Vote Now! Current Poll: Vote for a new game on littlegolem

go to the main page and vote for your choice of the next game. Don't delay, poll could end soon...

Backgammon with linear board display, about like in this picture. :)

I like to note that the separating lines inserted after every six pips should have no width, like the bar in the middle of the classic bachgammon board has. The distance of subsequent pips should be always the same, making it easier to visually estimate the moving distance.

"go to the main page" That's funny. the main page has a link back to here.

I vote for Crossway. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30517/crossway

I vote for Trax.

David, on the main page, at the very right, is the poll.

In the Main page, but you have to enable Javascript.

It wasn't until reading the poll that I was shocked we didn't already have Backgammon.

I'm thinking that Backgammon would be /way/ too slow for LG. I know this isn't going to slow down the poll, but I beg people to reconsider.

Well lots of people play Backgammon on Gamerz and other turn based sites.

I didn't see the poll because I use NoScript with Firefox, and the domain modpoll.com was blocked. But they don't include Crossway nor Trax, so I won't vote anyway :-)

a suggestion for a new ,quick game: Einstein wurfelt nicht

one dice won't roll (translation)

sorry this was ment for another site

oeps

@David, Okay -- Well I take your argument for backgammon as an argument against it. If there are already many places to play online, why bother? Perhaps you can answer, "Well it's popular, it should be integrated in BGG" but I think that we should get some of the under played games on BGG firtst, before tackling Backgammon, so that they can flourish.

FWIW, I would be thrilled with Traxx or Crossway.

Heh, here is another argument against Backgammon. It'd be a pain in the neck to program.

I can't see Backgammon as that hard to encode. The rules sound pretty simple to me (specially if compared to e.g. StreetSoccer).

Well, backgammon certainly can't be TOO hard to program, if there are already so many other places to play it online. Those sites certainly didn't have a problem.

:)

I'd like to see Conhex here. I think that would go over pretty well.

I'd also like to try Trellis sometime. (http://home.fuse.net/swmeyers/trru.htm)

Would love the 2 player version of diplomacy, known as intimate diplomacy.

I've just learned to play Backgammon, and i'm SO regretful for vote it in the poll!

it was like playing PARCHIS!!!!!

the luck factor is to implicant.

I really hope i'm wrong.

kp4to, I don't think that luck in Backgammon is determinant.

If it was so, there wouldn't be World Championships of Backgammon.

And there is "doubling dice", which use is Pure Strategy!

There is serious computer backgammon research and MCTS works fine too, so the game must be deep enough. I only know the rules. The trouble with randomized games is really bad player win some games, even if they lose on the long term, and it may be necessary to play lots of games to show who is the best. 10 Elo point differences need 1000 games to be attributed to something other than fluke. So its probably boring even if deep.

I disagree. Just play a semi-long match against a good computer (e.g. GnuBG) and you'll see what it means to get thrashed in backgammon.

like i said.

i hope i'm wrong

i know there is a world championship too.

hey ... whats wrong with parchisi?

nothing, but u undestand at the beginning of the game,

The importance of the dices.

Throw a coin, its not wrong.

but u have to know what are u doing.

Looks like the poll is closed. I get - when I select anything - '0 Total Votes'.

Aganju, that is what I saw too yesterday, but now it shows the final results of the poll on the main page.

Backgammon wins the poll by a landslide, and the card game Big2 takes 2nd by another large margin.

Although I voted for Arima, I am excited about the possibility of playing backgammon at littlegolem!

For the record (for future reference) Here are the final results of the poll:

XChess (on chess forum is description) 3% (17 Votes)

Backgammon 35% (207 Votes)

Big2 - card game 24% (143 Votes)

Isaac 2% (12 Votes)

Splits 0% (1 Votes)

Arima 6% (36 Votes)

Palago 1% (6 Votes)

ConHex 8% (49 Votes)

6 Nimmt (simulatenous game)8% (44 Votes)

Rin 12% (69 Votes)

584 Total Votes

It has been more than half a year since this poll ended. Hope to see backgammon soon!

I'm not one, but I've heard that backgammon enthusiasts consider the doubling cube an essential part of the game. How would the doubling cube be used in a tournament? What, if anything, would get doubled?

Backgammon is normally played in matches, such as the first to 5 points, or first to 11 points. Gammons count for 2 points, backgammons are 3 points, and the doubling cube doubles the total points if accepted.

So the cube is a skill element within each match, but the round robin tournament is just comprised of k-point matches.

1-point matches can also be played, but they are always cubeless, and gammons don't count for anything special.

I would not be much interested in 1-point matches, but I think 5-pointers would be a very nice addition here.

yes, that is the way to do backgammon, 5 or 11 point matches, maybe both options. championships could be 11, monthly cups 5. double cube in play, gammons count double, backgammons triple, first to 11 (or 5) wins. Richard could set it up with even more options for waiting room or user tournaments, such as one point matches for quick play, or 21 point matches for marathon play (just thinking out loud)

In my opinion, 1-point match IS NOT Backgammon. Doubling cube is essential.

The cube obviously adds a lot of depth and precision, but the checker play alone is still a worthy game.

In fact, i recall the bot "mloner" once had the highest rating on FIBS (the First Internet Backgammon Server), and only ever played 1-point matches.

Backgammon would be fine but there seems to be so many less known games that suits this site more.

It cannot easily become more 'less known' than Trackgammon ;-)

Hehe, yeah but I suppose it is kinda silly to use that as the only judging factor :) personally I also prefer something with perfect information and no random factors.

i'd like to see one modern (1900 or later, or so) invented game/variant for every 'classic' game that is added.

I really think Hex Oust should be implemented here. As a designer I can say that is about the most brilliant game I've played and the tactics are highly capricious and overall its a blast to play although I'd say it might not be great for postal play because you'd want the board to be at least base 7 and that's typically what I play at iggamecenter and it can last over 100 moves. Another good one to see would be Ketchup by Nick Bentley which is a virtual phenomenon at this point.

How much support would there be for another massively multi-player social game, like Empathy?

I have a game that would complement Empathy nicely, but if the interest in that kind of thing is waning, then i won't bother presenting it.

I thought the vote had already been decided in favor of backgammon, but that was seven month ago. Since Nick's Ketchup was suggested, I'd also like to recommend Luis Bolaños Mures' brilliantly original game Yodd.

Not to mention his quintessential approach game AYU that I like at least as much, if not better (and that may be easier to implement, come to that).

Ayu looks intriguing. It took me about 30 seconds to go from skeptical to enthralled... :)

It is a new game, invented just last month. Having it on Little Golem would give it an audience, and plant a seed that might eventually thrive. (However, it would probably be better to have some play-testing first, maybe by email, to see if there is agreement that the game really is a winner).

I think games like Ayu are better suited to LG than backgammon, for several reasons:

(1) Abstract strategy games can benefit more from deep analysis, and are thus well-suited to slow correspondence time controls. Backgammon plays better as a real-time game.

(2) Backgammon can be played at many places on the web. It is common, and does not distinguish Little Golem as a special place. (Although one could argue that the popularity of backgammon might help grow the LG user base, by attracting common folk).

(3) Ayu has good potential for bot support (i.e. a fast and ready opponent to spar against, like Castro, and the Ewn bots). It should be fairly easy to write an Ayu program that plays well enough to be a fun opponent (e.g. good old-fashioned alpha-beta search with a simple distance function for an evaluation function). The people who write such programs for fun are also the type who would do the work to put it on LG for the benefit of the community. (Yes, Gnu Backgammon could be set-up to play on LG, but that would just be for community service, rather than the author sharing his own creation).

(4) Games like Ayu have fewer issues with clandestine bot use. There are lots of very strong backgammon programs people could use to get "a little extra help".

Regardless, we should always be thinking about what is easiest for our generous benefactor, Richard. We can't just plead for more and more -- we should reach a solid consensus, and ensure that every new game is going to be valued and supported, rather than orphaned after a few months of play.

(I guess that is actually a point in favour of backgammon -- it has remained popular for 4000 years, so it'll likely still be around a few months from now... :-)

Tafl!

I think Knockabout would be a great addition. I would say that it's in the same vein as the popular LittleGolem game StreetSoccer. There's already a real-time implementation with a bot here: http://www.boardspace.net/english/about_knockabout.html, but it would be great to have a turn-based version for more casual play.

How about Rotary?

ROTARY

Thanks to this thread, I played Ayu and Yodd today. I have played Ketchup previously. I really like all three, and any of them would be nice to have here at LG.

Ayu, which reminds me of Slither, seems to be the most difficult to grasp initially... and I'm a little unsure on a couple of rules.

I encourage everyone to rate and/or comment on these games on BGG. Despite its high praise, I'm the only one who's rated Ayu so far!

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/114484/ayu

"... and I'm a little unsure on a couple of rules."

Ayu rules at mindsports.nl

Can you elaborate?

Christian, here's one question we had: If white can still freely move his stones, but is blocked from a path to any other white unit, does that qualify as "If a player can't make a move on his turn, he wins"? If I remember my game correctly, black had white cut off temporarily, but black perhaps would eventually need to open a path in order to keep moving. So, white could move, but with no actual path to a "nearest friendly unit," we ended the game and declared white the winner.

Why not Sparta-chess ? ;)

[chess+sparta.php]

@ Rex,

If there is no actual path, the player to move wins. In the mindsports rules there's an example in the fourth small diagram. Of course a unit may be temporarily isolated while there are still other units that have paths between them.

Thanks Christian, that clears things up!