Re: PBM design: give away the formulae?

From: arc@leland.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Richard Conway)

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 23:25:20 +0000

In article <srt.740789414@aerospace.aero.org> srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner) writes:
>Generally, I'm against putting specific formula in the rules.  For one
>thing, it means the game designer can't tune the game without
>constantly publishing new rules.  But more importantly, Life doesn't
>come with formula, so there's no real reason a game that models Life
>(like Atlantis) should come with formula either.

Or even better...publish specific formulae, and then actually
use totally different ones. Makes people read the source, so that
when bugs are found the players can solve them...

(This was the state of GB when I last played it. Note
that GB is probably the most fun game I have ever played.
But the documentation is awful. Square roots in the
documentation, exponentials in the source., etc. But not knowing
the formulae was actually one of the fun parts. "What will
happen if I try this?". For instance, the fact that aiming enough
mirrors at a star will make it go nova was never mentioned in
the documentation that I could find. I had great fun when I
discovered it whilst reading the source looking for some
other formula)

On the other hand, for more "serious" games, I like having formulae.
Mainly so that I know exactly what variables have an effect and
how big an effect.

Andrew.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Conway    arc@leland.stanford.edu  Phone: USA 415 497 1094

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
ulim@coli.uni-sb.de (Ulrich Mayring)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:41:26 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:50:14 +0000