't depend on what particular pyramids are used which of the two it is going to be, should it?

Rule (**). [s1] = [-a,b,0] + [b,-a,0] = [b-a,b-a,0], while [s2] = [-a,b,0] + [a,-b,0] = [0,0,0]. Again we see a similar asymmetry occur as with rule (*).

Rule (1/2). [s1] = [-(a+b)/2,(a+b)/2,0] + [(a+b)/2,-(a+b)/2,0] = [0,0,0], while
[s2] = [-(a+b)/2,(a+b)/2,0] + [(a+b)/2,-(a+b)/2,0] = [0,0,0]. Now the situations cancel out as desired.

Note. Since in the case of rule (1/2) the score equals 0 for all involved players, this means that it doesn't have any unfair effect, neither for the involved players, neither for the other players. This seems to be desirable for a fair rule.

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This concludes my current investigation. I will try and play appropriate games which demonstrate these principles and then post pictures of the game end. I played about six 2-player games and am gaining experience with the strategy. The game is totally intriguing. We discovered that being the first to branch off of your opponent may be advantageous! I remember (only a few weeks ago) that it seemed that one had to postpone it the longest, but it isn't so . . .

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Any observations, remarks or questions about this post are welcome.

IIRC, yes, that's a protective film. Try to soak them off in warm water...? I suspect they aren't even really 'adhered' but are that type of plastic that sticks with... magic... static... vacuum...?

Anyway, try something that will break their seal to the smooth plastic. Heck, you might be able to blow them off, if you can get a leading edge started.

Sorry I can't help more;

David

Hi Dave,

Yes, you have to peel off the paper on either side. It's a little tricky but after you've done a few you get the hang of it.

I suggest the careful use of a razor blade.  Carefully pick at the edges until you can get a fFinger nail under the paper.

Thanks for the info, folks. I rubbed one ELBS against another, and that did the trick.

Lovely!

Nice!

Neat idea!

very cool - can you post a picture of them?

Sure, Kristin, I was still learning about the interface.

So, here are the pictures. They are small versions of the boards in Boards.zip.

Below are some pictures of the boards in Boards V2.0.zip (no multiplayer configurations yet, but I assure you it's possible!). Again, you will need two copies of each to make all multi-player options!

[Technical info. I designed these today (Jan 25, 2016) after playing with some other options. These boards are also released under the cc-by-nc 4.0 creative common license (see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ for more details).]

Here is at least one Multiplayer option with Boards V2.0. It's the configuration for 3 players.
Have fun!

And now with 4 diagonals added. Note that "going straight" (horizontally or vertically) is always easy.

I added a photo album with comments explaining how to form each board and the number of solutions.

See Multiplayer Boards Album

Have fun!

Impressive, good job.  Thank you fFor all the demonstrative pictures, as well.  Very nice.

I hope any important news continues to be posted here. (Not everyone uses Facebook.) :)

You can only move to adjacent cards. Diagonally connected cards are not adjacent. Don't overthink it.

Thank you Jeff,

Yes, this was my first impression also, and I accept it. Thank you for confirming this.

However, what about the digital connection rule? How is it that two cards that lie diagonally are "connected" in any way (other than geometrically)? Perhaps that is just a way to keep track of how the board is forming?

The original rules for Zark City did not have the "Fly" action and did not have the concept of "diagonally connected". The two go together. Without Fly, you can't have a card that's diagonally connected without being adjacent somewhere. I don't remember Andy ever saying why he allowed cards to be diagonally connected but not adjacent after Fly. So anything else I might say would just be speculation.

Thanks again for sharing a piece of information. I just now studied version 1 and version 2, and indeed it seems that only the Fly action and the diagonally placed cards have changed.
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In order to understand why V2.0 is the preferred version, I need to understand why it exists at all. What failed in V1.0? Note that in V1.0 cards would always stay adjacent, so that movement across the board is always possible. If the board like in V2.0 can be "connected" but not adjacent, that means that in order to move your pieces to the part that is not reachable by moving to adjacent cards, you will need to use "Fly" at a different moment. OK, that solves the problem of being disconnected (not adjacent).

--

I'm studying the rules and I like what I imagine the game to be. It seems a lot of fun. I don't understand yet why Fly was introduced and how it "improves" the game. V1.0 and V2.0 look pretty much the same to me from a conceptual standpoint. But let's see. Here's an attempt to reach understanding of this.
--
Fly doesn't only allow you to move your own pieces, it also gives the option to move other players' pieces. If they get disconnected from their pieces at strategic times, it may make it harder for them to reach their goal. So, my conjecture is that in the gameplay of V1.0 it was too easy to win. That is, basically, because the one that is better and moves first, will win. In V2.0 it will be more difficult to win, so that it will take more planning and strategy to win. As a result, the "diagonal connection" is a way for the board to stay "relatively small" and not more than one card is needed to get all cards adjacent again. In theory, one could allow cards to go *anywhere* (if all possible positions were marked), but then the cards would probably fly off the table after a while! :-)
--
Just my five cents. (I'm pretty much satisfied with my explanation and the level of understanding here.)
--
If Andy ever reads this, I wonder if he agrees . . .

If a card becomes semi-disconnected because it's not adjacent, you can re-establish adjacency by Building a new card. You don't need to Fly.

--

If you're looking here at Version 1 and Version 2:

http://wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/ZarkCity/index.html

go here for an even more recent version of the rules:

http://www.looneylabs.com/rules/zark-city

The primary difference is that Aces can also be used to attack, so you aren't stuck with them if you don't want to Fly.

--

I haven't played Zark City a lot, and not at all recently, so I'm not exactly an expert on Zark City strategy. But I think you're underestimating the offensive uses of Fly. If I have a three of clubs in my hand, do I place it next to the four of clubs or the three of hearts? If I place it next to the four and then draw the three of diamonds, all need not be lost. I can build my Power Block in two pieces and then use Fly to bring them together (if I can draw an Ace, of course). You can no longer necessarily ignore a partial Power Block just because the other cards are on the board somewhere else.

That's a great response, Jeff.

Thanks for the references to the different rule sets (I am sure I have confused them at times). Versions 2 are only different in wording, I suppose.

Other differences between V1.0 and V2.0 are:

• In V2.0 you always draw a card (and therefore, you either have to use it or discard another card). 
• Attack works different. In V1.0 you use the amount of high cards per pip, in V2.0, the high cards have different point. This gives an extra option to draw cards and gives different value to the high cards.

All in all this makes the game more active (and fun), I suppose.

I agree with your insights and it totally resolves my questions.

You do not have to make a move if you don't want to. That is true in both Looney Ludo and Pharaoh.

So we were playing in the right way. Thanks!

Thanks for this info and the photos!

So it seems that (to my eye anyway) the differences are visible if I look for them, but quite negligible and shouldn't affect play of anything I play. :)

This is very good news!  I'm actually pretty relieved!  I was imagining something really rounded and kind of fFunny looking.  This is great!

By the way, since you mention it: I too have been using some round metal tins.  I'll have to get some kind of pictures.  Say, if you wanted to carry more than one or two tins, do you put them in something to keep them together?  I have a stretched out sock they can go in, but it's not great.  Usually I'll just have a couple tins, which slide into my pants pocket very nicely.

They look good! In my experience, I find that the bottom edges of the pyramids are just as sharp as the point... Will those edges also be smoothed a bit in the new version? Either way, I bet the rounded ones will be just as painful to step on!

No more Spicklehead!

Probably a good thing....

They look good, and looks like they fit nicely with older generations.

Am really looking forward to seeing pyramids available in Europe again!

Spicklehead was probably to popular with Europeans.  So now they can only have rounded pyramids. It is probably a good thing.

One of my personal favorites is TimeLock. And it can be played with the pyramids and items in the set.

My two cents -- the more multi-level strategy games the better. Maybe it's time to mine the Wiki for accessible items? 

Awesome!  You've hit on my fFavs!

"Hijinks" was otherwise known as "Pink Hijinks" yeah?  I can understand the name change there, just wondering.

Perhaps, if you're taking suggestions fFor more on the 'more' list, you could add Logger.  It doesn't require any other pyramids, since the pyramids used are not dependent on color.  Also, Alien City is a great game, but it may require too much extra stuff to be a good entry on the list (specifically a Piecepack).  And, the last one I shall nominate is Extinction, which is similar to Pikemen, but with different kinds of rules regarding movement and winning.

Definitely Gnostica, unless you'll already be mentioning it under Zark City. I like Virus Fight, and Branches, Twigs, & Thorns. And I'll second Alien City; even though piecepack isn't easily-gathered, it's not TOO hard to make your own set. I'll also humbly nominate my games Pylon and Quintazone... The latter could cross-promote Aquarius. And there's always Spicklehead!!

I'm surprised by the selection of Pyramid Shambo over Nothing Beats a Large, so I nominate Nothing. (At the very least, it has a great title.)

One of our favorite pyramid games is CrackeD Ice, so I nominate it also. It just requires one extra component, although spare CDs aren't as ubiquitous as they were thirteen years ago. (We play a variant that allows placing pyramids on their side.)

I don't feel like I've played Crosswalk enough to nominate it, so I'll just mention it for purposes of discussion. In the same vein: Blam!

Yes, since there aren't any pink pieces in the Arcade, and color doesn't matter anyway, we're just calling it Hijinks. This makes Pink Hijinks a pink edition of the game Hijinks.

I think Pyramid Shambo is a better game that Nothing Beats a Large and clever though the latter may be, the two games are too similar for both to be included. So Pyramid Shambo wins out.

I'm tossing in Freeze Tag, by my friend Rink, which brings us up to 18 nominations:

* Icehouse /\


* Zendo /\


* RAMbots /\


* Pikemen /\


* TimeLock


* Logger


* Alien City


* Extinction


* Gnostica /\


* Virus Fight


* Branches, Twigs, & Thorns


* Pylon

* Quintazone


* Nothing Beats a Large


* CrackeD Ice


* Crosswalk


* Blam!



* Freeze Tag

Keep 'em coming! We need to get beyond 22 so that we can start voting and choosing!

I'll suggest Martian Backgammon, Tic Tac Doh!, Pyrinoes (which requires dominoes), and Nile.

Certainly I will second your mentioned candidates:

Gnostica

Zendo

Blam

RAMbots

Pikemen

Branches and Twigs and Thorns

Alien City (even though it needs Piecepack tiles)

I'd add:

Gleebs and Grues

Stack Control

Tic Tac Doh

and I'll immodestly plug my own Stawvs and Ricochet Pyramids which I've had people request to play sometimes. :)

Beyond what has already been suggested, here are my recommendations!

• Amoeba - Requires poker chips and some extra pyramids, but is a lot of fun.
• Armada - Great little strategy abstract. Should be playable without any extras, if the rules are tweaked slightly to allow for color variation (it's asymmetrical, and piece size distinguishes who owns which pieces, rather than color)
• Dog Eat Dog - Only requires some d6 dice.

I'll second Armada: That was the game that really made me think, "Woah... these are a new class of playing piece, not just 'board game' pieces" because it's at its core a "miniature game" not a "board game" (to me).

Might I also suggest Ikkozendo, as it's playable with one TH set... or, really, any collection of 'mids--you just lose available characteristics when you don't have many colors (e.g., "has a pink medium"). And because all players need only two koans at all times, it's very piece-lite (and thus pocket-friendly). It's drawbacks are primarily memory-related: You really need to be present for a whole round, to hear each guess and to see each change in the koans; and there's nothing to 'review' in terms of previous koans marked black or white. Some would consider that a feature; and it makes two-player much more viable in a tight space (e.g., at bar or in small booth)..

And as long as we're pimpin', I get good traction with Moon Shot when I bust it out to kill time between longer games. Down side: no more tubes. [I reckon that kills it out of the gate, but worth a mention.]

In general, I'd try to showcase as many play STYLES as possible: solo, duel, multiplayer; cooperative, competitive; no-, variable-, static-board; pieces as counters, units/minis, or shared resources; luck, strategy, dexterity, memory; and so forth. Let the fact that 'mids are the first new type of playing piece since the playing card inspire your presentation of this 'relaunch'! I would especially be sure that the majority of games leverage stacking, nesting, and relative physical sizes: Without those elements of the physicality of the pieces, many, MANY games can be played with substitutions (e.g., LEGOS, coins, chess pieces).

Thank you for asking!

David

FWIW: A few years back, I tried Armada a few times with interest (since I liked the idea of it), but we found that (like the GEV problem in original Ogre), a fleet of small ships was just too powerfully maneuverable and fast, and they easily beat the fleet of big ships. Have others not found this to be the case?

I am not sure I have played enough games of it to tell whether the small ships always have an advantage, but I think this could theoretically be remedied by just having each player have the same ships (e.g., 2 large, 2 medium, and two small). Not sure how that works in practice though.

The mention of Nile makes me happy.  It seemed, when it came out, that it was largely panned, and even the designer seemed pressed to take note of it's existence.  Despite this, I find it to be an interesting Euro-style game.

It should probably receive a /\ symbol, since it does require 5 nests of red, yellow, blue, and green.  Although one could combine colors, such as 3 red and 2 orange.  With some care, one could make any colored piece represent money and workers, so long as you don't mix them.  But it's probably better to stick with single colors, so the /\ is appropriate.

How do you fFeel about the game Undercut?  It has been widely published as the game Karesansui.  It's a great game!  But also, it's not a Looney Pyramids game anymore.  Maybe it's encouraging to see other games get designed and published?  Or maybe we let those guys do their own marketing.  I dunno.

My friend & I also thought that starting each side with the same set of ships would be the obvious fix, but alas we never got around to trying it out.

I suggest a draft system, with each player allowed no more than 12 points of ships. Doesn't lead to equivalence; doesn't lead (often) to heavy imbalances. Then, setup either behind screens or alternating placement in starting areas at opposite ends of the field (e.g., the ships 'warp into battle' like in Star Wars).

I'd also suggest including 'terrain': I often used tubes as 'impassible' regions and tube caps as teleporters/wormholes (touch either one with tip of mid, appear facing same direction at other one with base of mid in contact).

Finally, don't underestimate multiplayer! Either a Circle of Death (enemy to left; theoretical allies opposite, if 4+ players) or freeform alliances (i.e., backstabby Diplomacy analog).

Bonus Note: A trick to distinguish teams when you use only a single (or a couple) of monochrome stashes is to place small stones, dice, or plastic 'gems' inside each mid. If doing so, I highly suggest translucent (ideally, clear) stashes! :)

That sounds like the perfect solution! I will definitely try it out.

Here’s the list I have now… * Icehouse /\ 
* Zendo /\ * RAMbots /\
 * Pikemen /\ * TimeLock 
* Logger 
* Alien City 
* Extinction 
* Gnostica /\ 
* Virus Fight 
* Branches, Twigs, & Thorns
 * Pylon * Quintazone * CrackeD Ice * Crosswalk * Blam! * Freeze Tag * Tic Tac Doh! * Pyrinoes * Nile * Stack Control 
* Gleebs and Grues
 * Stawvs * Ricochet Pyramids * Amoeba * Armada * Dog Eat Dog * Ikkozendo * Undercut Note that I dropped Nothing Beats a Large and rejected Martian Backgammon. Thanks for the nods but enough of my games are being featured in the box itself. I want everything on the 22 Other Games list to be other peoples’ games. Also, sorry David, but I’m afraid the need for tubes leaves Moon Shot out of the running. That puts this list at 29. No one has suggested anything in awhile, so let’s close the nominations. What 7 games should NOT be on this list? Are all of these truly worthy? Can anyone suggest something to take off the list?

I'd remove:

Armada: As noted in some earlier discussion, my friend and I found Armada to be disappointingly seriously unbalanced with its rules as written (fleet of bigger ships is easily beaten by fleet of smaller ships). With some modification, it could be an interesting and worthy "miniatures style" (gridless / continuous space) simple battle game. The idea of it is cool, so if you want to playtest and develop it yourself, it seems worthy. My BGG user comment:

As written, it seems to have the all-too-common "fuzzy wuzzy fallacy" of lots of small fast ships being able to destroy a few big slow ships.

We want to try again with a couple rule tweaks to try to tone down the small/medium power vs larges:
1. Small ships move 3 steps (as you'd expect, instead of 4).
2. Range for ships is their ship size, instead of all ships firing long like big ships do.

Or play with equal forces on both sides.

(But we never did try it again, which perhaps is indicative...)

Cracked Ice: "I'm not in the target audience for this kind of silly dexterity / balancing game. It also lasts longer than I'd like (15 or 20 minutes) - for a "physical" game, I'd much rather just play Drip in 1 minute."

Crosswalk: "After 1 play, we were not impressed; too random and drawn out."

====

FWIW: I've personally played with various people and definitely enjoyed:

Zendo, RAMbots, Pikemen, Alien City, Gnostica, Branches/Twigs/Thorns, Blam, Tic Tac Doh (These all seem definitely worthy of inclusion as I think they are not only good but also well known "classics" one way or another in the pyramid community, e.g. appearing in the Playing with Pyramids book or implemented at SuperDuperGames or discussed relatively often at BGG, etc)

Stack Control, Gleebs and Grues, Stawvs, Ricochet Robots, Extinction (I enjoy and recommend these too, but they seem less well known, if that matters)

===

Uncertain for me:

Amoeba: I played Amoeba twice long ago and wrote "Shares some similarities to Knizia's Ingenious. Need to play more to evaluate." So I'm not sure what I think about it. :)

Icehouse: I played several times with various people, and we found its strategy opaque and confusing and kept wondering what we were missing, giving its legendary reputation; if I recall, the need to "be cool" or whatever was also a bit confusing/offputting as it makes it sound like "the game is broken if you don't sometimes make suboptimal moves just to keep the game from deadlocking" or something.) Eventually we all lost interest, and I found Ice Towers to be much more pleasing (easier to explain, clearer strategy, more fun, etc - and I'm glad to see Ice Towers is included as a main game in the product). But maybe for historical reasons it should be included? :)

No idea (never played them) about TimeLock, Logger, Virus Fight (somehow it looks more complicated than a typical pyramid game), Pylon, Quintazone, Freeze Tag, Pyrinoes, Nile, Dog Eat Dog, Ikkozendo, Undercut.

(I think I covered all 29 games in your list...) :)

Here are my suggestions:

Great feedback, thanks!! I’ve sorted this into 3 lists now: Yes, No, and Maybe. The Yes + Maybe list totals 22, so nothing new can be added unless something else comes off the Maybe list. Further thoughts?


Yes (17)


* Icehouse /\ 
* Zendo /\
 * RAMbots /\
 * Pikemen /\
 * Gnostica /\
* Branches, Twigs, & Thorns 
* TimeLock
* Logger 
* Alien City 
* Extinction
* Pylon
 * Blam! 
* Freeze Tag 
* Tic Tac Doh! 
* Stack Control 
* Amoeba 
* Undercut


MAYBE (5)


* Nile * Pyrinoes
 * Gleebs and Grues
 * Stawvs
 * Armada

NO (7)


* Crosswalk 
* Ikkozendo
 * CrackeD Ice 
* Dog Eat Dog 
* Virus Fight
 * Ricochet Pyramids
 * Quintazone



FWIW:

Ricochet Pyramids is not really like RAMbots (unless one thinks Ricochet Robots is like RoboRally - sometimes people say they are similar, but to me and many other people, they are quite different genres and experiences:

The Ricochet games are about real-time pattern recognition (like Loonacy, Set, Dobble, etc), being the first to find a good solution to get a robot to a goal. Pieces are all neutral/communal.

RAMbots/RoboRally are about non-realtime thinky programming and simultaneous execution of programs for one's own robot (each player has their own which they control) to move and to attack others with unexpected funny chaotic results.)

(Disclosure: I wrote/web-published Ricochet Pyramids. If people don't like it on the list, cool, I just want it to be rejected for a valid reason, not because it's supposedly like RAMbots when it's not really. I play and enjoy both games, but the only thing they have in common is the high-level theme of robots on a square grid.) :)

Thanks for clarifying! Admittedly, I haven't played Ricochet Pyramids myself, so forgive me for providing an invalid reason. Just from my perusal of the rules it felt similar to me, so I was trying to help cull the list. I'm all for it being included though, if it's as unique as you say!

I don't quite have time for a full evaluation now, but here are a few comments:

I agree that the list should have as big a variety as possible of different game types. That shouldn't be an excuse to keep a weak game on the list, but it argues for reducing the number of similar games and keeping games that are good but not my particular preference.

CrackeD Ice - Keep. I'm not usually a dexterity/stacking kind of guy, but this is a worthy entry in that genre.

Zendo v. Ikkozendo - Drop Ikkozendo. It's too similar to Zendo, and you must have Zendo.

Freeze Tag v. Crosswalk - I agree they're similar, and I like Freeze Tag better. Drop Crosswalk.

RAMbots v. Ricochet Pyramids - My concern here is not that they're similar to each other play-wise. But it would be good to keep the "just like this published game" to a minimum. It might be fine to have a couple if they're good. but if it gets down to 23 and a cut it needed, maybe consider one of these.

Edit: I didn't see Andy's comment reducing it to Yes/No/Maybe. But I'm going to leave my comments alone. I've only played a couple on the Maybe list. Hmm.

I agree with this list.  Looks like a really good "Best Of" selection.  I'm sure there is something that no-one has suggested at all and in some months we will realize we missed something great.  But this list seems to really be solid.

I'm thinking of what games would require more the "More Pyramids Required" symbol.  Alien City, Extinction, and Nile would need some modification to the rules to play with 3 stashes, so they should just get the /\.  Pylon and Amoeba can play with 3 stashes, and should work just dandy as a shorter, smaller game.  I'm not sure about others, but I can research it if you like.

On a related note, Pikemen only requires more pyramids if you are playing a 2 or 3 player game on an 8x8 board.  I have been playing a smaller version of Pikemen I'm calling "Skirmish" which uses a smaller board and fFewer pieces.  Skirmish would not need the /\ symbol, but it's a basically a variant at this point.

Re: CrackeD Ice: I agree that this game is interesting and possibly worthy of being listed because it's a dexterity game and there aren't many of those in the library. However, one of the unpublished six will be Verticality, which IMO fills that niche better than CrackeD Ice. That's my main reason for moving this to the No list.

Re: Ricochet Pyramids: How close is this to Ricochet Robot? I've never played it. Does it replicate the original or is it new and different in some way and only inspired by Ricochet Robot? I strongly agree with Jeff that I'd like to minimize inclusion of games that are basically straight-up adaptations of published works.

OK, I'm really looking forward to Verticality. As I said, CrackeD Ice is probably my second most-played pyramid game (behind Zendo).

RP is unabashedly inspired by RR, but does not work the same.

In RR, robot movement is blocked by robots and walls. In RP there are no walls (other than the outside of the board), and robot movement is blocked by robots and non-current-goal towers. The current goal tower does not block, so to move onto the current goal, you often have to arrange that there is some other robot immediately behind it, otherwise the goal robot will move through the goal and onward without stopping.

The method of determining current robot & goal is different too, allowing repeats of previous pairs instead of going through a deck of robot/goal tokens.

You also have more flexible control over the setup arrangement to make it easier or harder to find paths, since you can put the 9 goal towers wherever you like on the board during setup, instead of the goals (and walls) being preprinted on the 4 board quadrants of RR.

Oh right. I forgot about Verticality.

Please, check the discussion on the fairness of Branches and Twigs and Thorns. Thanks.

I'm late to the game, but here are some additions that I think should be included.

Pylon

Autumn Ash: My game that has only been out for a few years (a 2Xeno 2Rainbow stash game, so works with PA), so it probably hasn’t circulated much. It has been playtested like crazy with lots of players, and I still look forward to dragging it out whenever I can. I’m always thinking up new strategies for this.

Invaders of Mars: Wow, a fun game, with a good theme, that I haven’t played for a while.

Gleebs and Grues

Nile: Though it's been some time since Scott and I played this, so I could be foggy as to how much fun it was.

Skurðir: A good multiplayergame.

Apophis : I played Spaceteam the other day, so this is on my mind. It might not be to everyone’s liking.

Quicksand : One of my favorite head-to-head strategies. This would be up at the top of my list.

.... "Late for the game," meaning that read more of the above posts and see that things have been kind of selected through at this juncture.

I'd still recommend any of the games from my short list that didn't make it into the "Yes" column, though there are plenty of good ones in there. Perhaps if there's room in the "Maybe" column. ;)

If I was going to trade out any in the "Yes" column for any other game, it would be Stack Control. I like the game, and do play it often enough. However, it's basically derivative of other games, a multiplayer Pylon. This is the reason that I'd never recommend Hexano-Duel, even though it hovers at the top of my SC list. Hexano-Duel just happens to be my favorite version of Volcano; it's significantly different from others, but it's still derivative.

Amoeba never felt like a solid game to me either, but perhaps there are enough others who do enjoy it.

The rest of the games in the "Yes" column look like good games to me.

The rules http://www.ginohn.com/wunder201005/games/Homeworlds/HomeworldsRules.html say:

To sacrifice a ship, simply return it to the global stash. You may then perform the number of actions determined by the size of your sacrifice ship

So yes you can.

Thanks for the quick reply!

It looks so amazing. I'm excited. I've been waiting for years to play Petri dish. And five more? Dang. As for the Homeworlds kit, I have my own kit, though that looks great for backpacking and the like. I love pyramid games so much. Thanks for all the great contributions to gaming. It's simply the best.

Well, there are many details we're still hammering out. But here's a question I'd like to throw to this group...

I wish Martian Coasters had a better name. Any suggestions?

I did see!  The big box is really interesting and exciting!!  I've been pondering rounded pyramids, ever since the initial teaser came out.

And the little metal tin is also really cool, eh!  What an awesome fFind!  I'm now imaging the web-store having a sudden, unexpected run on these things and having no idea why.  =)  I notice, two tins will hold 24 nested trios, which is the amount needed fFor Caldera.  I can imagine carrying around a third tin with other stuff like some caps and dice.  I'm really keen to get several tins, now, and try them out.

Is "Looney Coasters" too obvious? ;)

PS: That round tin storage idea is very cool!

This is awesome.  I can't wait to see the new games!  The rounded pyramids are going to be interesting.  I like the tin idea too, but I already have the travel set I love so much.  Thanks for the exciting news and your hard work!

I can't think of any clever new names for Martian Coasters. We just call them "coasters" and that's cool by me. :)

Will there be a version of Pyramid Arcade available that won't include pyramids? I have all of them already; I just want/need the boards and rules!

We expect many to make this request, and plan to have a Kickstarter level called Everything But The Pyramids!

May I ask, why do you want to change the name?  Which part do you like less?  The "Martian" or the "Coasters"?  Many pyramid games have the Martian prefix, so that seems alright to me.  I don't know of any other game named coasters, however, so I'm not sure what a "Martian" version of coasters would be.  A reasonable name might be something like Martian Hopscotch.

I dislike both parts of the name, actually. There's nothing particularly Martian about it and it'd rather only have one game in the set called Martian something, and that's Martian Chess. Coasters is also a very unhelpful name since it doesn't really tell you anything about the game itself. Also -- and this is a good related question, we're considering making the ones in the set not actually coasters but instead simply small game boards. In which case it would make even less sense to include coasters in the name of the game. But is that a good idea? My thinking is that few would use or even want to use the game boards in their Arcade set as drink coasters. It makes sense to me as an a la carte product in a DIY world, but I don't think it does now. Thoughts? Anyway, I wish I had a one-word, snappy, unique name for the game that actually described some aspect of its gameplay. So I'm thinking something like Home Run, although that's two words. Alison suggested Shifter. Anyway, it may be too much to ask - name design is one of the hardest parts of game design - but if it's ever going to happen, now's the time.

It's true, I have never used my coasters as actual drink coasters, and probably will not do so in fFuture.  I know I could, but I probably won't.

Glad to know! Thank you for the speedy reply!

Maybe "Galaxy Discs" could work? But if they aren't going to be round that won't work, obviously. Will give it more thought.

Not to be confused with the very different game, Cosmic Coasters.

Just ordered 6 metal tins.  Let's see what we can do with them, shall we.  =)   I think I'll need to make up some nice stickers or labels, too.  A project!  Yay!!

Ah, I thought you meant the name of the objects, not the name of the game. :)

(Analogous to how the objects "Icehouse pyramids" became "Looney pyramids".)

The game is about trying to navigate land masses that are moving around all the time. What about "Tectonics"?

Here’s another tidbit about renaming Martian Coasters: the version we include with Pyramid Arcade will have one significant rule-change. The DIG action, which has always been weak & redundant, will instead give the option to spend your movement points on pieces of ANY color, not just your own. We have a new bacronym to help your remember it, too: Do It Globally.

A quotidian possibility for Martian Coasters would be something like "Pyramid Ludo", since it's always struck me as being a highly dynamic relative of Pachisi/Ludo/Mensch. If you were willing to keep "Martian", then "Martian Mensch" wouldn't be bad. But "Pyrachisi" sounds terrible.

I'm trying to get away from the Martian angle here, so I don't like Martian Mensch. What if embrace the crazy meaning of my name, which fits since it's a high-chaos game, and call it Looney Ludo? My previous best candidate name has been Get Back, but Looney Ludo does have a nice ring to it, and fits pretty well if you know what Ludo is.

Looney Ludo sounds like a plausible candidate!

Looney Ludo has a nice ring to it

If you're planning to go with Looney related name,  I think you should go all the way and play with your company name as well: Looney Laps. 

After you suggest it, "Looney Ludo" seems obvious. It also at least has a chance of approximately conveying the game play (to someone who knows what Ludo is) whereas Home Run and Get Back don't.

For what it's worth: Home Run sounds to me like it should be a baseball game. Get Back sounds like it ought to have some kind of advancing menace which players retreat from. Neither carries an apt connotation (to me, anyway).

I see Martian Coasters as a sort of race game, on an ever-changing course. Makes me think of another game, in fact: Robo Rally.

So... Looney Rally? Pyramid Rally? Fluxx Rally?

Or there's a strong "get safe to home" sense to the game's goal of finishing with a Nest on one's coaster/board.

So... Rally Home? Home Rally? Home Rush?

----

Orthogonal question, while I have the floor: Will you be including references or links to other games designed for the coasters/boards?

[No, I don't ask because I think Wormholes is one of the best games that uses them! ;-) ]

Hmm, someone's going to need to categorize all the games playable with the new release...

Caldera?  Doesn't that require six stashes of 4 colors?  I'm afraid that if you use three stashes of eight colors it will be considerably more difficult to make monochrome trees to win the game.  A couple options:

1. Caldera really is just that much harder.

2. Map colors together.  e.g. purple and blue count as one color, etc.

3. Tell people to buy two copies of Arcade if they want to play Caldera.

None of those options feel good to me.  I suspect we'll go with option 2, but that's just a cop out.  Let's face it... purple and blue aren't the same color - we're just pretending they are so that we can list out 22 games instead of just 21.

Martian Coaster Rename:

I like the "Tectonics" idea to capture the possibility of shifting land masses. 

Yes, I know what (regular) Ludo is, but I'm not convinced that enough other people do to make that a good name to just add an adjective to. 

I like the idea behind Home Run and Get Back, describing the goal of the game.  Along those lines, how about "Going Home", "Ollie Ollie In-Come Free", "Fly Away Home" or "Coming Home"? 

Since players are trying to gather their pieces on the correct coaster... "Looney: the Gathering."  (Just kidding.)

I wonder if this would fit the tin: http://www.leathermystics.com/street_leathers/street_leathers.html

Hi Ryan! Actually, it's not Caldera, it's Fiesta Caldera, and we're probably just going to call it Volcano in the book. And what is Fiesta Caldera? It's like Caldera but with 3 Rainbow and 3 Xeno stashes, and these two rules. 1) Black caps and White caps are considered identical 2) You win by collecting 3 monochrome tress OR 5 mixed-color trees. It works great!

I'm feeling pretty solid on Looney Ludo. I like the way it sounds and I don't really mind that Ludo is obscure. If you don't know what it is, it's just a wacky sounding word until you get to the historical note which says: 

"This game was originally published under the name Martian Coasters, and featured beverage coasters as game boards. The new name was chosen because the gameplay is reminiscent of Ludo, a 19th century derivative of the ancient classic Parchisi. Except it's crazier."

... and then the name takes on meaning and informs the player about classic game history.

How frequent are the two endings? Is it usually one or the other, or are they pretty evenly split?

For me, that intro paragraph makes all the difference.  Ok, I'm on the Looney Ludo band wagon.

Ahh... I see.  Since "Fiesta" wasn't part of the hyperlink to Caldera, I thought it was just some random adjective.

Black and white caps together: Makes perfect sense.

Using the Volcano name: As you might remember from the original Caldera discussion, I'm a proponent of keeping the Volcano name for the original game.  In general, once you have a perfectly good name for a perfectly good game, you shouldn't change either one.  I could see using just plain "Caldera" and adding a little something to the rules like... "If you're using the Arcade set, here's the setup and the win condition.  On the other hand, if you have access to two Arcade sets or three IceDice sets or even six copies of either the Rainbow or Xeno Stash, here are the rule changes." 

Geez, I'm just never happy - am I?

Jeff, I would guess (with zero data to back it up) that the five-mixed-trees option is used at least 2/3 of the time. 

I would counter that Volcano and Caldera (and Fiesta Caldera) are all so similar as to really be the same game. Perhaps my planned historical notes for this one will sway your opinion as well: 

Historical Notes: Technically, this game is Fiesta Caldera, not Volcano. The original rules to Volcano evolved into a slightly different game we called Caldera, and that lead to Fiesta Caldera, the version you could play with the colorful mixture of pyramids in this set. But we decided to keep calling the game Volcano, even if it has changed a bit from the version first published in Playing with Pyramids, back in 2002.

Not that you need approval, but...

Including that type of information would indeed soften the blow, but it doesn't actually change my mind.  You could say it takes the situation from a -5 to merely a -1.

I think saying that this game is technically Fiesta Caldera only confuses things.  If you really wanted to mention that name, you could say something like...

This game was known as Fiesta Caldera during development.  Because it's now the flagship game in the Volcano family of games (and, we feel, the best), we are retiring the old rules, which used an expensive-to-obtain set of pyramids, and declaring this new ruleset the official Volcano rules.

As a Classic Volcano loyalist, I wouldn't say this is my favorite course of action - if it's a new game, use a new name.  However, if you're going to call the new game Volcano, I wouldn't even mention Fiesta Caldera except in the past tense.

I'm a little confused.  Why the new rules?  I'm always happy to play new games of course, but I fFeel like the classic Volcano is quite good.  The Caldera rules were a nice opportunity to play in Base_3 -- because IceDice bags contained 3 trees in several colors -- and you could simply buy 2 IceDicebags to get 6 trees.  But if the Arcade will include 5 trees in several colors, why not just stick with the classic Base_5 Volcano rules?

On a not wholly unrelated topic, I've been pondering the utility of making Volcano caps that are not pyramid shaped at all: Some kind of round blob that sits on top of a nest.  I mention this now because it seems to me part of the need to have so much stuff available in Volcano/Caldera is to get the caps in a separate color.  The arcade probably can't be redesigned to include extra blobby bits at this point, but it's a thing I think of making sometimes, possibly out of clay.  Such blobby bits would be good fFor other games, like Lumberjack to denote protestors, and Homeworlds to denote your own Homeworld.

Because Arcade will have only three nests/trees each of ten colors. 

Also, I thought IceDice includes only two nests each of five colors, so you'd need 3 IceDice bags to get six trees.

Ahhh, I see now.

And, you're right of course.  IceDice->Caldera is 2x3, not 3x2.

I'd also favor saying that Fiesta Caldera is a version of Volcano, rather than being "not Volcano". There are at least three ways to play Volcano (original recipe, caldera, and fiesta) which differ in requiring different distributions of colours.

Saying that it's not really Volcano, even though it's called that, invites the kind of hipster pedantry that makes some fandoms seem unwelcoming.

Oh, and just to make sure I respond directly to the part of your comment that is at the basis of my perspective...

> I would counter that Volcano and Caldera (and Fiesta Caldera) are all so similar as to really be the same game.

I would counter-counter that no, they're not. The difference between five and six caps is pretty significant.  In Volcano, the smaller number of caps leads to different, longer-term and, in my opinion, better strategies.  With even that one extra cap in Caldera, it is a LOT easier to get a cap onto pretty much any volcano you want to erupt, while in Volcano each player can have more impact on what the other can actually do on subsequent turns.  During the initial Caldera discussion, some people said this was an "pro" for Caldera, while I considered it a con.

Interesting. I still consider it a pro, despite everything you say. We have different opinions about what makes for better gameplay.

Anyway, yes of course, they aren't *exactly* the same game, that's what these debates are all about. But they're the same games in the way that No Limit Texas Hold 'em and Five Card Stud are the same game. Many differences, of course, but they're both called Poker. And of course, there are old school purists there too, but most poker players these days just want to play No Limit Texas Hold'em, and none of them say "Hey, let's play No Limit Texas Hold'em tonight," they say "Let's play Poker tonight." And that's what we're trying to do here. Yes, technically it's Fiesta Caldera, but when someone says "Does it include Volcano?" we want to say "Yes!" not "Yes, but it's called something else for confusing, historical reasons."

I was trying to formulate an argument for Poker not being a good analogy for Volcano/Caldera because of the differing end games of the latter two. But then I realized that Razz and Omaha Hi/Low may well undermine any argument I might devise. Not all Poker variants have the same objective, either.

Still, I think the end game of Caldera is infinitely more elegant than the end game of straight Volcano. I've never had a problem with the 6th cap, so I guess you know where my loyalties lie.

If we accept that Volcano is the game and the various incarnations are merely variants, doesn't that mean that we should have a retronym for the variant originally called Volcano? I called it "straight Volcano" above, maybe that would work.

Another example is Hearts. I've seen some old books about cardgames which say that only Hearts are point cards in "Hearts", and that the game is called something else (like "Black Mariah") if the Queen of Spades scores. Now having the Queen of Spades count for 13 is standard for "Hearts". Some people play with the Jack of Diamonds subtracting 10 points, which changes play a lot (for the worse) but without making it not "Hearts" anymore.

As for a retronym for the original version, maybe "Classic Volcano" or "5House Volcano"

+1 for Classic Volcano.

This fits the Poker analogy, at least for me.  Back when I was just a wee lad, Five Card Draw was the only form/variant/ruleset for Poker I knew.  If my brother suggested a game of Poker, 5CD is what I assumed he meant.  Now, not so much.  If I see a Poker event on the schedule for ESPN, I now assume it's Texas Hold'em.

So....

Translate Poker to Volcano, 5 Card Draw to Classic and Texas Hold'em to Fiesta Caldera.  So what this seems to imply is that...

1. Volcano should be promoted from a single game to the name of the genre/family

2. Classic Volcano can become the new name for the original game.

3. Caldera and Fiesta Caldera should keep their names.

Maybe the Historical Note could start something like this:

Fiesta Caldera is the latest addition to the Volcano family of Looney Pyramid games, which started with a game which we initially called Volcano but have renamed to Classic Volcano. 

That way you won't have two names (Fiesta Caldera and Volcano) for the same thing going forward.  Fiesta Caldera is a game and Volcano is a family or genre of games, like Tx Hold'em and Poker.  It also allows you to use the more generic "Volcano" to mean Fiesta Caldera by default, much as an invitation to Poker Night at Casa de McGuire implies you'll be playing TH'e. 

I dig it. I think, as long as it has been effectively playtested, and plays well, it's good. I would like the historical note to be inclusive, and perhaps explain some of the rationale behind the different rule sets. Maybe even provide a kind of chart showing the differences. But, it sounds like you've put a lot of thought into the whole thing. Any other games in the arcade we can get riled up about? =)

I think the historical notes should be kept to a minimum to avoid confusing new players. But there probably should be some note to avoid confusing people familiar with a previous version of Volcano. I could see it being a sidebar that says: "For Volcano Fans - Volcano, like Poker, now has several variants. This one is called Fiesta Caldera. Please take a moment to look for differences from the versions of Volcano/Caldera that you might already know."

If you talk about variants, I'm familiar with Classic Volcano, Classic Caldera, MegaVolcano, and now Fiesta Caldera. I've played all but the last of these. Are there any other major variants?

(Reviving this discussion now that the project is out there on Kickstarter.)

Would the Zendo Arcade project be another standalone set or just the additional pieces required to play canonical Zendo, Icehouse, (original) IceTowers, (original) Volcano, etc when added to the Pyramid Arcade set?  What would you need to play those games?  Just two additional nests of four colors plus Zendop stones and maybe some nice postcard for stash pads.  Volcano would require two more nests of a fifth color plus two more small blacks.

The idea of an upgrade kit struck me as something they wouldn't do, but it does make some sense, considering what the pyramid system is supposed to be. It would make Zendo fans unhappy, though, to have to buy two things to get new Zendo. I would be extremely surprised if they included different versions of games that are already in the original Arcade. I would think that a Zendo Arcade would be all new games (new to the Arcade system anyway), whether it was an expansion or a standalone.

No, Zendo Arcade will be a standalone set, with pyramids in 4 colors and rules + parts for games that aren't in Pyramid Arcade.

This comes with a round sticker, correct?  Does it fit that round tin that was posted on the blog?  I picked a couple of those tins up, they're fairly neat.

I'd kind of like to see one for those tins with the circular logo on this page  http://www.looneylabs.com/looney-pyramids

Oh my goodness, this sounds really cool!  =)

some in progress

OH COOL!!!

I dig this.  Well done!

this is awesome!

board and rules now done. I've since done the grey cartoon rocket on the rules, and grey on the launchpads in sharpie. gluing it all together today.

WOAH!!!!!  +1 EXCELLENT!

completed work. still waiting on my mark for it. 

I don't think it's a secret mixture, particularly. No worries there. But I can't tell you a lot more than that. I know other people have used spray paint and assorted other paints to relatively good effect, but I think it can chip off over time. I'm interested in what kind of dye you have. Sounds neat. I believe other people can offer more insight and useful stuff than this, but I wanted to offer a quick response anyway. We like pyramid hacks. =)

I don't have any dye, but might well end up buying an assortment just to experiment with. I like the thought of dye since it won't chip off and won't change the pyramids' dimensions like a solid coat of spray paint would.

I'm using the pawn pieces to indicate 'status effects' in a tabletop RPG that uses Heroscape terrain and a bunch of other stuff thrown together to sort-of emulate Final Fantasy Tactics. Since there's a lot of statuses (both good and bad) that a unit can have, I want to create a good amount of distinctively colored pieces. They're useful 'cause you can stack a lot of them near a minifigure and know at a glance what's going on with it, instead of having to look across the table at somebody's character sheet.

I'll post about my experimentations with dyeing pieces, but first I have to get my hands on dye... and an extra White stash.

Thanks for the quick reply! 

Eeyore had some good results with Rit dye:

http://www.ee0r.com/proj/dyepyramids.html

Thanks for this post. Those results are quite nice. I dug around a bit on that site, Wunderland, Wikipedia and a few other sites and gleaned this information:

The pyramids are crystal styrene, which takes oil-based dyes well and anthraquinone based dyes the best. Unfortunately most of the anthraquinone dyes aren't approved for use in the US or EU - they're really toxic, requiring special microbes to degrade. But next to ABS, crystal styrene is comparatively easy to dye, being less resistant and taking the dye at a lower temperature.

I've seen ABS keyboard keycaps dyed with Rit to amazing effect, especially with lighter colors. It seems Rit will suffice and that I'm far less likely to melt pyramids than I thought. Rit also has those advantages of being cheap and common. I'm going to try it first, to make Whites into an opaque, 50% grey. Then I'll use the knowledge gained to fool with some of the other leftover, translucent colors.

When I find a method that produces results I think are worth posting, I'll update this. But gathering dye, pyramids and stuff will take a bit; the Xeno Stashes are on order...

Hi, folks. I've done more research and got some spare Xeno stashes and various dyes. It might be a month or two before I post my results, because I want to take my time with everything and get the best results I can the FIRST time. So, I'm saving this project for a day when I can house-sit for a friend who has a gas stove and fill their kitchen with weird dye fumes.

I am trying to get not only the solid grey but also smoked pieces that lie 'between' the existing colors without looking too much like an existing color. Pale pink, chartreuse, smoked grey, and smoked white could all work well. Brown would be a welcome addition, as well...

Will update as time goes on and results start coming!

It takes an admin to personally bestow "regular status" on a user.  I could easily do the task.

However, due to a MediaWiki snafu, the IceWiki won't accept any edits at this time, even from admins and regulars.  This has been the unfortunate state for at least a year or two.  Only the wiki's webmaster, Brian Campbell, has any ability to solve the problem, whatever it is.

Isn't it really time to migrate the content to a new platform?

As a bonus, admin privileges could be given to someone at Looney Labs so that it wouldn't go all ghost town in the future.

We have tried getting official Looney adoption of it in the past, with little or no success. 

At this point, the best bet is probably to migrate it by hand. That would at least provide an opportunity to get all the infoboxes, metadata, tags, categories, etc into alignment... at the cost of several hundred hours of volunteer time (over 300 pages to convert). As a bonus, though, we also could install Semantic MediaWiki onto a new site and be able to much-easier build the game-list pages (especially What Can I Play, which is a hand-built index but could be auto-built with consistent, standardized semantic tags... and could be improved by including the new packaging option as a sort category (# sets of Ice Dice and Pink Hijinks has never been factored into the page).

I do not volunteer. :)

I would certainly assist with architecture, all kidding aside. Tagging, templates, structure are fun. Copy & paste for hours is not.

I would love to see a working wiki again !

I volunteer for copy & paste !

I can't offer any technical expertise, but I would definitely volunteer time copy/pasting things if someone is going to make a real go at this.

During my last conversation with IceWiki admin Brian Campbell, he told me he was willing to turn the keys over to anyone qualified and attentive enough to fill his shoes.

A further advantage to moving to a new platform would be that it could be called something like "The Pyramid Wiki", reflecting the name change for the system. Then there could be a site newsletter on Wednesday.

The Pyramid Wiki Mid-Weekly.

(The newsletter suggestion is just for the pun, but there would be advantages to the name change. Retaining all the "Ice" names harkens back to history, but doesn't situate things well for people new to the system.)

I'm glad that you got a hold of him. Hopefully someone will stand up and help out. It's a great resource of games that supports an often vibrant community of players and designers.

It would suck if it just ended up as an archive, like the Piecepack community's site, as so much work has gone into the wiki.

I would love to help with this, as I had been going through and pointing out spam where I could previously. Much as I would like to, I can't take on the whole thing because I know I'd overextend myself and it would fall apart. Definitely up for as much as I can mange tho. 

Psshhh... I have no idea, but I wish. I played in the one in 2011, and it was amazing, though I had no idea what I was doing and Jacob Davenport was teaching me the tricks of the trade between rounds. My first official move was to crash and hand over a piece to Andy Looney, and I was more than happy to do so. It was GREAT. Best gaming experience of my life, and I'd pretty much show up wherever I could do do it again.

It used to be held at The Big Experiment, at Origins.  Looney Labs stopped doing The Big Experiment, because it was a lot of work!  hey wanted to fFocus more on cool games, not big expensive convention experiences.  And so, the IIT quietly dissipated.  There remains a great deal of interest in some circles, to be sure.  But I wouldn't count on it happening again anytime real soon unless a throng of interested people make it happen.

I don't see another way to get 4 or more monochrome stashes for less than $50.  You plan sounds like the best one.

If you go with IceDice * 2 + Rainbow Stash * 1, you'd get the same pyramids for the same total price but endup with an extra IceDice bag and an extra set of dice (and two fewer boxes).

How does one represent a d14?

By using a fourteen-sided die. I'm not sure what you mean by "represent."

I did not know there was a 14 sided die, that's what I meant. 

Pardon my presumption; I'm used to playing games with all sorts of dice.  Yes, dice come in about every shape you can imagine. D14s are a more uncommon type; found mine on eBay.  If you like, you can substitute the die with a notecard cut into fourteen squares, numbered 1-14, and shuffled inside a little bag to be drawn from.

I work at a game shop, and have not ordered any of those before! Going to have to change that!

The front page of the IceWiki has a writeup that closely matches what you describe... but those aren't Andy's words.

Here's an article Andy wrote in 2003, but it isn't pyramid-centric:

http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/DesignPrinciples.html

The front page of the IceWiki has a writeup that closely matches what you describe... but those aren't Andy's words.

Look at that.  Those seem like the words that I remember, but I guess I mixed my remembrance of them with things that I read by Andy.  I stand corrected.

Thanks Ryan!

I myself am rather partial to TimeLock

http://www.icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Timelock

I don't know which games are in it, so I'm not sure which to suggest, but guessing about games probably not in it which I enjoy playing (some pretty regularly), I'll propose:

Tic-Tac-Doh (simple classic, needs only 1 stash)

Stack Control (good for various numbers of players, pretty easy to teach)

Gleebs and Grues (strange but pleasing 2-player game)

Branches and Twigs and Thorns

Blam! (good for 2 or more, easy to teach)

Ricochet Pyramids (port of Ricochet Robots but interestingly different; by me)

Stawvs (similar to Amazons with Volcano scoring; by me)

Martian Tic-Tac-Toe (discovered and played only recently but it seems interesting and good)

Games that might already be included:

Freeze Tag

Lunar Invaders

Nothing Beats a Large

Petal Battle

Petri Dish

Pink Hijinks

Pyramid Shambo

RAMbots

Twin Win

Zendo

My recommendations:

Blam

Logger

Mundialito

Penguin Soccer

Pikemen

Quicksand

Synapse-Ice

Tic-Tac-Doh

Undercut

I do agree that is a great game. I don't know how they would put this in the current IceSheet format considering the ideal state for playing this game is one Xeno stash and one Rainbow. But, in terms of other requirements, it's fairly simple, and can be played with items currently found in the Treehouse sets sold in the bag. Sounds pretty solid to me.

I think Martian Whist is pretty good, but I would say something like that.

Alien City (yes it requires a piecepack, but it is a great game that I think about more than I play) Autumn Ash (this tricky strategy game takes a little effort to learn, but it's also a good game to aspire to once you own several sets of xeno and rainbow pyramids) Invaders of Mars (this is a fun game of doing yourself the least amount of harm_ Logger (evil little game that is fun to teach and play) Moscow Ice (the rules could use a little bit of a rewrite, but it's a solid game with some fun variations for up to 4) Paint the Line (I haven't played it enough of late, but it's a solid game) Plutonian Poker (great for larger groups) Quicksand (It's starting to become a 2-player classic) Timelock (the perfect mix of strategy and luck--a game that lets you really mess with your opponent)

It would be hard for me to choose 12 games without a LOT of thought about quality and variety.

BUT, I am posting to suggest that many of them (if not all) should be selected based on having Rainbow and Xeno, to help promote sales and to reward those of us with 'complete' sets (complete commercial releases, not weird electric greens and blems). The icehousegames.org wiki has RX and R+X+ categories (though I think they're incompletely tagged) to help find good ones.

And it it isn't too presumptuous to offer, I'd remove the NC portion of the CC license from any game of mine that you'd like to include! :)

Hm, good question.  I had thought it was what you said fFirst.  Player A builds, Player B builds, player B takes her fFirst turn.  But I'm not sure where I got that fFrom.  Possibly the 3-house rule pamphlet?  Indeed, I hadn't really thought about it, but it's a good thing to get clarification on.  Andy, are you available to comment?

FWIW I asked a similar question at BGG and get this:

I was looking at the Binary HW PDF at the Looney Labs website and just wanted to make sure I have the first turns right. I'm playing that we decide who's first (coin toss), the winner builds HW first, and also takes the first move. This is the way SuperDuperGames does it. Is this correct? No more "player who chooses the homeworld first moves second"?

-----

Correct. That's because if you let the second player build his homeworld and then immediately take a turn, he can often win by a "fool's mate" unless the first player chooses her homeworld colors to include red.

Alice chooses a homeworld: b3y1 g3
Bob chooses a homeworld: y2g2 r3 (deliberately adjacent to Alice)
Bob moves: build r1
Alice moves: build g1
Bob moves: move r3 to Alice (oh crap! thinks Alice)
Alice moves: build g1 (since moving away would instantly lose, and changing color doesn't do much)
Bob moves: capture g3 (leaving Alice with g1g1 at home, and Bob with r3g3)
...

Bob's "fool's mate" doesn't work if Alice happens to choose red as one of her starting colors; but that still cuts out a large swath of the possible starting positions, which is pretty sucky. It's simpler to just mandate that the first player to set up also moves first; then Bob has no incentive to set up deliberately adjacent to Alice, so we get a more satisfyingly large space of possible setups.

-Quuxplusone

This is a good point: in the variant with the second player (Bob) getting two turns, then the first player must always choose a red pyramid or ship in their homeworld.

I had another reason for suggesting that this variant gives the second player a very large advantage. If player one chooses a homeworld with a small pyramid ('Goldilocks' or 'Banker'), then player two can choose a homeworld with a small pyramid of the same colour, and trade their first built ship for that colour before player one gets the chance to. From my experience, locking an opponent out of the small ships of a certain colour counts for quite a lot in the very early game, when nobody has spare medium or large ships to trade. Player one has to choose to trade their large ship for this colour (which will usually slow them down or put them at risk of catastrophe), or end up being locked out of that colour completely.

While this isn't as dramatic an advantage as Quuxplusone's "fools' mate", I think it means that player one should always choose the "fortress" homeworld in this variant to avoid this.

With 6 rainbow stashes, you can duplicate the 1/4/6 distribution of pieces in the original exactly.  With 4 sets of Martian Coasters, you can duplicate the board.  Bonus: the center of each coaster is distinctive so it's easy to find the gateways.  I can't think of an easy way to build a 12x12 board otherwise.

I was amused that Sly uses the same "just like a deck of cards" analogy that Looney Labs now uses for Looney Pyramids.

Fun fact: I once adapted Can't Stop (another Sackson game) for play with pyramids.  I made a board, which fit on a standard sheet of paper.  It uses four rainbow stashes.

I totally forgot about the coasters. That's a good idea; it would make the adaptation pure Pyramid.

"take four trios and randomly distribute the pyramids amongst all cards but the vault, two to each card."

Should that say "three to each card", since there are 4 non-vault cards? Or am I confused?

You're not confused.  I am.  :(  I fixed the rules to say "three."

I will look at the rules and try it this weekend!

Wonderful!  Feedback is always welcomed.

I tried it out and won, ending with 4 trees in the vault. I'm not sure if they are considered monocolor or not (see rule question below):

1. I found the paragraph starting with "While sowing onto cards you may build structures if possible." to be a bit confusing. Does it mean that only when you place a pyramid onto a card, you can make a tree on that card? Or can you make a tree before sowing (e.g. at the start of the game if a card randomly happens to have a small, a medium, and a large)? Or does it mean that you can e.g. sow a medium into a space with a large and decide to place it onto a large (committing yourself) in the hope of later sowing a small onto that? (In this case, I guess you can't rebuild structures, see question 2...)

2. Can existing structures be rebuilt (i.e. when I sow into the vault can I rearrange trees to make them monocolor for scoring purposes)?

3. The game ends when "You sow the last pyramid or tree during a turn onto an empty card." Literally that means that if your first move sows into the vault, then the game ends, since the vault is an empty card. Is that intended?

Hi Russ, it's no surprise that the rules were confusing, but thanks to your feedback I should be able to fix them.  That said, let me answer your question directly.

Does it mean that only when you place a pyramid onto a card, you can make a tree on that card? Or can you make a tree before sowing (e.g. at the start of the game if a card randomly happens to have a small, a medium, and a large)? Or does it mean that you can e.g. sow a medium into a space with a large and decide to place it onto a large (committing yourself) in the hope of later sowing a small onto that?

The last interpretation is correct.  That is, you can only construct parts of the tree "in passing."

Can existing structures be rebuilt (i.e. when I sow into the vault can I rearrange trees to make them monocolor for scoring purposes)?

Like before, tree building is always done in passing, even in the vault.

The game ends when "You sow the last pyramid or tree during a turn onto an empty card." Literally that means that if your first move sows into the vault, then the game ends, since the vault is an empty card. Is that intended?

My intent was to tree the vault differently from the other cards, so no you don't end the game if you end on the vault.  Indeed, if you end sowing in the vault you get a special power to choose from any other card on the next sow.

I'll look over the rules the first chace I get and try to clarify these points. 

Thanks again!

Thanks again for the feedback Russ.  I modified the rules to be (hopefully) more clear.

Fogus,

As I recall, you posted a very large number of games over a period of a year. I've been curious to try the stronger of those games, but I'm more inclined to try a game that is on the wiki (instead of trying to dig up random websites or an old forum post such as this).

Have you taken any consideration of putting some of your favorites on the wiki? https://www.icehousegames.org

I definitely intended to always add them to the wiki, but for ~2-years it was down for the count.  Now that it's up I'll add what I've got to the wiki post haste. :)  Thanks for the poke.

BTW, I've been playing around with the PyArc-style template too.  :)

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/139550/rules-pyramid-arcade-game-martian-whist

Ning has been having problems with profile page Apps. So until they have solved the problems it is not possible to add the Starship Captain App to your profile page.

A couple weeks ago I noticed that the SC section on my profile page was displaying an error message

Unable to retrieve gadget xml. HTTP error 404

So I moved my old text version of my SC higher up on my profile page.

(And updated it too.) :)

I am having the same problem, getting the message, "There was an error processing your OpenSocial XML file. Please verify that the OpenSocial XML file is valid and try again."

Yep - sorry, this is still broken, and Ning doesn't have any plans to fix it.  :(  We have a plan to move the database someplace new, but other web projects have a higher priority right now.  I'll let you know when it's fixed - in the meantime, you can do what Russ did... which I also just did for my own list! 

I am the admin for the IceWiki.  Please send me your user name and I can add your account to the regulars whitelist.

However, you still won't be able to make edits.  We are having some trouble with MediaWiki and the fix is above my admin level.

My username is tpbosco. Thank you for responding quickly! It's unfortunate that there aew technical difficulties.

Hi, I would like to become "regular" too, so I can add my games to the wiki and edit some typos I found here and there. My username is Rosbi. Thank you and I hope the wiki will be fixed soon :)

That's a great idea. It's very cool to hear that you have some old games printed out. Ice Star is one of the ones that I located a while back (probably through archive.org), and it is on our icehouse.org wiki. I actually got to try the game out a while ago.

There are, however, several games that are still missing, so feel free to take a look at the complete list of archived games and post any that you have that are missing.

http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Icehouse_Games

Just looked up the ice star on the wiki. The name is there, but the instructions weren't.

Thanks for calling that to my attention.

There's a link on the page, which was working as of a few months. We didn't put a lot of games directly into the wiki because of copyright issues (perhaps silly in this case) or because the original page was done up with pictures, etc.  In this case, I'll have to go fix the link again (whenever the wiki gets fixed).

The rules have been modified to include trumps (optional). --> http://fogus.me/fun/spiel/martian-whist/

I'm always up for Martian Chess

I saw this on Steam a while back, and remember thinking "I hope someone makes some Icehouse pyramids for this"!

Tabletop Simulator does look good, but I do hope that a set of stackable pyramids comes around soon. I think it'd be great for playing Zendo, which is one of my favourite games at the moment, but that one does really need stackable pyramids...

Congratulations on completing your Ten Game Challenge!!  Actually I apparently missed one because I thought you only had 8, and the year was almost gone.  I had thought if you get one more up, this would be only #9.  I'll have to go back and review them all, eh!!

Again, congratulations!!!

Hi Scott,

Thanks for reading!  For the sake of Clarity I should say that I didn't post every entry here, but I assure you that between variants and new games there have been (at least) 10. :)

Any of dozens (hundreds?) of published tarot decks with the correct suits and major arcana should work fine, so it's basically a subjective matter of taste, i.e. which one has art you like the most!

(FWIW I'm a fan of the classic/traditional Rider-Waite, though I don't currently own that version, alas.)

It's not a tarot deck, but I was happy with this set of custom-designed cards for Gnostica: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/gnostica

If you want the best gaming experience for Zarcana, then use this deck explicitly made for Zarcana (by me):

http://ceruleansgames.tripod.com/zarcanadeck.htm

All rules on every card... no stickers needed.

Ryan,

That looks great for Zarcana!  Wonderful art!  I'm going to get some more ink tomorrow!

Would you recommend a Rider-Waite deck?  Crowly-Thoth?

I wholly endorse Ryan Hackel's deck, and prefer it to any other.

The Crowly-Thoth deck changes several major arcana cards.  This makes it somewhat less ideal, since the rules use a more traditional approach to card names.

I believe the games were designed using the Rider-Waite deck, but I'm not sure on that.  In theory, any tarot deck will work, as long as it has the standard major and minor arcana.

The non-tarot deck is the perfect deck to play with. Not only are all of the rules on each card, if you are playing with people that refuse to touch a tarot deck, they will usually play with this one without objecting. (It's a bit of a problem here in scenic Utah.)

Ryder-Waite is the default tarot, these days. Just a hunch, but I would avoid the newer "art" or heavily-themed decks, such as the Dali' deck or "Tarot of the Foxes" or whatever, because they would be hard to correlate with the rules. I'm not terribly familiar with Gnostica, but one of the older tarot, i.e. the Marseilles, might be better (or worse?) for play. The Marseilles includes the major arcana in images similar to the Ryder-Waite, but the miner arcana are presented with images similar to conventional playing cards. http://www.tarotlore.com/marseille-tarot-cards/

I got "The Tarot Box" at Barnes & Noble and like it because the cards (Caselli tarot) are pretty close to Rider-Waite, and smaller so the playing surface doesn't grow as fast.  

https://www.google.com/search?q="the+tarot+box"&tbm=isch

Thanks for letting us know.  I believe this is a problem with the Ning platform not our gadget specifically. I will check with Ning support.

Yikes, that's too bad! I was actually planning to get to one of your games this weekend (still will if we are back online). I'm sure that it will be up sooner or later.

There are so many great hidden gems from the past three years that haven't been played as much, especially after the pause in the ICE Awards. 

My games are also at http://fogus.me/fun/spiel/ if you're still interested.

That said, I agree that there are many good games created recently that deserve to be played and explored.  I don't know much about the situation with the ICE awards, so I can't comment about it except to say that it's a shame to see that they're (effectively) dead.

What is needed to keep it alive?  New administrators, renewing the web name cost, or what?

I don't really know.  From an outside perspective it looks like a configuration setting is wrong, but that is just speculative based on looking at the error message.

Thanks for letting us know.  Unfortunately, the icehousegames.org wiki is a fan run site so we (Looney Labs) can't fix it.

I'm trying to contact Brian to see if I can lend a hand to get it going again (I think I've seen that error problem before on a wiki I run).

Just for the record I wasn't posting to try to get Looney Labs to handle the problem.  My only hope was that the owner/admin (whom I don't know) would see it.

I'll try contacting the webmaster, Brian Campbell.

Disregard.  The wiki seems to be back up, at least me me.

(I'm using Win7 and Firefox 33.1)

It's feeling much better...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8mNjeuyV4

Indeed it is for the purposes of viewing, but there still seems to be a problem that prohibits editing and/or creating pages.

I confirm that edits are blocked somehow.

Error: "Warning: Parameter 1 to ReCaptcha::confirmEdit() expected to be a reference, value given in /home/rabbits/icehousegames.org/wiki/includes/Hooks.php on line 113"

Internal Error: "Set $wgShowExceptionDetails = true; at the bottom of LocalSettings.php to show detailed debugging information."

I emailed Mr/ Campbell about it, but to no avail. :(

No, pieces are never fully removed from the game. They go back into the personal stash of player whose color it is. For example, if I destroyed one of your pieces, I'd just give it back to you. There's no way to be placed out of the game in Zark City. It's actually the whole point of the Hatch rule. No one gets taken out, at least, until there's a winner!

Great! That makes a lot of sense - the alternative means that players are knocked out early in the game and that you can win by merely eliminating your opponent. 

Thanks for the quick response, this has been bugging me :)

FWIW I saw a response to what I assume was your post at BGG; perhaps your BGG subscription settings are not set to notify you about responses to your posts?

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1254338/zark-city-convert-demolish

Especially with non-gamers, I often introduce the game without guessing stones. Just say you can make a guess as part of your turn if you wish. (And then there's no problem with people dropping in or out of the game.)

Keep the koan rules simple. A very common mistake for new players is making too complicated rules. (If you find yourself making a compound rule with "and", "or", "if", etc, stop! Don't do it!) Better to start too easy than too hard. Even a simple rule like "There must be a green piece" can sometimes take a while for newbies to get.

10 or 12 people is too many for a single game - too much down time between turns, the koan could be solved before some players even got a single turn. But you could start that way in a single big group to show how the game works, then break them into 2 or 3 groups to play in parallel.

I usually ask the correct guesser in one game if they'd like to make the rule and run the next game. Usually they do. (And then I emphasize that they should not try to make a complex rule, and they are not competing: their goal is not to "stump" the players but to provide a fun game to the players.)

You might stock up on pyramids (or borrow some extras). I wound up with 8 people per game, and we played for over three hours. We needed 8 stashes and a big table!

I'm all set in the pyramids department.  Thanks. :)

Everything Russ said, except I wouldn't ask a newcomer if they want to master a game until they've had at least three or so games under their belt.  Even if the first winner proactively asks to master the next game, I'd tend to err on the side of saying no.  Maybe tell them they have to win two games.

As master, try to think out loud without giving away the rule.  e.g. When someone makes a guess, say something like, "Hmmm... now I have to make a koan that either follows your rule and not mine or follows my rule but not yours... without giving too much away."  Also, explain  how did you picked the opening koans?

You might consider having little sheets printed up with just an intro to the game so that you don't have to stop a game in progress every time a person shows up.  Just one quarter of an 8.5x11.

Keep the koan rules simple.  It's a heck of a lot better experience to burn through a half-dozen games with rules that are "too" easy, than to take an hour to grind away at a rule with prime numbers and weird orientations.

DONE!

That was a blast.  Thanks everyone for the feedback, specifically around guessing stones, beginner masters, and complicated rules.  I had ~10 people sign up on the conference site and brought enough pyramids sufficient for ~4-5 groups.

My session was due to start at 9pm and due to very slow service at a restaurant I arrived about 5 minutes late.  The room was filled, but I suspected that the previous session had run over.  I immediately spoke up and asked "how many people are here to discover Zendo?"  Every single hand went up...

...

That is, ~30-35 hands went up.

I immediately knew that I was in trouble.  However, and this is a big however, a couple (Danielle and David) immediately stood up and pulled out a huge stash of pyramids!  They also knew and loved the game and offered to help.  Once we ran through the rules, we split up the pyramids, split up the Masters and started.  Both Danielle and David ran a table each and managed to teach their players the traditional Zendo rules.  However, as I was Mastering 3 tables to start, I went with a simplified version of the rules and jumped from table to table.

Zendo was a immediate hit.  The players, though most were new to Zendo, instantly "got it."  There were constant congratulations on finding the rules and echoes of "let's play another."  I mastered about 9 games between 3 tables, but soon was able to relax, vet some rules, and just sit and play once the other players felt confident to be Master.  I still jumped from table to table to play a rule or two (and got in ~20 games by night's end) but after a while the tables were off and running without intervention.  It was a thing of beauty.  

I stayed until the end of the last game ... that ended at about 1am.  That's 4 hours of Zendo played and enjoyed by 40-50 people, many whom were new to the game. If you do a Twitter search for strangeloop and zendo, you'll see some of the feedback and positivity.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback, and to David and Danielle for bailing me out of a potentially embarrassing lack of pyramids.  The Zendo session was a smashing success. 

<br /><small><a href="http://looneylabs.ning.com/photo/photo">Find more photos like this on <em>The Looney Labs Fan Club</em></a></small><br />

"That's 4 hours of Zendo played and enjoyed by 40-50 people, many whom were new to the game."

Holy smokes, that's impressive! Glad it went so amazingly well! Congrats!

Thanks Russ.  And thank you for the advice.  It was invaluable. 

Very interesting. I'm digging this idea, I felt like there must be some way to incorporate mancala and pyramids too. Nice work. When a player sows the pieces, is your intent to do it exactly like mancala, so one "piece" is distributed in every following cell? And do you sow into the opponent's row? I just wanted to double check. ^_^

1) The sowing happens just like in Manacala - one pyramid per cell.

2) You never sow into the opponent's row unless a capture power allows you to manipulate one of their pieces.

I'll modify the rules a bit to make these bot more clear. Thanks for checking it out.  

 

So if a player sows into their vault with two or more pyramids left, do they all go into the vault, and you only get the free move if it's exactly one pyramid landing in the vault?

You can only sow into the vault if the number of sowed pyramids puts the last one into the vault. When that happens only the pyramid sowed into the vault is kept, the others are still on the play area cards.  When sowing into the vault you'll only ever put one pyramid or a tree if you've managed to build one.  I think drawing up some examples might be helpful. Thanks for pushing on this. :)

Thanks for that clarification. Sorry if I'm coming off as annoying. ^_^ Like I said, I really like your idea here. I was just a little fuzzy on what you meant. I blame it on years of 40k, trying to fight rules-lawyers.

> Sorry if I'm coming off as annoying. ^_^

Not at all.  Quite the contrary. Thank you.

I went ahead and added a game fragment for illustrative purposes.  I hope this helps to clarify the rules.  Thanks again.

So I finally spoke with someone at one of these printing companies. I don't have high hopes for them going along with my plans though. It seemed like it was the right place to try for my little 4x4 mousepads idea but since one of the questions she wanted to know was how many of each design I wanted done up "in the first order", I foresee them being another bulk order only type deal. I am not giving up though, I will find somewhere to get a more survival kit/hiker friendly set of Martian coasters/launchpad 23 printed up so I can test then out.

Have you tried Inked Playmats? I don't know if they do any that small, but they make good stuff, allow for customization and are usually pretty fast. And I've never seen them require a big batch order.

I will have to check them out. I was talking with I think Mouspads.com...but their prices are insane. They wanted $500 for one mouspad of each of the 4 main Martian Coaster colors. There is no way I am going to pay $125 per mouspad for a little 4x4 square of fabric so I am back to looking for a vendor. I will try this one you linked next. I already sent them an email asking if they can do 4x4 sizes. I love martian coasters and really hope I can find someone to do the mouspad version of the coasters for an easily packed and carried version to go into my emergency kit.

Have you thought of doing a 9x8 sized one with all four colors in the four corners and then cutting them apart?

Ooo, that's a good idea too.

I may have to look into that as well. I honestly had not thought about that at all, mostly because I was also looking into the idea of getting some other small boards done up as well. But either way, an update here on inked playmats, they got back to me with a price list, anything smaller than an order of 10 at that size would be $53 each and the price obviously decreases the higher the bulk order number goes to a certain point. I may keep them in the reserve and get the mousepads for all the boards I want done by them if I find myself with extra expendable income laying around.

Ok so I have to make another update, inked playmats contacted me back to clarify. Because 4x4 is a new size they are charging a one time fee if $50 then it is $3 per board and any additional orders will not incur the $50 charge. So I will probably go with them at this point. I just need to try to find a good high quality picture of the coaster art to send them to have a batch made up and give them a play test/storage test

Have you tried just a local print shop? I have a buddy at one that had offered in the past to do work like this fire a different game.

The only local print shop I know of is Kinkos lol. 

Yeah, they're probably not going to be super helpful, but you could try. Believe it or not, I've had good luck at Office Max, however in not sure if they do mouse pads. Worth a try.

I will have to try Office Depot....closest Office Max is like 70 miles away. Way too far to drive in a Gas Guzzling tank of a vehicle.

I'm sure that works. I can hardly tell the difference between an Office Max, Depot or Staples anyways.

I actually think they are owned by the same parent corp...I used Office Max website to double check and they showed me where the nearest Office Depot was.

Next Question...does anyone have a good high quality picture of each individual coaster? My scanner is being a POS and all my scans come out blurry which just wont do...There is a PDF version of the Launchpad23 game board so that's easily accessible to get a durable travel version made. The Martian Coasters though....I haven't seen any pictures of the individual coaster designs themselves to provide to the print shop for getting my rollable,foldable, non breaking, non bendy travel coasters....might even end up ordering two sets since my demo coasters get a beating getting lugged back and forth between cons and game stores and friends houses....be nice if this plan works out to have a set of coasters that won't get bent, banged or battered being hauled all over the place.

The Rules PDF at http://www.looneylabs.com/rules/martian-coasters has images of the coasters at the bottom.

Direct link to the PDF: http://www.looneylabs.com/sites/default/files/rules/MartianCoasters.pdf

Nice...I never noticed that before..I guess maybe I just never scrolled all the way down, or I never looked at the online rules just the mini pack rules that come with the coasters...either way, thanks for the help and once I guet these things printed I will let you guys know how the portable coasters work out for me on my next hike/campingtrip.

Well Thanks to the helpful hint from Mr. Wolfe here I have the Art work for the 4 primary coasters. I couldn't find a good picture of the black coaster so I had to deal with a slightly blurred picture of the actual coaster rather than a drawing. We will see how they fair in a few weeks when I send them to inked playmats to get my 4x4 fabric and rubber mats made up, if I don'f find that Office Depot will do them cheaper.

I'm out of town right now, but if you can wait until maybe Tuesday I can throw one of the cleaner ones in photoshop to get you nice black one.

Yeah sure. I wont be placing any orders for 2 weeks to a month or maybe a little longer depending on how my school funding looks, I am just working out the finer details at the moment so when the time comes I will have everything together. I did send the pictures I had off to Inked playmats already, not as a model for the order but as a general idea of the colors and designs in case that will change the pricing at all. Once I get to the point where everything is ready and I have the extra funds put aside to make a test order I will send them the actual Art to be used, i.e. the nice clean photos, and send them the $68 for the initial order. and if they work out nicely I will find out from them if you guys can order them directly from them if you too want a travel set of coasters that can be folded and moldered without bending or breaking and if not I can order them for you guys since after the initial order it will be $3 each board rather than $50 + $3 for each board. Just not sure if that is any orders or just orders I make, so I will get clarification on that so that anyone else here that wants a travel set of coasters can get them as well whether with me as the middle man or by providing a link or something.

A very interesting way to counter the die rolling in Pink Hijinks. I have wondered if chance was a little too high in PH, but we enjoy it enough to not worry. We'll try your variant next time we play though!

Thanks.  I hope you enjoy the game.  Just to be clear.  I love PH very much, so this was not an attempt to "fix" it.  Instead, it was more an exercise in exploring remove luck from it that yielded interesting results. :)

Thanks for letting us know.  I will take a look at it. Do you have any ad-blockers or other extensions installed in your browser.  I have seen problems with NoScript and Ning in the past.

A quick follow up.

I am able to reproduce the 404 error on the starship captain game list but I don't know why it is happening.

For the Membership card form, I don't have a fix but I have a work around.  Instead of pressing the "Upload" button to send the file, just select the image file and fill out the rest of the form (including the captcha) then use the "Submit" button below the captcha.  The image will be uploaded with the form and you should not get the captcha error message.

Great thanks, I will try that if I don't hear anything back on it. Like I said I think it made it through at least once and I don't want to have 400 submissions if the form. But to your other question...no, I have no extensions installed at all in the mobile device versions of chrome and the only one I have on the desktop version is the IE tab extension because I work as Work from home IT and my companies web tools only work on IE so I installed the IE extension to get them to work in chrome. No ad blockers or anything like that installed.

Oh that's clever.  :D  And as it's my favorite game…

Although, today, I fought the game to a 9yo.  And he promptly kicked my butt.  :)  Made TWO mistakes that round, and now he's hooked and I want a rematch.

This sounds like fun, and Pink Hijinks as a packaged monochrome set of three trios definitely needs some more love.

The pre-populated set of move choices is interesting to me.  I wonder how well it would work to have a small deck of cards or something, and you must play through all 6 cards, before you can replay any card.  Something to think about.  Interesting idea, sir.

A quick search turned up a person, Andrew Farley, and a company, Neon Surge.  It does have a VideoGameGeek entry, but information is sketchy.

I got that far, but lunarchess.com appears defunct, as does lunarchess.com.  The two domains are related, despite having different registrants.  The registrar of neonsurge.com uses a Yahoo email address which IMO just screams "send domain spam here!"  Andrew Farley's registrant email is at neonsurge.

Sounds like a couple of guys got together to start a small indie game company, which is cool.  But it looks like things may not have panned out for some reason.  The domain is coming up on expiration, and the iOS app (which appears to have been blessed by Looney Labs since it now bears the name Martian Chess and a LL logo) is still at 1.0.

I'll keep digging.

Man... that is sexy. Now I'm jealous. I've been dying to get my hands on an Icehouse set for three years now.

Is this what you ended up with? They're extrememly rare. :) http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/ProjectEBAY/Icehouse.html#SilverGlitter

There is a stash of silver glitter pyramid in my set.  More detail of the set on BGG: http://boardgamegeek.com/image/2038744/icehouse?size=large

Some interesting bits about the set:

• The foam insert has deteriorated over the years.
• The pyramids are a little sticky to the touch, but not in a gross way. This is great for grip, but not great when they pull off bits of the aforementioned foam insert.
• The stash pads are moderately heavy stock black paper. For whatever reason the pyramids do not stick to them.
• The material is a bit soft and in a few places you can see indented fingerprints on the surface. Perhaps they belong to the previous owner, but I like to think that they were put there during packaging... a unique Looney signature if you will. ;-)

More images:

 

BTW Greg, thank you for that link.  It's a wealth of knowledge and as an added bonus it's led me to the old Looney news entries. No sleep for me tonight. ;-)

Wow, I didn't even know that they created an entire set of glitter icehouse pyramids (that particular silver pyramid stash was a limited edition of one). I gather that what you have there is extremely rare. Btw, I love your little display of stackable/physical games.

Ooh, shiny! That causes me to like the idea of glittery pyramids in a kick starter project even more! *drool*

Wow that is an amazing find!

Has anyone by chance scanned those original booklets?  I know that *most* (but not all) issues of Hypothermia have been scanned (with some OCR errors I should probably email ee0r about when I'm thinking about it and have some time).

Being that I only recently discovered icehouse pieces (saw mention of them a few times on BoardGameGeek, but only in reference to their usability with piecepacks and the like), I of course missed a lot of the rich history of this system.  A fair bit of the older things are being lost now, so the archivist in me is looking to see these things preserved.

Game Techs on the Book of Faces have seen the project I've been working on now…  Hoping to have that done soon.

I should've been a librarian or something.  :)

I've not seen any scans of the enclosed booklets, but I imagine most of the material has migrated online or to other documents.

• The "History" booklet looks like it might contain stories from "The Empty City" -- or at least earlier versions.  The stories included are: "Icehouse", "The Children of Mars", and "Seagulls and Horseshoe Crabs."  I've not had a chance to read the stories nor TEC. A little more information is found on the "Empty City" page.

• The "Mystique" booklet looks like it contains similar content as the similarly named page at Wunderland.

• The "Rules" booklet looks like a slimmed version of the rules PDF on Wunderland. Both share many of the same game diagrams.  I suspect that the booklet I have has an earlier version of the rules, but I have not checked. If anyone knows for certain then I'd love to know.

While I think it would be interesting to scan the documents in the old Icehouse sets for the sake of preservation, it seems that all of the information contained therein is available elsewhere.  Indeed the Wunderland Icehouse site has a lot more information than that contained in the original booklets.

I hope this helps on catching up on the history.

That is interesting to know.  I was never really clear on what came with these old sets.  Pretty awesome, thank you!

The printed book The Empty City is numbered "zero" on the spine, and the book Playing With Pyramids is numbered "one."  I believe the original intention was to take this mode of publishing a series of books themed on the Icehouse set, with each book containing a mixture of rules and myths of the lost civilization of the Martians.  This idea has been re-expressed over the years in newsletters, magazines, and pamphlets.  This current website you're reading is a direct descendant of that basic desire to play games and share stories.

On this related point, I would like to quietly suggest everyone with a fFew minutes should read The Empty City.  It is a nice work of fFiction.  When I read it some years ago, I was at that point deep into playing the game Perplex City, an Alternate Reality Games with some similar themes as The Empty City.  And I had just gotten really into playing a lot of the game Alien Cities, so i fFelt like I was really building this whole thing up in my head.  I was walking around in this really cool place fFor a month or so.  =)

Oh there's online versions of just about everything needed to play somewhere or other. You may have to find some of it though as there are a few dead links that get in the way. But as I noted on the game techs FB group, I'm an archivist at heart. :)

Primarily Mennonites and Puritanical Christians had (have) that issue with standard cards.

Very interesting how a tarot deck was used to make this deck!

Inorite!  It's absolutely hilarious to me—but then the Poker deck is also tarot-derived.  Indeed, the first playing cards were tarot, and tarot is a GAME.  The idea of using them for the occult, divination, etc, came later.  The "major arcana" were originally just the trump suit, and there were more cards in the trump suit than any other.

What this suggests to me is that a single deck of cards could play Gnostica, Rook, Poker, and any number of other games.  Use Rook colors for the four poker suits (which are French tarot suits), and include yellow stars for the trumps.  Print on Poker or Bridge sized cards.  Second set can be marked on the card fronts (black dot works) opposite the rank/suit.  That's 156 cards, and it's quite universal.  Only there's no way anybody's going to be producing that in high quality cards because demand is just too low.

I find it very helpful during Zark City that the attack cards are all "letter" cards instead of numbers.  It's a simple and direct "at a glance" way to see how much attack you have in your hand.  I'm not sure two-digit numbers would have the same standout effect.

I didn't find the difference to be that great simply because the numbers were two-digit.  In the two or three test games I've had with with a Rook deck, it seems to play pretty well so far.  Granted, I've thus far only had the opportunity to test it in 2 player games, and Zark City tends to play a bit differently with two versus more players.

I should've suggested blue stars, not yellow.  But I was thinking of Five Crowns at the time I suggested it, which is a five-suited deck of French-suited cards plus stars with A/2 cards removed.  There's also the Stardeck which has stars that are red/black.

There are a few double and triple "universal" decks out there, but I dunno what kind of stock they're printed on (usually the same stuff a Decktet is, but I haven't got a Decktet either), and honestly the universal decks are trying too hard IMO.  I generally keep two decks handy, when I can have only two: My 57 Cards deck, and a Bicycle Double 9 Domino deck.  I tried posting about the circumstances of that over in the general forum but … browser/network/something issues…  It didn't take.  :)

I'll post something about it with pictures when I figure out how best to cut some foam to keep a 3House set from rattling around inside the box.  Also, I might have to find an alternative box because currently I use an old VHS rental type plastic case.  Those are rare nowadays.  :)

I think homecrafted chessboard bandanas would make great "graduation" gifts for new Starship Captains and as prizes in pyramid tournaments. 

That's another cool idea, especially if I can make them cheaply enough

A little more crossover from the day job: McNett, the people responsible for Aquamira water purification tablets and Frontier filter straws widely known to backpackers and emergency preparedness folks also have a brand for pack towels and whatnot, Outgo.  What I just stumbled upon is this Game Towel they produce.

They've got chess, backgammon, and scrabble boards.  Doesn't pack down nearly as small as a bandanna will, mostly because of the large amount of space NOT used. for gaming.  Still, for those who might be interested in travel gaming for actual travel, this might be an easy solution.  Also for gamers who are HHGttG fans, campers, people with families interested in preparedness, etc…  :)

They also have a smaller workout-sized towel under their Tactical brand ("fer duck-huntin'!", explained), and apparently they CAN put chessboards on those if you want a dozen of them…  For what pack towels cost, I don't need a dozen of them, thanks.  :D

I haven't had time to work on my little art project above.  Much going on.

Hey, that is pretty cool. :)

I've seen 'em at craft fairs. I have a bandana chinese checker board I got 20 years ago. A quick google search turned up several, but I kinda like these http://chesspas.com/

Oh cool, if I had found those sooner I probably wouldnt have bothered to try doing my owm. But then, mine will have canals.

I like the extra space on these. Makes it great for people in super windy areas to be able to put the board in the center of something and tie-down or strap the rest of the towel down so the board doesn't fly away on you. and most likely way lighter than my carved stone chess set that would not make it very far in a SHTF scenario.

While I'm all for do-it-yourself crafts, I also recognize the limits of what I'm capable of with squeeze-on fabric paints.  I'm guessing I would get results I'm much happier with by going with a higher resolution process.  Two options come to mind immediately:

1. Screen printing.

2. A custom fabric printing service such as Spoonflower

A standard-sized 22" square bandana is fine, since a chess board with 2" squares (need 1.8something for a "flat" three-pointer) would come out to 16" square.  That leaves a 3" border for fancy designs or a little extra room for Martian Chess canals.  If you had custom-printed fabric made, a 24" repeat pattern would give you enough extra fabric to add a hem to prevent raveling.  Unfortunately, I looks like the minimum you can buy from Spoonflower that would be big enough is 1 yard of fabric, 54" wide.  That would allow your 24" pattern to be printed twice across the width of the fabric and 1.5 tiems in length.  For the sake of the math, 2 yds of fabric would yield 6 pattern repeats and cost $35 for their limited-availability satin fabric.  (Different fabrics are different widths and prices.)  That comes out to just under $6 per bandana.  Also, 24" of fabric gives enough to allow a draw string to be hemmed in, so you could make either a bandana or a bag/board.

This would give you something comparable to the Chesspas "board".

Chesspas: $6.75 for 1, already designed and made.

Spponflower: $35.00 for 6, one of us (could | would have to) design it and it would have to be cut and hemmed.

So... Spoonflower would be slightly cheaper (in multiples of 6) and would allow more design freedom, but it requires more effort (design, upload, cut, sew).

Note: Spoonflower just happens to be the one fabric printer I know.  I have to imagine there's more out there.

Not Icehouse or Icetowers. :)

Probably just about anything Turn Based, I would think.  Eschew a deck of cards and it is even easier to play, because then both people can setup their own tabletop of a game.  Martian Chess, fFor example, would play very well.  People have been playing Chess by Mail fFor a very long time, so Martian Chess by Skype should be really natural. Zark City, however, would probably be clumsier.

Volcano/Caldera would probably be very easy, I think.

Also, I'd like permission to post your pics of iceboxes and general gaming kits over on the wiki where they can be found.  If you're willing, let me know.  Also if you have preferences for attribution and license—CC BY-SA or something?

I just realized, I don't think I have ever actually taken pictures of my storage solution.  I'll do that later.

I have essentially two sets of pyramids.

One set is like my grab-and-go bag.  It lives in the car, and is always handy.  It is a Laptop Case with pyramids in plastic tubes, along with a bunch of other stuff like dice and cards and stuff.

The other set is a couple overstuffed pyramid bags which hang by my desk.  Those bags hold a lot of pyramids!!

Also I have a set of Giant Pyramids, which are in a big cardboard box in the garage.  But that's sort of, you know, different.

Ultimately, I intend to have two sets as well as a set of IceDice and Treehouse as they appear on the retail market.

The first set is my full 11 stash (and room to grow) kit.  Carryable, but not exactly travel sized.  :)

The second is kind of a games survival kit.  And I'm kind of not kidding about that, since I intend to actually put such a set in a "survival kit".  Basically, a means of entertaining a family when disaster strikes.  Needs to be small, lightweight, and cover a wide range of ages and interests.  You can see why pyramids, a deck of cards, and some dice would be a good starting point.

"The second is kind of a games survival kit" this is exactly what got me back into tabletop style games. I have all this junk for surviving a disaster and realized that if its something major that shuts down utilities for weeks or even months I would probably lose my mind and either kill myself trying to do something dumb or get taken down by the police as a raving madman if I have nothing to entertain myself and my family for that time. One of the reasons I got hooked on Looney dice as well as some of Steve Jackson's dice games is the portability of it all. Easily stashed into a go bag or in a cargo pocket. So I too would love to see some of these storage solutions as I accidentally killed my big box-o-storing when I tried to fancy it up with wood burning...which I quickly learned I DO NOT know how to do lol. But I was using this wooden artist case to hold everything since it is compartmentalized for holding paint brushes and paint tubes and colored pencils and other such art tools, just stuck my colored pyramids into those pre-cut wooden bins inside the case and lined the inside with felt to keep everything soft. and non abrasive so it wouldn't scratch up any of my more delicate gaming pieces....the end came when I decided to re-purpose it to carry my Call of Cthulhu LCG set because it was bigger than what I wanted to be carrying around and wood burn an elder sign on the lid....I ended up breaking the whole thing before I was done...so long story short, I am in the market for some carrying cases too. Although I did see a video about a game called Hippos&Crocodiles that is carried in a long zippered pencil case type deal and it got me thinking that if I could find some zippered pencil cases that were nice/long/wide enough they might make for a good storage option for the grab-n-go set. Especially if I could get my game mats done up on mousepads like the game boards for that hippos & crocs game then It would be as easy as rolling up my game mat stuffing it in with the pyramids and hitting the street. Time to play? unzip drop mousepad type game mat and enjoy/

I was thinking about it and getting a set of Martian coasters printed up on a small 4" mousepad would give you the ability to roll them up and stuff them into a small container as well. Then you would just need to find something sturdy to sit each one on during play so that the pieces won't tumble off when you move a coaster. Anyone know of a company that does custom mouse pads or coasters made out of mousepad material? (I got a mousepad and coaster set that matches my dog not too long ago and the coasters are just little 4" mousepads themselves) I would love to get a quote on getting some flexible mousepad material Martian coasters printed up.

http://www.amazon.com/Rough-Enough-Classic-small-pencil/dp/B00HYTQL... something like that. A simple zippered canvas bag for each set. Because eventually I will have three. The survival set of stashes, the home set, and the demo set. I plan on purchasing this specific canvas bag to try out within a month or so depending on what else I need to stock up on before winter. I will let you know how it works out. Hopefully it fits in nicely with my portable dice tray, dice sets, cosmic wimpout cubes, and playing cards with poker chips I already have in the bug out bag right now. I really want to add pyramids into the mix, just have to find the right storage option.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DZTKU0/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2VI2DCTH4OHN2&coliid=I2L9E7SVR6CMWN there is the link to the makeup case I was talking about...from the picture it looks like the mirror slab is removable with a few screws and I am sure with a little time and motivation I could find something related to my pyramids and/or cards or dice to replace the mirror with or just totally remove it or maybe even leave it in. Seems like a good choice for carrying lots of pyramids or a combo of pyramids and accessories especially if you end up in one of those disasters where you have to vacate the premises with a quickness, nice little grab and go tote as far as I'm concerned. Again I have not tested it yet...but soon. I will post results when I do get a chance to order and test this and the canvas zipper pouch from my last reply.

Oo, that is a nice bag. Let us know how that works for you!

Also do not forget http://store.looneylabs.com/Purple-Bag?sc=2&category=771

I just ordered the zippered canvas pencil case. I will post up here with details on how it works out when I get it. I plan on probably getting that makeup case and fiddling with the mirror slab to see what I can come up with next month. Then I will have most everything set. I will have my zippered pencil case for holding however many stashes it will hold, I will have my purple looney labs bag for grab and go gaming, and I will have the make up case for a durable crush resistant storage box.

How is that? I'm mainly using the pyramid bags plus my old clear plastic Martian chess box. Had been considering getting that lunch box bag, but have been on the fence about it.

It is not bad. It's just one of those mini coolers for a sixer done up with the Looney Labs logo on it. so it has plenty of internal space. I use it more for holding the Pyramids that are already stored in something like a small bag. but it is water proof.

I expect to have my pencil case here Monday so I will see how the pyramids fit in there, and how it fits into my Looney Labs Purple bag. for one storage and transport option. The only downside is the pencil case comes from China any domestic ones were much smaller in size, so there is the extra shipping time to ship overseas.

Ok, so I got the Pencil case in today. The thing is Huge....Way bigger than I expected. I tried out my Looney Pyramids Demo kit and all 6 rainbow stashes EASILY fit with plenty of room to spare. As it stands right now I could put each individual Rainbow stash into a ziploc baggy(like the ones they come in) and then put each one of those baggies inside the pencil case and still have plenty of room left over. I can see this bag easily holding 11 stashes of pyramids with room to spare, especially if you take the time to place them neatly inside the case, I just rolled up the ziploc baggies and stuffed them into the case. I would venture that You could store multiple Icehouse sets in this case. If you want something smaller JUST for 11 trios of the Current colors available then I believe any store with school supplies should have similar pencil cases that are smaller. But I think this one will handle your Icehouse set easily. I will get some pictures later when I have better light to work with. I have my three loose stashes that came with the Demo kit in the case right now and they cover the bottom of the case with room for a couple more stashes just on the bottom layer and the case is easily 5 inches tall. I will be buying a few more of these cases myself for other collections of Pyramids. The construction seems decent and it doesn't appear that is will be easily destroyed, that being said it is a bag with a zipper and zippers are not the most reliable invention ever so expect the zipper to fail at some point, especially if you over stuff the bag with a couple hundred mids. but aside from that, the seams appear to be stitched well, the handle is secure, and the canvas fabric appears to be sturdy enough to stand up to the test of time. We shall see, but for now I am giving this my stamp of approval for a method of pyramid storage(also if I ever get those mouse pad style game boards/martian coasters made then they should also be able to fit nicely inside the bag along with Zendo stones, Treehouse dice, and other assorted dice for games. I will take a look at the makeup case soon to see if that can be converted into a decent hard sided travel case for pyramids and accessories.

(Afterthought, the pencil case in question is actually just a hair longer than the inside length of the Looney Labs Purple Bag so if it is fully stuffed it wont fit. Not too big of a deal though since I use that for Fluxx and Chrononauts and was looking at this zipper case as a separate storage option for pyramids all together.)

Wow, that's big. Much larger than the pictures seem to suggest. Looking forward to the pictures!

First three pictures. Used a 3 pip pyramid for size reference. As you can see its a decent sized bag, also inside the bag are three rainbow stashes, you can see there is plenty or room to the right(see the next two uploaded pictures) for a few more rainbow stashes to layer the bottom.

Last 2 images. The inside looks a little cramped, but there is plenty of room, I couldnt find a good way to hold the camera and move the baggies inside and hold the bag open and snap the picture to show how much room there is, but as I said I basically just rolled up the excess plastic on the baggies that the stashes come in and tossed them into the zipper bag, so they came loose and are taking up space with nothing but empty plastic that can easily be moved aside or rolled back up if I need to put more into the bag.

Sorry to be more space cadet than starship captain for awhile there—much has happened personally and medically which has interfered with regular life for awhile.  The “terminal” cancer isn't going to kill me, but everything else might at this rate.  ;P

I haven't really thought about storing these things in a single-person-carryable bug out bag backpack, but that's largely because I consider such things to be somewhat different purpose than most.  My philosophy on bags/kits is rather off-topic for this thread and it starts to run into professional territory for me, so I'd best not use this forum for it anyway.  Suffice it to say that I believe in things being built for the purpose so that you don't have to carry more than you need to, because I know I'll be carrying it under my own power, and I suspect you will be too.

That said, if that rugged pencil case could be made to keep things from rattling around inside it, it'd be well-suted to the task.  The makeup case you cite below is a little heavy for a go kit of any sort, but it'd do for a home- or car-carryable kit I suppose, and such a kit can hold more internally.  If you have pics of your internal setup, I'd love to see them (and you may have already posted them to page 2…)

The small kit I hope to eventually turn into something that the local Red Cross chapter can assemble and offer for around $40 or less, so that particular pencil pouch might not do it for their purpose, but it's a step in the right direction.

Y'know, when I see your pictures, I think of stuff like packing cubes.  The smaller sizes.  The Eagle Creek ones are very nicely made and high-end, but the Red Cross kits could easily use something a little more basic.  Should be quite doable to include some pyramids, some cards, and some colored dice in such a setup with room to spare.

I'd like my personal kit to handle water though, and coasters would only take so much unless I get creative and do something with plastic.  Hmmm…

http://www.backcountry.com/sealline-baja-dry-bags?ti=UExQIENhdDpEcnkgQmFnczoxOjI6YmNzQ2F0OTExMDAwMTM&skid=CAS0436-BK-S5L

Not the best method of storage for the pyramids, but could be nice a water tight storage option to put your smaller storage options into. These things work wonders. 

Those things are quite effective, yeah.  I stuff my phone (Survivor case and all) into something very similar when I'm going to be out where there's more than just rain to worry about and it's always stayed dry, even when I got completely soaked.

Definitely. I had a few of these to lug around different things during my Army time. They did quite well keeping the sensitive equipment dry even under the worst of conditions.

I use a Lego Storage Box.

Wow, that is surprisingly tidy.  And somehow completely obvious.  So obvious, I never thought of doing it before.  Like, of course a plastic case designed fFor carrying small, sharp pieces of slightly fFragile plastic would be the right box.  Why did I never think of this?

Kudos!

Alas, the Treehouse tube is no more.  It would be so obvious to use any number of small bit carriers if we still had a source for treehouse tubes.  I've got one now, but I paid a premium for the set.  Unless anyone has found a source for the tubes in question?  They are likely a fairly standard part, though probably normally sold in lots of like 10,000 or something.  ;P

http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-3490/Tubes/1-1-2-x-8-3-4-Clear-Plastic-Tubes

I think these would work, but I'm not too keen on having to trim them down to 6.5" and buy 25 at a time. =P

(I have been soooo neglecting LL stuff lately.  Life has seriously interfered with my free time!)

I think if we could get tubes for pyramid storage, a group buy would certainly be in order so that you didn't have to buy more than you needed.  I could immediately use half a carton, with caps, as could most of us.

The issue with these tubes is that they're both too long and they're round.  The Treehouse tube is used as a game piece, which is the biggest argument for having it.  Otherwise you could just use treehouse and icehouse bags labeled and tossed into a six pack cooler.

I think you're close looking at a site like uline though.  I'll keep this in the back of my head and actually try to remember to do something other than just let it rattle around for months as something that I intend to address when I have time.

(I also haven't forgotten about finishing the ePub of The Empty City either…)

The square ones I found (not from Uline, which doesn't seem to carry square plastic tubes) were both more expensive and too short. I figured it'd be possible to trim down the 8.75" tubes to 6.5" with a miter box from an arts and crafts store. The 1.5" diameter allows the pyramids, which are 1.414" diagonally at the base, to fit easily with very little wiggle room.

I've just started getting into the pyramids games after becoming a Fluxx fanatic over the last few years. A couple of days ago I decided to make my own box after looking around at both suggestions and pre-built products online. It's still in progress, but I bought a hinged wooden box for $5 at a Michael's craft store as well as a few strips of alder in 1/8x3/8 and 1/16 square sizes. The outer dimensions of the box are just over 8x8.25x1.75. The walls are about 1/4 inch and the top/bottom are very thin plywood. I used the strips to make a raised 6x6 board on top. Remaining work includes interior dividers and lining - it'll hold 39 nests, plus dice and coasters - plus staining, a felt pad on the bottom and replacement hardware.

Picture: Ice chest in progress

I'm a somewhat newcomer to the whole pyramid scene but I've got a case I find works pretty well so far.

It comes in a few different arrangements but here's the manufacturer's website:  http://www.irisusainc.com/p-759-kp-xlpho.aspx   Mine is like that but it holds 12 instead of 16.  I got it at the Container Store, Amazon has them too.  There are also versions of these boxes that are 5x7 instead of 4x6.

Anyway each of those 4x6 units can hold at least 18 nested trios.  I've got mine in them as 6 nests of 3 colors each.  So two containers hold my rainbows with a slot to spare, and two more hold the xenos + pink.  I don't like them rattling around loose so I keep them in plastic baggies per color for now, although I'm trying to rig up a thing with little foam sheets that you can see with the red/yellow/green container in the photos below.  I've also got the games that come in pyramid bags inside their own 4x6 so if someone wants to play one of those, they can just grab that 4x6 and the needed pyramids.  The other 4x6s have extra dice, coasters, a rainbow box (which I'm using the hold the little booklets those come with), that sort of thing.  A 3house book and World War 5 board fit inside the outer box.

Photo gallery of this box as of this post:  http://imgur.com/a/vKa8s

Hoping to get a tarot deck and some zendo stones in there too eventually, probably the rainbow/xeno/pink boxes will come out to accommodate those.  I might get another rainbow stash for the "extra" slot so it could be easily grabbed too.  Ideally I'd also do that for xeno, and then have a 4x6 for pink/grey/kickstarter green but I'd need to get greys for that!

Biggest downsides I see with it now are that some things might not fit the 4x6, the handle is potentially too flimsy for really using it a lot (like at a convention maybe.  perhaps it could be modified or replaced?), and I bought a 12 box unit without knowing there was a 16!  Also there are transparent color versions of the 4x6s but not in all the colors you'd want if you were going to dedicate a 4x6 to each color of pyramid.

Tip-saver/rattle resistors for Metal Tins:

So, as Andy indicated back in October, these metal tins (Starship Captain’s Metal Tin) could be a neat way to store your pyramids.A few years ago, I had made a similar (cardboard) container, but with cone-shaped bottom and lid to better fit/protect the pyramids. Basically the cone was just a small 0.5" high, and 2" in radius.

They are fairly simple to make: (Make two, one for the bottom and one for the top)

1) Draw a 2.12" radius circle on a piece of card-stock. (A little over 2-1/16")

2) Draw a radial line, plus an additional radial offset from the first by 10.27degrees. (10 degrees is probably sufficient)

3) Cut along one of the radials, and bend the paper into a cone such that the cut line meets the offset line.

4) Tape ends in place.

I can't speak fFor the looneys in any official capacity on things like copyright, but yes, many of the games are available online.  Actually, I think it's fFair to say that many of the games in print were *originally* online, and selected to be printed later.  Though I agree, an ebook of some of those publications might be nice.  An assortment of PDFs are variously available, at least.

Yeah, I think it's basically a question of interest/time/energy. I'm not aware of anyone having made specific e-book format documents like mobi or whatever, as opposed to PDFs or various word processor formats.

Pamphlets and just about everything sent to a publisher can be turned into a PDF.  These, as sent to the publisher, usually include cut marks, color swatches for quality control, etc.  A few minutes in Acrobat can "crop" (hide, really) those edges for nicer presentation.  Being legally blind, I can usually talk publishers into a PDF in exchange for a receipt for the printed version and proof of disability.  Most of these are what they send to the printers and have all of those borders intact and visible—I never bother to cut them on screen, though I might for mobile device viewing.

Of course the usefulness of the PDFs publishers send me varies greatly. Some of them ratchet down the DRM settings to the point that the documents cannot be used for their intended legitimate purpose.  I'll spare everyone the rant and point out that "unbreakable" DRM simply cannot exist and the law expressly permits me to prove it when legitimately necessary.  And I do!  :) 

Books tend to be written in a source format, often MS Word or LaTeX if the author is a UNIX nerd either by choice or by having gone to university in the right time period…  I have experience turning the former into ePub, and the latter into HTML which is one step removed from ePub.  If the source comes to me with the PDF so I know how the printed version is supposed to look, I often can incorporate some elements of that into the eBook.  I usually work cheap, since I do this in my spare time which is not generous.  I think last time I basically got an autographed copy of the book and a mention in the acknowledgments section in the next printing of the book.  Oh, and the PDF and ePub copies of the book, obviously.

The last resort for these things is chop and scan.  You literally saw the binding off the book and run the pages through a sheetfed scanner.  Time was not so long ago this was the ONLY way to produce electronic books.  The scanner produces multi-page TIFF files or the equivalent as PDF, and you stick the result into OCR.  This winds up creating many errors and editing is tedious.  I simply hate doing this because the product is always inferior and it destroys a perfectly good book.  But for smaller publishers or books out of print, sometimes it's still the only option available.  IMO it's criminal to do to an out of print book.

I spent many hours growing up in front of an industrial scanner, tediously scanning pages sometimes one at a time if the page stock was too thin for the feeder.  Now I just ask, and usually get them without much fuss.  :)  And in recent years, I'm not the only one asking, so I ask BEFORE buying.  The result usually winds up on sale wherever the publisher wants it sold, usually at a discount from the print edition, the company makes profits on bits, and there is much rejoicing.  Thank you Amazon and Apple for getting eReaders right!

The Guide to Looney Pyramids is available as a PDF: http://www.looneylabs.com/sites/default/files/rules/FullPocketGuide.pdf

Looks like that's a variant of Pyramid Primer #1.  That covers the 3House games for anyone but an OCD pyramid freak who probably wants the original paper product anyway.  But about half of the games in PwP aren't in that primer.

OTOH, it might make sense to just put the rules to a bunch of pyramid games in ePub format and a PDF with chessboard wedges and the like collected and ready to print.  :)

W00T!  Some of my xeno stashes are here!  The rest probably Monday.  I also had another Pink Hijinks "delivered" to give me a full stash, but … it wasn't actually delivered.  It'll either be actually delivered tomorrow, or show up in 6 months, or not at all.  *sigh*

Ha, if nothing else, it's an amusing mash-up title! :)

Out of curiosity, did doing it more straightforwardly (every move takes the piece to the dual square, as in Alice) not work well? Malice's teleportation seems more complex, and I'm curious why you made it so.

Likewise for the starting setup being divided between both boards instead of all on one board in the usual setup (as in Alice).

I'm quite proud of that one. ;-)

PS: I just edited in some questions while you replied to the first one-sentence version of my comment. :)

Malice's teleportation seems more complex

I played around with the straight-forward Alice teleportation, but it was not as satisfying.  One reason is that in Alice no matter where you put a piece it's always yours on the other side, but not so in Martian Chess.  Also, in Martian Chess captures tend to happen because pieces are trapped or pieces are overloaded, but that's it.  The extra complexity helped to enable more interesting capture combinations.

the starting setup

The starting setup is still being tweaked, so feedback would be much appreciated there.

Also, the "blocked teleportation" stems from the fact that in Alice, disallowing a move because of an occupied dual square is a powerful way to avoid checkmate, but in Malice that's not a consideration.

I'll give it a try this weekend while I'm demoing at AnCon. I've gotta teach pyramid games anyways, So why not give it a go??

I know this is kind of late, but I wonder if you had a chance to try at AnCon?

How about Daniel Solis' "Procession?" You can play it with a Chess queen and 5 marbles in two different colors, and a chess board (or bandana printed like a chess board), but I've found it works beautifully with a Queen pyramid and five pawns each. And, it was designed for a wedding, and the theme is a wedding processional. More here: http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/procession.html

Congrats!

Are you intending that the games be played at the wedding? If so, I suspect that RAMbots is rather too long and complex for that kind of setting, where the focus is presumably on the wedding and the socializing, especially if many of the guests are not already experienced gamers. I'd tend toward simple short stuff like Martian Coasters in that case.

FWIW I've had success playing Stack Control with casual gamers.

Well the idea is some function, but a good portion of what I want is form. Pyramid games are very pretty and I want to leverage that. I understand why casual gamers would be put off by rambots or other similar games. I wish I could do volcano, but unfortunately the pyramid costs alone would bankrupt me. I guess I want the most attractive games I can find that are still accessible if you've ever played a board game before.

I would suggest Pikemen in place of Rambots, actually.  The setup looks lovely, with each set of pieces already on the board arranged in a cool setup, and the rules are fFairly simple to explain.  Rambots is simple enough I suppose, but the board starts mostly empty.

I get a lot of mileage out of playing Giant Volcano.  But this requires you actually have Giant Pyramids to play with.

Logger is nicely playable with assorted pyramids, if you wind up with a number of extra parts that need a game.

Depending on who is coming, and how you arrange tables and such, you might be able to simply put Treehouse at several tables with less experienced gamers.  It's a very fFriendly game with minimal part requirements.

Actually, that's the next project on my radar. My friends and I are going to make some attempts at some sturdy giant pyramids. We demo at cons and we play enough pyramid games to actually warrant their construction

First, this is awesome. Second, congratulations on your upcoming marriage!  Third, when you have your plan together, and know how many pyramids you need to order, be sure you call Alison at the Looney Labs office...  she has been known to offer discounts for larger purchases used at wedding receptions...

also, check out this old Fluxx Love Stores page: http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/LoveStories.html

Thanks Kristin!

So far planning has been going very smoothly, but this will be a great help. Actually, the great part about using the pyramids for centerpieces is that while it was my idea, Joshua has really been the one to run with it. Even so, I really appreciate your post.

-Natalie 

I've actually put lots of thought into this, and honestly the biggest problem I see with these types of events is scoring. I have spent many hours attempting to figure out how I would score games put into these competitions. While games such as IceTowers, Icehouse, and Martian Chess have actual scoring mechanisms, how would you score a game of World War 5? Or more interestingly how would you score a game of Homeworlds?

If I could find an interesting solution to this conundrum I think I might actually run a decathlon at AnCon in Hudson, OH this year.

I'd just score rank results from each game and combine them, ignoring specific scores. I.e. who was 1st place, who was 2nd place, etc.

(E.g. see http://russcon.org/RussCon/devilpoints.html )

For a good hardcore triathalon :) I'd probably say Homeworlds, Zendo, and Gnostica.

To bring it to 5, perhaps add IceTowers (for realtime) and Tic Tac Doh (for tiny/minimalist abstract).

To bring it to 10, add Martian Coasters (for silly random game), Pikemen (for classic style abstract), World War 5 (for dice-rolling ameritrash), RAMbots (for simultaneous programming), Volcano (popular abstract).

But tomorrow I might give other answers. Many choices... :)

I would probably build the Triathlon with an eye towards getting each of the various main styles of game.  This is more fFlexible, allowing you to pick the games based on length and available time.  I'll give a more concise answer next.  =)

1. A Chessboard Style Game, probably Pikemen or Martian Chess or Extinction
2. A Random Luck Game, almost certainly IceDice, possibly Martian Coasters or maybe World War 5
3. A Complex Game with a Theme, like Homeworlds, Alien City, or Nile.

The next couple would be perfect abstracts, and would be sorely missed in their absence.

1. Volcano (I would enjoy a tournament of just this alone, but I suspect not everyone shares my opinion)
2. Zendo (although it seems to me a Zendo Koan, or a series of them, might not make the fFairest Tournament game)

Rounding out the Decathlon would be any of the things mentioned above we didn't include, plus:

1. A Zarc game, probably Zark City, but maybe Zarcana, or even Decktana.  Emperor's Garden if you fFeel exotic.
2. A turnless game like Icehouse or Icetowers
3. Probably should get in something in the Tiny Games category, like Pink Hijinks, Pharoah, or Launchpad 23.  These might be too light to be a valid game in a grand tournament, but also there are some good fFun games in that toybox.
4. If possible, something in the "Experimental" category which Andy hasn't even published yet like Petri Dish or Sandships

Here is a more precise answer to what I think you are asking:  What are the 3 games that we can measure a person by, and decide conclusively that they are The Master of The Pyramids?

The three I have chosen each display properties which are completely unique to a Pyramid game, and are all unique fFrom each other.  They eschew conventional materials, and tend to highlight the defining fFeatures of a Pyramid game.  I probably sound a bit presumptuous here, but I think it's a pretty good basis.

1. Volcano (My fFavorite game, I'm going to be honest)
2. Icehouse (The classic; even if noone plays it, I maintain it is a keystone of the fFamily)
3. Dectana or Zark City, depending on if you own a Decktet

I would round that out to a pentathlon with:

1. Alien City or Homeworlds, depending on if you own a Piecepack
2. ...undecided actually.  Ice Palace or Sprawl are both very good choices, due to their unconventional usage of a checkerboard grid.  But i am yet to play a game of either where I explained the rules, or got the rules explained to me correctly, which suggests to me maybe they are not the best games.
3. An alternate here, due if only to its popularity:  Zendo.

I named a bunch of other great choices to make a Decathlon in my previous post, and those all stand.  It's probably cheating to wave my hands and say "...and some of these, too."  But I also think if you're going to do such an event, it would be wise to consider the audience.  If you anticipate new or easily confused new players, maybe use this Triathlon instead:

1. IceDice
2. Martian Coasters
3. Pikemen

Well, I wouldn't expect "new or easily confused players" to be a "Master of The Pyramids" in any case. :)

True, good point.

So... a Sharp Point Olympiad?  (groans)

Anyway, I would love to see (and participate) in an event around this topic.  It would be fun to see it organized along various levels of participation and pyramidal experience, each corresponding to the triathlon, pentathlon, and decathlon.  That is, rather than trying to focus on diversity at the 3 and 5-game levels, I'd rather see a focus on getting people who might have never played before up and running and competing.

That said, my entries are as follows.

# Triathlon

1. Zark City

2. IceDice

3. IceTowers

My thought here is that each is simple enough to learn fairly quickly and represent a nice survey of pyramidness.  As an additional bonus each can play 2-4 players allowing some flexibility in matching players and also in helping to host a large group.

# Pentathlon

4. Pink Hijinks

5. Volcano

The pentathlon would still focus on newcomers to the games in that it still has games that are quick to explain.  However, more so than the triathlon games, the pentathlon games offer more change for strategic thinking and perhaps a way of segmenting awards amongst the newcomers to the games and the veterans.

# Decathlon

Now we get into the hardcore events, for the players who might already know many pyramid games.

6. Martian Chess OR Pikepersons

7. Homeworlds

8. World War 5 OR Icehouse

9. Gnostica OR Zarcana

10. Zendo

Rounding out with the cream of the crop (IMO).  You could choose the game to the right or the left of the ORs to make the event more or less intense.

It would be a blast to participate even if I'd probably be one of the worst players.  In any case I could shoot for a Cool As Ice award.  ;-)

See the only problem with this, for me personally, is that some games, being only 2 player, might pose a difficulty in actually scoring that way. For example, while Homeworlds can be played with multiple players, most players will agree that the purity of Binary Homeworlds is far superior. So, without having to get into a complicated tournament (I say this because a single game of Homeworlds could take hours), how would you score a game of Binary Homeworlds in which there is one winner and one loser?

Just asking out of curiosity, because I really love Binary Homeworlds and I would honestly put it in any kind of competition for a true Master of Pyramids.

I don't see the problem. Many 2-player games (e.g. Go, Chess, Pentago, etc) have tournaments with the simple system of giving 1 tournament point for each win and 0 for a loss.

Or using my "devil points" system (linked earlier), +1 for win and -1 for loss (a point for each player you beat and -1 point for each player who beat you).

I don't see a need for having "scores" from each game. (Especially since indeed many games, not just 2-player games, don't end with "scores" but only with a winner.)

Just note who won, or note final ranks if desired.

Hmmm.... I didn't approach this from the "how to run a tournament" perspective, but you guys make a good point.

I see two obvious approaches.

One solution is to have all the games in the pyramid-athlon be 2-player games, so you can use an existing FIDE-like method for scoring tournaments.  This cuts out most of the diplomacy and player interaction games, and limits the ability to test the full athletic range.

The other solution is to only include games have objective scoring built-in, so that you can compare relative scores and performance between multiple players across many games.  IceTowers, Gnostica, Dectana, Volcano, Martian Chess, etc.  There aren't that many of these, and they all play with the same part of the brain.  So much for well-roundedness.

Most pyramid games I've played, especially more of the recent designs, simplify the endgame into a "get there first" race.  Perhaps just extending two-player formats into multi-player dimensions would be adequate.

Looks like a fun game especially to play with the little ones. I checked out the drivethrucards page, but the new versions don't show up. Just thought I would let you know.

Thanx. I know about. I uploaded my first expansion to Geodeto and made new layout for the most of backsides, so it takes few days to go through proof prints. I guess it will take some 14 days max. If you want you can add yourself to my mail-list. 

http://divecky.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=2827379129b19090ee376e4ee&id=0e5bf0e7db

So, the cards are ready at: http://www.drivethrucards.com/browse.php?manufacturers_id=5323

All Pyramideto NEW versions have same decks of cards, just the second language (English-Spanish, English-Chinese, English-Czech) differs.

I hope you will have fun :)

My geeklist about pyramid games I've played might be useful:

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/55228/icehouse-looney-pyramid-games-explored-by-russ

For me, I started with ice dice and sort of fell into the rest. But knowing what I know now, I have the following advice: Start with what we call a 3house set. It's short hand for 3 treehouse sets. You can do this by getting icedice and treehouse, or get 3 treehouse sets, or even just buy 3 rainbow stashes (rainbow stashes are just a treehouse set without all the awesome extra goodies). A 3house set will allow you to try out a host of games, and if you go with the first of my three options, you'll already have 4 games to try out. Next, hit up the wiki at icehousegames.org/wiki or the Looney pyramids page at Looneylabs.com these are great resources for learning about pyramid games. The former has a page called what can I play, and you can look at games you can play with what you have, I did that a lot when I started. The latter has really nice formulated sheets called Icesheets for learning rules in a very easy fashion. It's quite honestly six of one half a dozen of the other because both are great. If you have any other questions feel free to friend request me and send me a message, I'm a pyramid maniac, or a starship captain, one of the two. So I'll be happy to help in any way I can.

For me (so far!), the breakout game is Zendo -- sort of like Mastermind with three dimensions. Also like Martian Chess and Rotationary. Would like to try Homeworlds, but, so far, haven't found any takers. (It's also OK if you just want to build cool stuff with them. Builders of R'lyeh is basically pointy building blocks, but really cool pointy building blocks.)

Thank you for the help. I think I might buy the Looney Pyramid Demo Kit. The whole idea is not only do I learn the games with my friend, but there are also a few gaming clubs where I live, and a great FLGS that is owned by a friend. I'm hoping to put some demos on in the future when I have a better knowledge of how to play.

That's a good idea. The kit comes with the pyramid primer guide #1 which is a great place to start. 13 pyramid games, and most of them among the best and most popular, plus all the things you need to play said games

Hey everyone. Jim I'm so glad you posted this. I to wanted some advice on pyramids. I think we should combine our efforts and during our next gaming night try it out. I'm also very interested in seven dragons if anyone has advice or feedback on it?

I love 7 dragons!  It is both fFun and beautiful.  An exquisite gem.

Thanks Scott, that's sold for me.

I can see myself spendng far too much money over the next couple of months.

Actually, pyramids are ultimately pretty economical. I have seven rainbow sets and a couple Xeno, and I've got any game I can think of covered -- many in two color schemes ; ). (Of course, maybe I might get a couple more Xeno sets... OK, maybe 3.) The most pyramids I've ever used at one time was the 7 rainbow sets, for an 8-player game of Zendo.

I mean in general. With all the Fluxx, then starting Pyramids, then other Looney games. Well worth it though.

I had extra mediums I didn't know what to do with... 

Holy fFrijoles!  That is amazing!!  How long did it take you?

Downright spiffy!

Thanks! :)

Without drying time about an hour.

you'll have to excuse me, i've been drooling for about the past hour.

Haha!  I know the feeling! :)  I purchased this specifically for the gaming community who like pyramids. I purchased one for myself years ago, then I remembered the same place had a second copy. I went back years later (last weekend) and it was still there, same price. So I just got it to sell. It's on ebay. I really hope someone who loves pyramids / looney games ends up with it. With extras.. it's worth it...  :)

Wow, that's really interesting.  =)  How well do they hold together, in that?  I mean, i don't think I'd want a stack of pyramids like that, alone, tossed into a purse or big game bag.  I'm pretty sure they'd fFly apart.  But maybe a fFew sets lined up together side by side in a box, might hold okay?

Clever and weird, though the risk of it flying apart gives me pause. :)

In a box would be fine. Also, putting them in a sandwich bag like I described works quite well. I hope you give it a try--it *does* work!

Thanks for the compliment! As I said in the above reply, the method I described with the sandwich bag and rubber band works quite well. When you take the stack out of the bag, the tension of the rubber band holds the stack together (although you do need to be careful with it at this point). Really, I've had no accidents using this method.

To anyone reading this: How do you store and transport your Rainbow Stashes? What works for you? Please share your experiences.

I'm still keeping my pyramids in the original tubes, and I have a box which holds 6 tubes.

What I want is to make a securely closing box that would hold a bunch of stacks of them flat in divided slots, like tubes missing one long side. But I've not found one "off the shelf" and have been too lazy to try designing and making my own.

Ah, yes. I'm a newcomer and got my pyramids in boxes and Ice Dice pouches. Yes, the original tubes are certanly ideal. I thought of trying to find "just the right size," but that felt like too much work. I got the idea for my paperclips-and-rubber-band holder by playing with a stack of nested pyramids, and it works well enough for me.

I tried this, it seemed to work well, but I was paranoid about adding more scratches to my stashes.  Here's a simplified version I came up with: one 7-inch band (made for file folders) with 3 overhand knots.  The center knot keeps it under the base of the bottom nest, and the two end knots form loops to hook around the tip of the top nest on both sides.

Hey, great--I like your idea better! Thanks for sharing--this is what happens when people share their ideas!

Sorry to resurrect the thread; but it's important enough to dissuade people--my method with the rubber band will cause stress fractures in pyramids over time, don't do it.

Thanks for the warning/update!

Bummer--I really liked your solution. Thanks for letting us know!

[One moment while I put the slide show to the right on "pause." Thanks for that, from all we migraineurs who are triggered by animations in peripheral vision...]

We were discussing in another thread my personal enflummoxing (it is too a word) by the Wiki functions, etc. on that page. I like the idea of a wiki for this purpose, but there are more recent versions that don't have as high a learning curve, i.e. the freebie version of SharePoint. I do web admin for a living, and would be able to help out with the grunt work on converting files, etc., and giving input on a redesign, if folks want to go that way. (NO, I'm not willing to head up a redesign -- still working full-time these days.) I'm finding that, once introduced in person, many people (including non-techies) are fascinated with pyramids (especially Zendo), and I think a more user-friendly pyramids site is needed. End of two cents...

You're saying you find a wiki to be an uninviting format for users looking for information, or just for people who want to add to or edit the site? While I find it very bare-bones, stylistically, I don't see how it differs from other sites in information quality or navigability.  Most people have perused, say, Wikipedia...

As for editing it, there is certainly some technical savvy involved - a certain learning curve, but I figured there might be some pyramid folks who are already familiar with wikis, or who would be interested in pursuing it.  I didn't find it all that hard to pick up the gist of the wiki markup language myself, but I'd balk at having to download and use some app I'd never heard of.  (What is SharePoint and what does it do?  I'll admit I'm not particularly tech savvy myself.)

In short, I wasn't suggesting moving away from a wiki format at this time.  This site is not run by Looney Labs (so it's not really up to us!)  There is already so much information that has already been built in this format, that moving it into a completely different system doesn't sound practical to me, but maybe I'm wrong.  I was just hoping we could get some more info up there.  I'd love to hear what others think about this!

If nothing else, thanks for your enthusiasm!

-Alison

PS: Sorry about the slideshow...

The idea of changing to a different wiki format has been floated before (http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/suggestion-of-a-new-pyramid... ), but the general consensus seemed that it would be a logistical nightmare, as there are thousands of pages, tags, links, etc. There doesn’t seem to be a burning need for it either. It’s a very functional site as is, and, with the spam issue under control now, I haven’t heard a lot of complaints about the content.

I try to help keep the tags up to date, etc. And there are others who do so as well. Alison’s encouragement is very welcome though! If you want to actively get involved in the forum, just jump in and help. Alternatively, if you see something that doesn’t look right while reading the thousands of pages on the wiki, feel free to take the initiative and fix it up! 

BTW, I’m not a programmer, and I haven’t had a lot of difficulty editing within the wiki. There are several of us who use it who would likely help out if someone needed to dump their rules into a new wiki page. It isn’t that difficult to fix up the format of a given page.

But, is there any "Help" file or instructions anywhere on the site? I invested over an hour one day trying to get the gist of the thing, and all I found were "joke" help files that said "We have no help files." It's not even clear what program it is. (I have an Associates in Computer Science focusing on web design, and over 13 years experience designing and maintaining web sites, including those with database support. If I can't figure out even where the instructions are on the site, how is someone with no coding or design experience?)

I'm very familiar with several types of Wiki configurations, but, as I say below, I can't even identify the program running this one, and can't find any help files, instructions, or templates for using it.

There is a "Help" link to the left-hand side of the page. That works for me. 

At the bottom right of the front page is the "Powered by MediaWiki" logo. It's the same software used by Wikipedia.

(Forces myself not to comment on changing hosting to a Looney sure...) The What page was my creation, and it predates semantic wiki. A redesign could just generate that from standard tags. Couple of issues: 1) It was intended only to list finished games, so somehow conditionality would have to be encoded in the semantics (or regex). 2) Not currently being semantic, it's a game author's responsibility to add finalized games to both major What lists (and, sadly, manually readjust the column breaks). At the end of the day, a wiki is a poor format for doing all this in a distributed manner. A database would be more powerful and maintainable. Form fields for all the ways to classify a game, followed by a large text field for the rules in HTML. Then all the sorting, categorizing, and navigation would be generated on the fly (i.e., 'reports'). I'd suggest going that route before grinding through hundreds of pages of conversions just to use an easier interface. Such a project would make for an impressive school project (hint, hint, you folks with free time!). ;-)

Oh. So, you have to be a sexist Democrat to use it? (That's a joke, people.) Thanks for the clue. I'm surprised to find out there isn't a database involved -- I was looking for data tables, which is one of several problems in how I was researching it.

The problem with a database is that then you need a database design and a front end.  Both of those would need to be maintained, so you're not really eliminating problems so much as moving them to a different level.  Considering the problems we've had with administration on the current site, I think that's exactly the wrong way to go.

The last time I tried to make any significant changes, I found that the site was not using the current version of MediaWiki.  I was unable to use some features I found in the MediaWiki documentation, which limited my ability to make improvements.  I do not know if it was ever upgraded.  If not, it would be more accurate to say, "...an older version of the same software used by Wikipedia."

I just got the Pyramid Primer tags into the wiki. Someone will still need to make a little page for the PP, along the lines of what was made for the other publications.

My thoughts are, if we want a nice curated space, then neither a wiki or a database or anything else is the answer.  A genuinely designed and curated webpage of some sort would be the way to go.  A minimum of automated entries, a low amount of untested games.  Something which really showcases the available games.

I think that's what the "Other Games" page on the looney website is intended to be, more or less, but it too lacks curation.  The Looneys don't really have time, one assumes.

Oh, and that webpage could probably produce some sort of periodical.  Because people like physical objects fFor their games.  But that might be rather difficult.

Agreed, although in practice I've not had that problem. I just do pretty standard basic vanilla wiki formatting, the sort of thing which has existed stably for many years.

Hmm... you know, this isn't a political forum and we are probably a rather diverse community politically; odd "jokes" about sexist Democrats (or racist Republicans, or creationist Teabaggers, or anything else off-topic and political like that) else seem unnecessarily antagonistic/divisive.

Actually, it was intended to be a joke about Wikipedia.

> and I think it's worth keeping up.

I couldn't agree more.  I'm happy to help maintain the information given the proper rights.  As a relative newcomer to pyramid games I've found the wiki an invaluable source of information.  Likewise, I think that I have the proper mix of knowledge and ignorance to help. :-)

The biggest problem with a distributed-authoring wiki is that nothing enforces formatting or metadata standards. Considering that Alison asked about a specific page--one that is basically a bunch of ways to filter and sort the list of games--I replied to her point with the best sustainable solution.

While I'm disinclined to entertain a conversation about 'defense of a platform', I will say:

1) There is no law requiring that a working interface to create and access HTML pages be "maintained". Unless some new LL product drives a change to the metadata schema or adds colors or similar, it could tick over fine for years.

2) I could do the "design" for the form entry and table structure in about a half a day. Wrapping the database with a site that has navigation, sorting, filtering, and grouping would be the biggest challenge, not only in technical accomplishment but also working through all the aesthetics (which a wiki platform usually resolves for you). Hence why I think it would be a capital school project.

3) What we could really use is something like Joomla, with some serious standards applied on the Editor role (i.e., where the tagging is made consistent). It wouldn't be as custom as a purpose-built DB site; but it wouldn't be the 'wild west' that an open wiki site tends to become.

----

If an admin will install SemanticWiki, I could begin to add tags to finalized games to make the What Can I Play page be automatically generated (then it would need to be protected by an admin). It's likely that just semanticizing (heh) the infobox would do 90% of what the WCIP page needs.

What you’re talking about has merit if someone wishes to create a curated site. However, I see that as an addition to the wiki, which functions as a vital community  database, serving various needs that wouldn’t be covered by a website.

It would be nice to offer players better guidance as to the scope and quality of the overall collection of games. I’m thinking of doing something on the wiki to address this better. At the very least, I’m going to start a page accessible from the "What Can I Play" page that links to the different databases, blogs, forums, etc. where reviews of assorted games are to be found.  To be most helpful, I think these should be pages that offer reviews for more than one game, and it should include external and internal links.

Promising Cadet here, I've discovered several pages have dead links (moved usually, or some no longer available) and it would generally be good to update those links where possible, find archival info where not, and overall get permission where possible to actually put content on the site.  If IcehouseGames.org has bandwidth or storage limitations, that could be an additional problem we might endeavor to solve.  (I'm personally shocked when people tell me they still have any kind of serious limits on either for hosting they pay for as I've not had to worry about either for years…)

There are a LOT of pages on the site, obviously, and many of them could use some TLC.  I created an account on the site, but I don't believe I have access to edit anything, and even if I did I wouldn't correct more than typos without some notion of a standard/optimal entry of the type upon which to model edits to other pages.  I wouldn't want to make the problem worse.

It was obvious to me just looking at it that it was a fairly basic MediaWiki installation with a few thematic adjustments.  MediaWiki isn't the easiest thing in the world to cope with (and I admit I haven't much experience with it because of that), but it gets the job done.

The one thing I wish MediaWiki did better would be images.  Text markup syntax is a matter of taste, and wars have been fought since Mars was green and blue over whose taste is better.  ;)  Most of us learn all the ones we use often and find cheatsheets for the ones we don't.  But we're talking about games, and in describing a game's setup, a picture really is worth a thousand words.  Even if you're legally blind.  (Hi.)

As I don't have anything but the Treehouse/IceDice mini-guide as far as official Looney publications go (for now), I don't know if there's a better or more complete way to do these things.  That said, the summary boxes in that little guide are quite useful:

Difficulty, Duration, Number of players, Pyramids required, Other equipment, Picture, Short Description.  That seems to be a great index entry for a game IMO.  If the author wants to link to official rules or even describe them outright on the page, I'm perfectly happy with that.  :)

That's not a particularly complicated format for the purposes of indexing.  As you say, the web interface and making it look good is the majority of the work here.

Oh I think any love to any page at all is good.  I wouldn't worry too much about conforming to standards.  In short, there aren't any real standards.  Most games need more pictures, and many games need revisions.  Probably the most common type of problem is a page which writes a lot about some minor detail, but fFails to describe important concepts.

As fFor editing rights and ownership, the main page of the wiki reads:  "This is a wiki: Dive right in!"  The game designer is considered to Own the game, but they have also posted it in a public space with the understanding that anyone may revise.  Good editing is as important as good design.  Give attribution where necessary and you'll be okay.

I don't seem to have access to edit anything.  It may be a public space that editors should dive right into, but there's the procedural matter of having the appropriate access permissions it seems.  :)  The current state of things is good to know.  I might have some suggestions for improving the free-for-all somewhat at some point, but I'm rather new here and it's generally a good idea to get to know things before one goes around messing with stuff.

How new?  Well, I got my first IceDice set less than two weeks ago now and absolutely fell in love with the system!  I will shortly have as full of a full set of stashes as one can get.  I've learned eight games, though I haven't played them all yet because of time, availability of players, and oh, I just got the rest of my rainbow stashes this week.  Xenos will come mostly next week.  :)

Boards will take time as I determine what is best to print, what is best to buy, and what is best to build.  I saw some pictures of a couple of lightboards out there and they were just amazing.  Oh, and I can handle the LEDs for such things if I have something to do with them, so you KNOW I'm going to wind up with glowy pyramid action sooner or later.  Especially since slightly glowy pyramids would play easily in low light—I'm legally blind and an albino, so playing in low light with lots of contrast to my pieces is much appreciated.  :D

Oh, yes, uhm, Ryan Hackel needs to grant you Editing access to the wiki.  He will probably need to know your username.  Ryan, are you tuned in this thread?  He's generally pretty awesome about adding people.  Actually Ryan is pretty awesome all around.  =)  If he doesn't respond here, I suggest maybe starting a new thread somewhere asking fFor editing rights, that usually grabs his attention.

I would love to see your Glowy Pyramids, if you do assemble them.  People have discussed putting small LEDs inside the pyramids themselves, which sounds just awesome!  Pictures!

INSIDE the pyramids sounds like too much work.  Plus, you couldn't do it with regulation pyramids, sadly.  They just nest too tightly.

What you might be able to do, if you were really creative, is arrange for individual spaces on a board to light up only when a pyramid was placed on the square.  Something involving a very light pressure making contact.

No, I'd either bottom-light a diffuser under plastic or glass, or I'd use some kind of side-lighting arrangement as is done for LCD screens.  Should be workable for anything up to about a 14x14 grid if I light all four sides.  I can envision games useful with up to that size of board.  Lit or not, I think I want multiple boards.  I have use for 3x3, 3x4, 4x4, 3x5, and 5x5, in multiple combinations. (4 3x3 and 4x4 would be useful to have, for example to make 6x6 and 8x8 boards…)  Magnets might be useful to hold them together.  I'm probably getting too fancy on myself.

Whatever I do, there will be pictures, if I can come up with anything worth taking pictures of.  For the forum, and for BGG.

For all English speaking fans. There is a link to Updated English Rules. If you would like to make any comment, do it here or send me your email and I will give you access to comment the main Google Doc. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RnfshwcYgYhB-rBC-FH6QrD1iI8HqfCNYgKXoOhTyfk/edit?usp=sharing

Last three rounds differ. All players play simultaneously.  For each of last three rounds, to avoid frictions, each player writes down name of the swing state, in which he or she intends to place a pyramid, and size of the pyramid. If applicable, make changes in State cards possessions after each round.

would read better as:

"In the last three rounds of the game, pyramids are placed simultaneously.  All players should secretly write down the name of the state and the size of the pyramid they will play there.  Then, change State Card ownership as normal."

I think the enterprising gamer will make their own set of state cards and size cards fFor this purpose.  But it's probably not necessary to say this in the rules.  Maybe if this game gets published in a deluxe edition or something, cards fFor this purpose could be made.

There's probably other cases where the English could be improved.  But this paragraph kinda stood out, to me.

If you give me permission to add comments, I would do so.  iamthecheeze@gmail.com

I sent you one.

I think the enterprising gamer will make their own set of state cards and size cards fFor this purpose.  But it's probably not necessary to say this in the rules.  Maybe if this game gets published in a deluxe edition or something, cards fFor this purpose could be made.

To much cards I think if there will be more players. Do you mean it is problem to write down f.e. 3 to FLO?

No no, not too much trouble.  I think I really mean to point out, the general trend in modern gaming is to include a token, card, or chit fFor almost any activity done in the game.  A "deluxe" edition of this game might have these things.  But it is not at all needed.

There is a free competition version of the game named VIRIBUS UNITIS - see it here: http://www.drivethrucards.com/product/126746/Viribus-Unitis

Cool!

I have no concrete suggestions of specific games, but if you look at the highest ranked players and then view their lists of games to find ones they played with other highest ranked players, that might work... If you find anything particularly cool, please post it. :)

I will do that.  I was aware of the archived games at http://superdupergames.org/main.html?page=listoldgames, but was hoping for a few pointers to n00b-friendly games.  That said, I will work my way through and highlight some interesting games as suggested. :-)

Andy thoroughly documented a play-by-email session from 2003:

http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/HomeworldsPBEM/Game1Report1.html

http://superdupergames.org/main.html?page=play_homeworlds&num=25716

Here is the current #1 on the Binary Homeworlds SuperDuperGame.com ladder playing the current #2 (as of this post on 4.27.2014), so this could be a decent game to follow.  Though the OP may be good by now, in reference to ways for people to learn the game beyond just reading the rules, it helps to get your own pyramids, set them up, and use them to replicate the move-by-move as they are played out by these people online.  This will help with visualization, and then you can stop at any time, analyze the move made, and try and figure out why the person made it against what other options they had.

Thank you for that link.  I'll work through that game the first chance that I get.

The Icehouse Wiki seems the obvious place to me, as it's the primary central archive of pyramid games.

I'd say post to the wiki, then link to it here for discussion/feedback. Folks have tended not to do much on Talk pages, these past few years.

I would be happy to post to the Wiki... if I had creation rights.  Would anyone with the power consider allowing me (username Fogus) such power?

This question comes up from time to time (too often). Is there a way that a link could be added to the create account page that tells new users how to edit (as that's probably the reason most people create new accounts anyway)?

You'll want to message http://looneylabs.ning.com/profile/RyanEHackel on here to get editing rights.

And I'll mention here my point that changing the title to "Xendo" will be bad for player searching info on the web; there are a lot of useful good webpages about "Zendo" which won't be found searching for "Xendo".

Agree completely (and, I've played a lot of Zendo with different groups of people). Light on the theme, already. And, I don't think a name change is appropriate. Pyramid stuff is hard enough to find/explain/market as it is. Now, maybe if there were a sequel with different rules...  Of course, even with a variant, I'd still call it "Zendo II" or whatever, for all the reasons Russ W mentioned.

I've tried both and the only new term I really like is "clusters" instead of "koans," because it solves the "cone" problem I have when introducing people to the pyramids via Zendo. Other than that, I think the science theme actually undermines the teacher-student roles... it's important to me that the players think of me as a guide who they can freely ask clarifying questions of, not a mere true/false dispenser.

Ha ha, I was wondering what the "cone" problem was until I muttered out loud to myself "the cone problem?!" :)

"Koan" has 2 syllables... I don't think I've had people confuse it with "cone".

> "Koan" has 2 syllables... I don't think I've had people confuse it with "cone".

Must be nice. :) We often played Zendo at lunch at my previous job and had one occasional player that still had the cone problem after maybe two years.

I fFeel like I'm rally late to the conversation here.  I wasn't aware this was a conversation in transit.  My thoughts are thus.

Zendo is a well known game which has a great deal of awareness.  Casual strangers may not be fFamiliar with the Zen component, but people seem to respond to the name, know what it is, know how to play it.  When I play with pyramids in public, I can depend on having to explain at least once "no no, we're not playing Zendo, although it's a great game and you can play that with these pieces, too.  No, we're playing ..."

And, of people who do know the theme and are fFamiliar with the basic notion, it seems to resonate with a stoic search fFor truth.  I will fForever have the image of the Zendo tournament judges, at the big experiment, in very smart looking robes.

Changing the spelling to Xendo seems a bit ... meh.  I don't think I understand the motivation there.  But maybe there is some value to publishing something slightly unique.  But, as Kell mentioned, you lose the ability to google "Zendo."

Perhaps, if you just want to rename it a bit, you could go fFor some munging like "Zendo, the computer mastermind" or the like.

I suppose this is all a lot of words amounting to a plaintive, unsolicited opinion.  And I don't really play much Zendo at all, so I can't claim personal interest.  I guess what I'm saying is, themes don't really need to match gameplay.  Ask Reiner Knizia about that.

I vote the keep "Zendo."

Another vote for Zendo; it's an interesting theme that fits the contemplative nature of the game.

An item from the LL store? Or just online in general?

I work in a comic/game shop in Illinois. I might be able to help you; send me a message if needed.

Dave

From Looney Labs. And it's going to New York. I've got a ton of pyramid stuff picked out, I just want to know whether I should request faster shipping.

I enjoyed the old version. Can't wait to try this one. Looks good.

During setup, should the cards be shuffled before the deal, after removing from ones the 7x7 layout and adding them back into the unused cards?

The cards were always face down.  I don't see a point in shuffling.

I didn't even think of that. Never mind, nothing to see here.

I've changed the attachment. I've added a note about the number of players (1 or 2).

We need to run the 2012 Ice Awards first....

Yeah, I've been telling my friends the results for 2013 should be out in about fourteen months. ; )

I'm thinking at this point of running the 2012 and 2013 awards at the same time.  It's just a very time consuming endeavor, so I've been putting off.  Last year we ran long, awarding the 2011 award sometime in March of 2013, I think.  Combining efforts might be a very sensible way to go.  Maybe have a slightly wider range of awards available, to account fFor a broader diversity of games.  Also I'd like to streamline the voting process.

Generally my thoughts are, whoever runs the awards process gets to be the benevolent dictator and make a fFew executive decisions.  So, if I am the one to run it next, these are things I may do.  I guess this isn't really the place to sort of this stuff, but there it is.

I've certainly had fantasies about a custom wooden box or 3D-printed box with rectangular compartments to hold stashes analogous to the plastic tubes... :)

It seems like it might be relatively easy to make a box with separate stash compartments by accordion-folding a long sheet of cardstock and laying it across the box, so that its cross section looks like this:

|_||_||_||_||_||_|

and then stashes could be laid in each rectangular section. Perhaps glue the cardboard in place to stabilize it. But I've not yet gotten around to trying this.

I did recently handcraft a very simple cardboard thingie with a dozen slots to organize and hold Kingdom Builder tokens, since I got sick of having so many little plastic bags to rummage through, so maybe I'll try handcrafting a pyramid storage solution sometime soon... :)

In years past, I kept my pyramids in the stash tubes.  They were a great way to store them in the stashes that I was likely to use them in.  They were translucent so I could see which stashes I was looking for.  They were rigid and kept my pyramids from being crushed  in my heavy game bag.  They were long and narrow and often fitted in those little places where nothing else could go.

Unfortunately, as the years went by, the tubes began to wear out.  The caps no longer fit tightly, and popped open, scattering pyramids in my bag.  The edges of the tubes began to crack, and the plastic began to fade into a dim yellow.  I still have the tubes, but don't use them regularly anymore.

Since the Treehouse Revolution, it is less important for me to keep my pyramids in separate stashes.  Since I'm going to need multiple colors for games, it's actually convenient for all my rainbow colors to live together in one box and my xeno colors in another box (with grays, electrics, and pinks in there too). 

In my search for a practical container, I've tried keeping my pyrarmids in ziplock bags, toddler-size shoeboxes, and even a box that once contained little jars of novelty jams.  I've had good results with 300-count CCG longboxes. 

I went out to a hardware store, and found a container most people would use for nuts and bolts and things like that. It had 6 compartments, and each holds a monochrome stash. I placed the six colors for World War 5 in there, since it's the most common game that my group plays with pyramids. I also bought another box, and keep volcano caps, Zendo stones, black, electric yellow, and dice of all kinds in there.

I've tried stuff like this. It's not easy to get the flaps to stand up though-- that sort of fold tends to flatten itself really easily.

If I can find a good way to stabilize it, though, you can bet I'll make a volcano board out of it too.

A couple ideas using store bought divided cases:

I have a box a little like that first one, but the dividers in it are all wrong-- all I have are full-length horizontal dividers and the smallest size of vertical divider. I've tried a few arrangements but ultimately it was still too much of a pain to get everything in and out. Currently I'm using an undivided box I found at a general store... it's only 6x8x4 so it fits much easier in my backpack than a tackle box style thing, and I just dumped some pyramids into it on top of my bandana and dice. I'm starting to think maybe there's no way to get around the clean-up time and still sort the pieces in any meaningful pattern. I'd still like to try dividing up the box though, maybe I can cut some cardboard down to fit the slightly sloped edges...

This also looks like an interesting option. Looks like the vertical pieces come out.

http://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Jewelry-Organizer-Storage-Container/dp/B00BLHPW04/ref=lh_ni_t?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2Y8CHJ1TPQQJ0

Thinking about the pros and cons of sorting/nesting versus just pouring all the pyramids into a single big sack/box/etc:

Although sorting and nesting the pyramids during clean-up takes more time, I generally like doing it:

1. It helps verify that none are missing (fallen on the floor or whatever) and should be looked for

2. Nests make it possible to store them more compactly.

3. I worry about loose pyramids being more likely to get broken/chipped/cracked. (Has anyone who carries their pyramids mixed in a single box/sack/etc had problems with this, or am I needlessly worried?)

I store mine neatly, and I have seen others which are stuffed in a bag or box.  Mine, which are stored neatly, look much nicer still.  Pyramids stored in a loose box will tend to get more scuffs, more rough edges,and less shininess.

I'm not saying my solution is better -- they are meant to be used, and battle scars are sexy -- but sorting them and storing them neatly has a demonstrably positive effect on the life of the pyramids.  Also you risk looking like an anal retentive weirdo, sorting out a million bits of plastic.  Choose your path, I suppose.  =)

Or, take the middle path, and buy two complete sets.  One set to store neatly in organized rows and columns, and one set to throw in a bag.  Then, see which set you use more often.  =)

I used to carry a full set of pyramids in a large drawstring bag I stole from a set of bedsheets (not sure why it came with one, maybe they expected me to actually store my sheets neatly rather than just folded on a shelf?), and I can assure you they never cracked... although they did get pretty scuffed up, and I did lose a small at a party once. I agree that knowing you have everything is one of the big advantages to sorting them.

Oh, by the way, I finally found Eeyore's paper tube designs again. They don't seem to be linked from his main site, so I'm not sure how long this link will work.

Yes, but that has the same problem as mine-- the horizontal pieces are effectively fixed. Not so great for sticking little rulebooks into the "leftover" space.

I'd also like to point out that I've never felt a need to carry all 10 colors around. Really, I think 6 is enough for almost all purposes-- Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Black, and either Clear or Pink according to preference and availability. That's enough to play anything from the Black Ice era, including Volcano. If I could get a small box that just holds six rows of five nests, plus maybe a little space on the side for dice and tokens, that'd be perfect.

Here's some photos of my setup.

I can grant you editing access.  What is your user name on the wiki?

Oh geez, I forgot to mention. It's nupanick.

Done.  You should be able to make edits now.

Thank you, Ryan, for keeping the wiki alive - and thank you, Nicholas, for working on updating pages! 

<superman>

No need to thank me, ma'am.   All in a day's work.

</superman>

He’s not the first person who has mentioned having trouble editing the wiki. Is there a particular reason that’s happening? There has been less activity on the wiki this year, when compared to the amazing number of new games that were made in 2012. I wonder if there are people wanting to edit the wiki who, for whatever reason, are running into errors. 

From what I've read recently, I think the chain of events was

- Slight decline in wiki activity

- Unchecked spambots go wild, clutter up pages

- Registration AND verification now required to edit

- Massive decline in wiki activity

My hypothesis is that a fair number of people in situations like mine simply didn't follow through when they found out they couldn't edit anymore. On top of that, I nearly couldn't get into my own wiki account because it's been a few years since I last logged into it and there's no password reset link... luckily I was able to recall my past self's password-choosing logic and guess my way in.

The IceWiki has been fighting a War On Spam ever since its first days.

We tried a CAPTCHA, but spammers blew through that like it wasn't there.

We tried an IP blacklist, but spammers rarely used the same IP address twice.

We tried a URL whitelist, but it was too exhausting to maintain, and spammers switched to spam without URLs.

We blocked edits by non-members, so spammers created new user accounts for each spam post.

At this point last year, the IceWiki was still open to regular edits, and it was getting a new spam post every 20 minutes!  It was more spam than the admin team could keep up with, and we needed a big change. 

We finally dropped the hammer earlier this year and restricted edits to an admin-controlled whitelist of approved members.  This has completely stopped the spam, but has made legit edits less convenient.

I get a "help unlock my wiki account" request about every three months.  It's a lot easier than deleting spam round the clock 24/7.

Meanwhile, the IceWiki's activity levels have stayed about the same, about a handful of edits each month.  The activity levels spike during a contest (IGDC or ICE Awards) cycle, which we haven't had for a long time now.

A number of pyramid games have been created in the last year, but they are more often being published here on the fan club than on the wiki.  In my experience as the wiki admin, people are more scared of MediaWiki code than of inconvenient account registration.

It is my hypothesis that, as Looney Labs has transitioned from selling the Looney Pyramid game system to selling individual Looney Pyramid games, the influx of recent pyramid converts are less likely to be the type of creative abstract gamers who invent their own games (or at least less likely to post new games on the web) and more likely to be the kind of casual gamers who are content with the rules that came with the game. 

I guess that I assumed that those who were regular editors before the change was implemented  automatically had the ability to continue editing by default, but I understand if that wasn’t practical.

LL has transitioned to selling individual LP games for some time, so I don't think it's the only factor. If you compare the number of new games invented in 2012 to 2013, the difference is very obvious. Of course, 2012 probably got a real push from the introduction of IceDice, and the absence of an ICE Awards for the 2012 games may have dampened the spirit of designers a little. As regards to the latter, in the absence of  a formal Award (assuming that remains the case), it might be nice if people began to informally put up reviews on here of some of those games that they may have played from that giant batch of games.

“A number of pyramid games have been created in the last year, but they are more often being published here on the fan club than on the wiki. “

I have seen a few games posted… mostly in their early design phase. Obviously, this forum is not the idea place to post a final rule sheet, as such games will inevitably be lost in threads—rarely to be retrieved. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to encourage those designers to post their rules to the wiki. If they get the basic rules up, there are those of us would be more than ready to help fix tags and infoboxes. 

Send me a message and we'll work a trade.

In the store there's always packs of Ice7. It's a quick little pack with information on pyramid games, and rules for 7 games on handy little cards.

There's this: http://www.looneylabs.com/rules/introduction

If you print page 2 of the full pocket guide, you get the same information as the web page.

Pink hijinks has the pyramid dice, which is pretty awesome.  Which is not really what you were asking about, i know.  =)  But then you also have a slew of pyramids to do stuff with.

Contact Alison (customer-support@looneylabs.com) - we have a big pile of these dice from an early test run, that have printing that wasn't cured well and rubs off easily.  We are never going to put these up for sale, but Alison sends them out to people when they ask really nicely, and understand the work required to coat them with clear nail polish before use.

Thank you, I'll drop her a line! Clearcoating them should be a simple project, and I'd love to start playing around with more of them.

Done.  You should be able to edit now.  Thanks for helping the IceWiki grow!

Thanks! I'm happy to contribute!

Did you try these: http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Single_stash

I have hunted through them, but as Pink Hijinks isn't a complete stash, they aren't playable with it. It's a set of three mono trios, which disqualifies games that use colour to differentiate piece behaviour or owner. As well, since there are only nine pieces, it limits even further what they can be used for.

It may be possible that there aren't any other similar games in existence yet. I've searched the wiki for the phrases "one nest" through "three nests", and "one trio" through "three trios". None of the results for these are playable with a PH set due either to requiring significantly more pyramids (the majority of results simply used those phrases in describing their rules), or use colour as a significant factor.

You can play a smaller 3x3 variant of Rotationary, a solitaire puzzle.

IceSickle should work with fewer pieces, just quicker and low scoring.

With a Treehouse die, you can play two-player Treehouse.

If you can get a stash tube, you can play Drip and Moon Shot.

If you wanted to mark up each nest to be distinct (via painted pips, decoration etc.) there are a number of one-nest-per-player games that become possible, such as Penguin Soccer, Zamboni Wars, and Ziggurat.

I have been thinking of a monochrome game which is vaguely derived fFrom Homeworlds.  Instead of using color to decide what you can do, you simply choose the action you want to take.  That or roll a die to decide what limits you have at the moment.  I did say I'm thinking about how it would work.  =)

So fFar, the game is sort of like pink hijinks without a board, which is not quite what I was hoping fFor.  I'm aiming fFor Homeworlds without color.  I'll keep you posted if I come up with anything interesting.

I like that idea! Here's something I came up with this evening riffing on that, but adding a color die. It seems moderately-playable, though not easy to end, at least playing two- and three-hand games against myself.

http://www.icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Homejinks

You might be able to get away with Tic Tac Doh with only three nests. Might end in a tie more often though.

I'm trying to organize a bigger demo of pyramids (something that'd justify asking for access to demo kits) and found myself describing what's in Pink Hijinks as a "short stash".  I propose the term be added to the wiki.  :)

Sorry I forgot the most important: the link to vote - I hope you do not need any translations: http://hlasov.at/l7v0

To clarify: You're saying that U.S. President requires three rainbow stashes?

By the way, for everyone else reading here, Pyramideto was one of the finalists for the 2011 ICE Award for best game of 2010.  The ICE Awards are given out by the Looney Pyramid fan community.  Pyrinoes won that year.

Thanks for the heads-up, Jan.  And thanks for making them available this way.  I plan to get them at an appropriate time.

I confess I'm at a loss about the "be careful" warning. :)

As all players need their color, with rainbow stahes you can play in max. 5 players. No other limits. If you add white - you can play in six or three couples. 

BTW if you remove 6 white cards from Pyramideto, you can play also with only one rainbow set. 

Maybe because the game is geared to younger children? Have to watch that they don't get hurt with handling the pointy pyramids, I presume.

That's great, Jan!

I can easily endorse all 3 of these games as being great fFun.

If I ever get around to running the dang ICE Awards fFor 2012, U.S. President will probably be a strong contender.

Thanks fFor your words and fFs. :)

Yes. As LooneyLabs put it - pyramids are designed for older players than Pyramideto.

I agree with you about having more pyramid games on Android. I'd love to see Volcano/Caldera on my Nook. I'd never get any work done then as I'd always be playing it.

Thanks Chris.

Also worth mentioning that it's FREE, after all, we all like free.

Simply go to the Play Store and search 'martian chess'

Hello!  You probably have arrived at an answer by now, since I'm slow in responding.  Nevertheless, I've reviewed the rules and here's what seems to be the case.  I may be wrong, but this stuff seems to be true:

1) No.  The rule under 'Rolling the Dice' states "You need not use all of your pips."  fFurther, the example photo shows Green is about to win, having rolled 4 and 5, although Green only needs 1 and 3.

2)That doesn't appear to be the case either.  There is no rule about re-entering before other movement.

3) Well, pieces must stack in trees while waiting in the hall.  Therefore, immediately outside the entry point, you could have no more than 3 pieces: a small, a medium, and a large.  However I think you are asking if pieces stack outside the entry point.  That is a pretty good question!  I think they do not.  The rules are very vague on this point, stating simply "If you leave a solitary piece unattended ... and your opponent lands on that piece, it gets moved to the Re-Entry Point," which suggests that every piece at the re-entry point stacks collectively on top of each other.

It seems to me your questions 2 and 3 are basically about the same thing.  How are pieces handled at the re-entry point?  The rules are very vague on this point, aren't they.

I think it would be most logical that a player must move pieces back inside the entry before doing anything else.  Your opponent may have bumped 1 or 2 of your pieces (of any size) on his last turn, therefore you could have no more than that outside the entry point.  Also, the pieces would probably stack in the order they were bumped, and that is the order they must be brought back in.

But that is only an interpretation.

Nothing that I'm aware of unfortunately. What I would love is an app that allowed me to play homeworlds with other starship captains. That one website is all well and good, but it's clunky and not mobile friendly. I'd love more pyramid game apps, of all varieties.

actually i cant seem to fFind the app fFor iOS, either.  There are a lot of dice rollers fFor iOS and Android alike.  I'm yet to fFind a good dice roller app fFor either system.

I hope bumping up an old topic like this is OK.  I've found a pretty good solution for this question, I think.  This app is free and works pretty nicely:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.boardnaut.studios...

And I've gone ahead and made custom dice sets for a few pyramid games:  http://www.mediafire.com/download/a98ivswkcwjjo3a/custom+image+dice...  Press the import button in the app and point it to the zip files inside that zip.  Or you can unzip the images and make the dice manually in the app yourself if you'd prefer.

The games are Treehouse,Pink Hijinks, Martian Coasters, and Ice Dice.  I also made my own take on a theoretical "Xeno" version of Ice Dice for anyone who prefers those colors.

Any feedback on the dice sets/images is welcome.  If you'd like me to try making some dice/sets that are not in that pack, feel free to ask but it helps if you have existing reference images to work with!

Here's a preview of the dice faces, so you can see what they look like:

Pretty cool. Hopefully you can make Lightning dice and the new color dice when those are available.

Thank you very much! I didn't know this app and it's amazing

Yeah when I get my copy of Pyramid Arcade I'll look into what else I can add.

Alright I've started making the arcade dice.  This file is JUST the dice faces themselves, feel free to add them to the app as you'd like them.  If I get around to setting up the custom dice per game for the app I'll upload that later.  I made a bunch of variants too, mostly for the lightning die.  Let me know if you think this is missing anything.  I might attempt a second color die but I dunno.  Most of this is pulled straight from the PDF of the book that was sent out awhile back, a few things (the Spade and Diamond and some Atom adjustments mostly) are custom.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/bzyjeded1uu6okr/PyramidArcadecustomdicejustdice.zip

Oops, forgot to include a preview.  Lots of variants, enjoy.  Or make requests, if you need something.

I wish we had this for the iPhone!

Suggestion for Unsettled Autumn Ash (the advanced version of this game):  I have trouble describing this advanced version of the game, and, as it is a really great way to play AA, I've been thinking that there has to be a good way to visualize the shifting board and how pieces can be entered onto the playfield. One suggestion I have for first-time players is that they cut a template out the size of a 5X6 board (based on the dimensions of whatever board you are playing on). Use the negative space of your cut out to place over the actual game board, and use it to determine possible corner spaces for the given state of the board!

It's been a while since I've updated this. I've just uploaded the final version of the IceSheet, as the stacking rules were revised (largely simplified) a while back; this now conforms with the wiki version but add additional game aids and diagrams.

I've played this extensively with people who I've taught the game to (thanks again to my awesome playtesters), but I'm now turning to the community to help out and encouraging players to give it a go. I'm curious as to whether there is any portion that needs additional clarity, and I'm really interested in reading what people think of the mechanics and game play. Enjoy!

I'll be posting a video in a little bit that introduces the visual aid to aid for playing the "Unsettled" version of the game. It's probably not necessary, but it might give that variant greater exposure. I believe that version will become the default for experienced players.

I have not tried playing this (sorry) but I wanted to say the picture is beautiful - I have been playing a 10 color version of Caldara recently and it's so much fun having all the colors in play! 

Thanks Kristin! It is actually really cool to have a game that works well with all of the colors.  Ten-color Caldara game sounds awesome. :)

I'm glad that you like the picture; I'm going a little bit further to promote this game over some other games I've come up with. That's because it's a strategy game that I really enjoy :), and, let's face it, with over 400 games to choose from on the wiki, if you have something worth sharing, you have to do a little promotion.

As the IceWiki Bureaucrat, I have added "Noles" to Regular status.  You should be able to access all pages now.

Hi Carlton!  You seem somewhat confused by the situation, and I can see why it might not be immediately clear.  See, the wiki used to be assaulted on an almost constant basis by spambots.  So we elected a new set of rules and rulers, and now, anyone who wants to edit or contribute, simply need ask fFor "regular" permissions.  Hopefully the process is quite painless.

No I understood fine I just thought there might be a sticky forum topic or something of that nature. Since I didn't find one, I hoped I was acting appropriately. Apparently I was. :{)} 

Thanx ever so much. You are a gentleman and a scholar. There aren't many of us left.

The information on the IceAwards is here.

Feel free to submit your game on the wiki. It will then be considered during next year’s award cycle. I'm not sure when this year's evaluation will begin--probably in the next few months. 

Thanks!

Yeah, we *really* need to do this.

Bear in mind, the ice awards are usually fFor the previous calendar year.  When we start the awards, now, we will be looking at every game "published*" fFrom January 1st, 2012, through December 31st 2012.

* Published in this case means, most generally, put up on the wiki.

The reason fFor choosing to go a year back has to do with the idea that hopefully a game will be playtested, edited, and improved by the time we get to examining it.  If a game has proper ownership, then it should have improved noticeably beyond a simple rough draft.

Thanks very much for your response, but I can't figure out how to submit a game to the site. I just keep getting relinked back to the info page. I have a game ready to go ("Snail Invasion!) The rules and a customized game board are all ready to go as a PDF file, but how do I get it to show up on the wiki site? Thx. P.P.S. I just tried uploading the file, and I got an "Upload Warning." I followed the link above to get to this page, but I keep jumping back and forth between old salmon-colored pages and what looks like slightly-newer blue and gray pages. Is there any relationship between the salmon pages and the blue ones? Why are the formats different? Why is everything, as far as I can tell, accessibly only to Admins? Am I even on the right site? Am I supposed to be emailing files somewhere instead of trying to edit the wiki? (I've worked with SharePoint wikis, but I've never seen anything like the pseudo-code on this site. I'm guessing it's about three generations back?) Thanks for any help anyone can offer. I've been working on the game for about ten months, and really want to enter it for  2013.

Last note -- I tried looking for "Help" and find references to "Talk" pages, but I have no idea what a "talk" page is. Even the "instructions" say they're not really instructions for the Pyramids site... Ai yi yi. I gotta tell you, folks. This whole thing is starting to feel like one of those Masonic "worthiness" tests. Are only people who are willing to spend a couple weeks studying old programming language "worthy" of playing with pyramids? I have an AS in computer science, and have been maintaining and designing HTML and ColdFusion sites since they were invented, yet I can't make sense out of anything on the site. I suspect people who aren't in IT in any way but who still like playing with pyramids would give up in total frustration...

If you have never edited a wiki page, then I can certainly imagine your confusion. The Icehouse wiki uses the same software as Wikipedia, so if you have ever edited a Wikipedia page, that prior experience should help.

A "Talk" page is a page for discussion about an Article page in the site. (Typically about a specific game's page, e.g. playtesters giving feedback or someone asking about a rules ambiguity.)

If you have not already created a user account, you'll need to do that. The reason why everything is accessible only to Admins is because in the past there was a HUGE problem with asshole spammers constantly creating accounts and leaving spam all over the site. (See http://looneylabs.ning.com/forum/topics/icehousegames-org-being-hammered-with-spambots for when that happened.) So now new users need to explicitly request that the wiki admins give them editing rights. (You can probably do that here in this thread if you tell your user name.) (I am not an admin, but they read these forums.)

Once you have editing rights, you can edit existing articles and create new articles (such as an article with the title of your game's name!) You can look at an existing game's article (use Edit to see the wiki source code) to see the format of wiki markup syntax.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Kell,

If you want your game designs posted on the IceWikiiki, please do one of the following:

1) Post the rules to your game in a thread here at the fan club (under the Pyramid Games subforum (just like you did to start this thread).  One of our IceWiki experts will format the rules for you and handle of the confusing MediaWiki code.

...or...

2) Email the rules to me at deeplogic at excite dot com, and I'll take it from there.

Thanks for designing pyramid games!

Thanks bunches for your help. (It's been a migrainy work week already. I don't think I could handle another learning curve.) I've created a new thread -- "Entry for 2013 Ice Awards" and uploaded the rules & board. Watch where you step... 

Pics..

My very-fast two cents -- I'd go with a theme that is totally removed from any historical reality. I'd give this game a pass because it seems to imply, yet again, that Left Wing equals good and Right Wing equals bad, and I lost my patience with that BS a couple decades ago. In this particular instance, the Communist Threat was very real, and many of the people Hollywierd's continually presenting as innocent absolutely were not. (Start here in your research of opinions not approved of by the celebrity marketing machine: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-McCarthy-Reexamining-Americas-Senator/...) 

Short version: do you really want to go there?

Short answer: yes. Following is why. #1. It's not really MY idea to start with. The Paranoia game has actually been around for over twenty years and it was pretty well received by the gaming community at large. #2. It really doesn't have anything at all to do with politics. But I can definitely see where you might think this eapecially if youre not familiar with the game... In Alpha Complex The Computer is basically a ruthless, (but well meaning) tyrant that has very little idea of what Communism ACTUALLY is. And since Friend Computer doesn't really know what it is, neither does anyone else living in the Complex. It's the irony that makes it funny. The Computer would agree with you Citizen! The Communist Threat is very real. It just thinks that communists run around in furry hats, speaking in Russian accents while saying things that are (in the computer's opinion) subversive. (Oh by the way, speaking about Democracy or leaving the complex is subversive! Sounds a little like the iron curtain, Da?). #3. It's a game that is meant to be silly and fun. Not serious at all. Check out the following link for a better idea of What Paranoia is truly like. Having said all that, I'm not adverse to the idea of a new backdrop, I just really liked the PARANOIA setting. So, maybe just look at the game's mechanics and let me know what you think about just them.

Yes, my limited experience with Paranoia (the RPG) back in the day (read the rules, played an online campaign) was that it was a quite silly and quite non-politically specific parody of the paranoia of living in a totalitarian society, but the totalitarian society's actual political structure ("left" or "right", as if politics is a simplistic 1-dimensional spectrum to begin with... but that's a tangent) was quite undefined and unimportant... and could be left to the imagination of the players as desired. Which if viewed through a specific lens can apparently invite projection of one's own political hot button issues: the rules to your Paranoia pyramid game prompting Kell to a vigorous defense of Joseph McCarthy's activities and insistence on the real dangers of the Communist Threat was... rather surprising to me. :)

----

Anyway...

The game rules you linked to are rather verbose with flavor text, a turn off for me, and the game doesn't appear to be my sort of "pyramid game" (what with the diplomacy/role-playing and need for creating custom cards, etc - it seems more of a boardgame version of Paranoia which just incidentally happens to use pyramids). I'm more into the abstract strategy type pyramid games mostly, so I am probably not in the target audience, alas! Good luck with it, in any case!

Yeah, I know that this game is not really a "full" pyramid game. Honestly, I could have done the whole thing with cards only, but the pyramids seemed more fun and easier since they come in colors and have opaque pieces. I felt that it would be a fun tribute to Mongoose and Looney Labs (which sounds suspiciously like an Alpha Complex Service Firm, LOL.) I thought people might like the way that it encourages story-like thinking, diplomacy, team-work (sort of) and ridiculous back stabbing! It won't be everyone's cup of tea, that's for sure. I just thought SOMEONE might appreciate it. I'll let you all know how the first few test games go..

I won't be bringing my Giant set, but I will merrily hang out with you and play things!  I could bring my Brobdingnagian chessboard bandanna (which is a king size bed sheet with a grid on it).

I've been meaning to make a volcano board too, actually, so this might be the motivation to do that.  Normally when I play volcano at conventions, i use a ton of duct tape to mark out an area n the fFloor.  But a nice bed sheet really is better fFor quick setup and tear-down.

That is, unless you have appropriately sized grids to use, yourself?

I don't have enough pyramids for Giant Volcano, but something like Freeze Tag or Pharoah could be done on a Giant Volcano board.  My Giant pyramids consist of four monochrome stashes.  I have Giant Zendo stones and I have a Giant Gnostica deck, but that's the extent of my Giant supplies.  When I need dice, I have some Big dice that aren't Giant, but they work.

I hope you guys managed to get some giant games going - we missed seeing everyone at Origins! 

It never seemed to be the right time to bring out the giant pyramids.  The closest we came was on Wednesday when the convention center was closed for a while because of a fire in the basement.  While waiting for the all-clear, a few friends and I grabbed a bit of floor in the walkway from the Hyatt and played Zendo.  We used regular sized pyramids, but it was on the floor.

Thanks for sending Fluxx: The Board Game.  I played it a couple of times at Origins, and I've managed to play it a couple of times since.  People are interested in trying it even if they don't like Fluxx.  I can only imagine the number of times I would've played it if Looney Labs had been at Origins.

So, no giant pyramids at Origins, as far as I know, but we're on the schedule for Buckeye Game Fest in September.

What's the pip value of that tent?

Good Question - it's 25 feet tall  :) 

According to my math, its pip-value is 1575. :)

if that's true... it's going to take a lot of queens to ice that puppy over. According to my calculations, we'll need about 525 Queens to successfully ice that over.

Or just leave it outside in January.  That outta "ice" it over real good.

I've been playing with Pyramids for only about the same amount of time you have. For what it's worth, I've not seen anything like what you've described, although perhaps Martian Coasters has a similar "quadrant" element? Might be worth looking at, anyway. Also, you might check out Munchkin Quest (not regular Munchkin), which has some ability tracking that may be similar.

Given that you say "It's going to be a pretty complex game. I've always been a fan of really complex games", I'm guessing there are not similar existing games, since in my experience, pyramid games tend to aim toward the more simple/elegant/abstract/minimalist end of the spectrum (arguably as part of their spirit, though some games push that a bit, e.g. Gnostica is a bit more complex than the average pyramid game, but Gnostica's complexity is nothing like Warhammer's).

I can think of several complex pyramid games. Some are arguably too daunting for casual players, but there are also several well-written games that also have a lot going on in them. I suppose it depends how one interprets “complex” or “Warhammer like.” What you describe, on the surface, doesn’t sound too complex for pyramid pieces, but I’d like to hear more. If a lot of charts are required to look up dozens of distinct powers, then it may be something that doesn’t appeal to the typical pyramid player. Of course, the more you playtest what you have, the more likely your final rule set will be a success.

To your question, there are at least two or three games that I can think of that use a turn-based adaptation or revisioning of Icehouse. One of those is a game that was never finished. I can look them up when I return home and provide the links. What you describe seem distinct from those.

I did a little digging into Warhammer, and I realized that wasn't a very good example. The closest thing to Warhammer would be my modifier dice, which you could roll to give your attacking or defending pieces more power, or to extend the range of your attacking pieces. The item cards would do the same thing, so I'd probably pick either the modifier dice or the cards.

I'll go a bit more in depth about the dice mechanics. Since the game is designed more for me to play with some of my more "hardcore" gamer friends, it uses a couple non-standard dice (a D-4 and possibly a D-10, to be specific) as well as a few custom D-6's (these would be the modifier dice and could easily be substituted for with regular D-6's. If I go with the card system, these wouldn't be needed.) and a few of the "pyramid size selecting" Icedice. At the beginning of your turn, you roll the D-4 to decide which quadrant you'll be campaigning in for the turn. Then you roll one pyramid selector three-five times (haven't decided yet, and there might be a way to roll for more per turn later on), showing you which pyramids you can play this turn.

You can choose to place all your pieces during your turn, or you can "lock" the dice that you want to try to play either during your next turn or during the end of your opponents turns. During the ends of your opponents turns, any player may stop the turn and roll the D-4 to see if he can place his pieces in the quadrant that that player just played in. If more than one person wishes to do so, they proceed in normal turn order. Then play continues to the person whose turn it would have been.

@Russ: I think the reason I think it's so complicated is that I'm the one writing out the rules, and having to think about how the rules might interact is making the game seem more complicated than it actually is. I should mention that my playtester, who is in no way a hardcore gamer, has been able to follow the rules pretty well, though we've really only been playing it with turns and pyramid selectors. I haven't tried any of the fancy-schmancy modifiers yet. I just think that they sound like a good/fun idea.

@ Kell: I actually did get the inspiration for the quadrant system from Martian Coasters. :D I haven't played it, but when I started pondering my game, I decided that I needed to make my play area smaller, and originally thought I could somehow adapt the coasters to my idea. I didn't end up doing so, but the quadrant idea stuck.

@Greg: I am very intrigued to hear about those games,especially the unfinished one. In my experience of games in general, the games that are dropped are usually ridiculously complicated, and are abandoned because the creators couldn't get all the features they wanted to fit together into a coherent game. I can think of a few video games that never saw the light of day because of technology restraints and creative overload. I don't want to get caught in that trap.

Actually, this incomplete one may be the least interesting of the two:

http://www.dangermouse.net/games/icehouse/noname.html

I can't think of the other one, though it was more interesting... perhaps I'll run into it again soon and post the link.

I look forward to seeing how your game turns out.

Hey guys! Just a little update. After a lot of playtesting and a whole lot of input from non-gamer friends and family, I've decided to go with a card-based modification system. Essentially, each turn you get to draw a card. That card modifies your icehouse pieces in some way. I haven't yet figured out exactly how they will be applicable to the pieces, but the basic modifiers are as follows:

• Range: Extends the range of an icehouse piece. All ranges are in icehouse standard; i.e. ranges are the height of a 1, 2, or 3 pip icehouse piece. Range modifiers can be either additive or multiplicative.
• Power: Empowers icehouse pieces to do more than their value in pips in either attack or defense. I'm waffling between two systems:

1. a system that will simply add pips on to existing pieces, empowering either attack or defense depending on what state that piece is in
2. a system that assigns specifically an attack or defense modifier, only working on pieces that are in the state that the card represents

• State-swapping: simply changes the state of a piece. Can change pieces from attacking to defending or vice versa

The reason for the cards is two-fold; It is much easier for "non-hardcore" gamers to follow directions that are placed immediately in front of them, via a card which is placed on the board underneath the piece that it affects. Also, this mechanic adds a level of strategy that more "hardcore" gamers will enjoy. It does not necessarily give any advantage to wither hardcore or non-hardcore gamers, as most hardcore gamers have an ingrained understanding and near-eidetic memory of dice rolls, while non-hardcore gamers will have to keep checking a rule book at every time a die is rolled.

I have also considered swapping to a six-sectored board, so that more people will be able to play the game. It will likely make games longer, and I'm tying to think of a better way to implement a placement system that involves more "normal" dice. One such idea is to have players roll four d-6's, and making the values equal to quadrants. The problem I have with this is that I would have to stagger the values of the dice-rolls to make each quadrant have an equal chance of being chosen, as there are always more chances of the median numbers being rolled than the outliers. This is a huge problem for me, as 1. I don't feel like working out the math to make this work and 2. it makes the game much more complicated.

One idea I had to counter this was to simply limit the "sectors" to 2; flip a coin, and that decides which sector you can play in. That, or I could get rid of sectors entirely and everyone could play on one contiguous board, but I feel that would make the game far too simple (and far too similar to Icehouse to be a true offshoot, as opposed to a branch), even with the dice and card mechanics.

I am still working on how I want the dice to work, but I think I'm pretty close to a complete idea with them. They will be the hardest step into playing the game, meaning most gamers would need to either make their own dice or assign specific die values to the numerical values on standard d-6's. The only reason I think this will work is because of the ease of which I made my own set of icedice and treehouse die, being too poor to buy a real set.

In the near future, I hope to release a tentative rules page along with a template for the custom dice (and one for the icedie that I am using, in case anyone needs it). As before, I would love to hear any input any of you have.

I just had kind of a brainstorm, and here are the big points I made to myself:

• What if I had two versions of the game; a hardcore and a softcore version?
• Softcore uses the card system and doesn't include dynamic obstacles.
• Hardcore uses a modifier dice system and includes dynamic obstacles. Essentially, the hardcore version would be a simpler version of several Warhammer variants (I've been doing a lot of research into Warhammer)

Now, needless to say, I'll be finishing the "softcore" version first. I want something new to share with my friends and family whom I have recently gotten hooked on Looney Pyramid games. That said, I would love to challenge some of my more hardcore gamer friends with a fun and complex game hat they have never played but may understand from other games they have played.

From now on, this thread will be solely focused on the softcore version of the game. After it is done, I will start a new thread which will be the development of the "hardcore" version of the game, building on what we have talked about here.

I think the "softcore" version fits very well into the classic, "intuitive" paradigm that most Looney Pyramid and, indeed, Looney Labs' games fall into. Even with the extra mechanics, I think it's fairly eay to larn, and the cards can esily be downloaded from a public folder on Dropbox to be printed. I am debating on simply making 52 different cards and assigning the 52 cards in a standard playing card deck to a card. That would cut down on the supplies needed significantly, though might make it harder for "softcore" gamers to understand.

~~~ALSO::: I tried using the basic dice mechanics with the card mechanics, only using cards from the original Munchkin set. It worked surprisingly well. I am strongly considering using the Munchkin system to run my card-based system in the game. I might have to contact Steve Jackson Games about this, and I'm wondering if any of you guys think it is worth pursuing. I am all for making my own set of cards, but if I can save time and energy by somehow including Munchkin in all of my mechanics, I wouldn't mind making the plea to Steve Jackson for the rights to include their info in my rules. That's obviously a very complicated route, but I feel that it might help a lot of gamers who love both Steve Jackson and Looney Labs to get their conscripted family-teams to try my game. Advice and opinions on this are highly recommended.

Would it help to think in terms of the basic game, and then an "expansion?"

That's actually a good idea. I should do that.

Games that should probably be removed:

Martian Backgammon and Thin Ice were published in Playing With Pyramids.

CrackeD Ice, DNA, and Martian Mud Wrestling were published in various issues of Hypothermia.

IceTraders is listed on icehousegames.org as published, although I'm not sure where.  It was later developed into Homeworlds, which has been published several times.

It would make Andy very sad if you left Spicklehead on the list.

Thanks for checking that. I thought that I had taken all of the Hypothermia games out, but some of them snuck back in. If someone thinks a game should be included that I missed, I'll be happy to check into that too.

We had been thinking of ways to recognize great community games from before 2004, and this seems a simple way to do so. I'm sure that many players have played at least one two of these already, and I'm curious as to which games people would recommend to be played or to be wary of.

I've added the list to the above, so I can edit it easier.

If you're looking for rules to a particular game, I recommend that people look on the icehousegames wiki first, as the most recent rules and links should be there. A few games might be only available from SLICK.

I have not included games that were considered to be in a largely unfinished. A few of these may be found to actually be complete if examined further, as Martian Mids was found to be. However, these should be taken on a case by case basis, so I think it's best not to include them all here at this time. 

Invaders of Mars: This is a game of doing yourself the least amount of harm. The strategy is to pick your poison smartly and to force your opponent into doing more damage to themselves than they would like. It's one of those games that gets more strategic as the rounds progress. To mend the rules, players should, as Brilk suggested, have a queen seek out the drones when possible, instead of landing on players pieces when no babies are left. In some ways, this is a predecessor of Gleebs and Grues (similar in its theme, scale, and the fact that players are not only competing against themselves but also a malevolent force), which is a really good game in its own right.

 

Verdict: Is this a classic? When played with the amended rules, this game is a lot of fun. The game has stronger narrative/theme than many of the games of its time period. Its mechanic is simple and effective. Invaders of Mars doesn't have as much strategic depth as some classics, but it doesn't need to. I'd call this a casual classic, with average to good replay appeal. For its fun and originality, I'd rate it around 7 out of 10 aliens.

I've fixed the list above to include links to all the games that qualify. The restrictions placed on what qualifies were perhaps kind of strict, but the goal is to concentrate on games that meet certain criteria that often means they are overlooked with so many other games out there.

Chivalry

This game is inspired by its namesake, developed over one hundred years ago and its redesign called Camelot. The pyramid variant has the appeal of a largely blank board at the start, and thus the game can go in many disparate directions right from the beginning. I played this game a lot when I first got my pyramid pieces, and I took it up again for this review. In the context of all the games I’ve played since, I suppose that I’d have to more judicial in how I grade it. It feels a little like checkers, but much more deliberate and strategic. It’s also a game where one misstep can, and usually does, end it.

I’ve read a few comments on this game that indicate that players may not have been using their playing options to the fullest. This is understandable as there is little direction in the rules and some of the ways of winning this game go counter to how we typically play games. Remember the following and you should have a good game of it. 1. Pawns can move in any direction diagonally, and queens can jump backwards and forwards on the board. 2. If you have a jump, you MUST take it. Jumps can suddenly appear after the other player takes their turn, so both players need to be aware of the changing board. 3. Remember that you only need two queens to win, so sacrificing a queen to help another queen out is sometimes wise.

Underappreciated? Yes it is. Is it a classic? Perhaps not, but I still recommend it. Despite liking it as much as I do, it does borrow much from it’s predecessor; add to that it doesn’t have a high pyramicity rating either. However, it is, despite it’s terse rules, well designed, and offers a good replay value. With so many good pyramid games, it’s not a game I’d say was “required” playing, but it’s one to try for fans of strategy games. 7/10

Are reviews still welcomed?

Indeed, the imitative is ongoing. There are a lot of games here that have never been evaluated, at least not in any formal way. Please feel free to add any opinions you have on the games listed.

"Later" does not imply "many turns later". It can also mean just a few turns (e.g. 3) later. It's not uncommon to build & change colors for the first few turns before moving.

About "wasting a turn" - I think it's simply a matter of tradeoffs. You'll probably want ships of all colors sooner or later, so if you start with a yellow ship instead of some other color, then you could similarly consider yourself to be "wasting a turn" to get that other color later. And evidently Andy thinks a blue/red star is good for other reasons, so you couldn't start with a yellow ship, given a blue/red star, or you couldn't build anyway.

I'd say if you really want to play andy's opening, you should keep building green until doing so would let someone else get an early two-pointer. Then switch to yellow and start moving out. You'll need plenty of green ships hanging around if you want to pull off a Banker or Factory build, and I know those are two of Andy's favorite tricks.

"Later" in this case is usually about 2 turns later. I always build a small as my second move (who doesn't?) and usually my third move is to trade that small green for a small yellow.

Boy would I love to go.  Someday, perhaps!!!