Dominos of War - New and Improved!

After a few more playtests of our game Dominos of War, we discovered that the game can go on for too long and there can be a lot of stalemates depending on what the players choose to do. We also noticed a tendency for people to rely on certain strategies which prolong the game without advancing it while also frustrating both players.

The reason for this issue was that some pieces seem to be much for useful and would get overused. So, we created a new rule. Now, when a piece is killed, it gets discarded instead of being placed back in the pool as it was before. This might help with the other factions in the game as well if there happen to be any overpowered pieces.

The rules do not state how many of each type of piece there should be; we have left it to the players to decide. (Just make sure both sides have the same amount of each type.) However, here are some guidelines for deciding:

1. The General should have 3-4. You don't want too little in case something happens to them and then you're out of luck. You also don't want too many because then they lose their value. Four seems like a good amount.

2. The Sniper should have 3-5. The sniper was the piece that was overused so the game dynamics will change quite a bit depending on how many snipers you allow in the game. Experiment and see what you like best. I think three would be a fine amount.

3. The Grunt should have 4-7. The grunt is a generic piece with pretty good movement and attack, but with nothing else remarkable about it. They've always been a bit underutilized, but with the advent of the new "discard pile" they have become a little bit more useful. Five would probably be just fine.

4. The Grenadier should have 3-5. They come in handy but you don't want them getting overused. We played with three and that seemed to be the perfect amount for them.

5. The Kamikaze should have 4-5. There is really no need for more, but since they are so volatile it is good to have extras.

Here is a link to the google doc of the rules: Dominos of War Rulebook.

Please leave comments if you have questions, comments, criticisms or suggestions. Although this is a fun and playable game, it is still a work in progress and we welcome new ideas. Enjoy!

Tomorrow's Future Today (Yesterday's Edition)

Me and my friend Rob have now decided to record a podcast. We discuss such topics as homemade pickles, utopias and dystopias, robots taking over, and polar bears. Good luck.
https://soundcloud.com/dystopicdiatribes/episode1

Four Score and Seven Years Ago

Seven years ago I wrote a Christmas story for my little sister. I just dug it up and here it is. 

Once upon a time... there were three mice. Their names were Rudolph, Holly, and Santa. They lived in the home of an elderly gentleman by the name of Nicholas Clause.

All his life he had been a man of great charity and was filled with generosity by the sight of those less fortunate than himself.

Age had taken its toll on him and his body, but his spirit was as lively as ever. On December the 24^th he had realized that Christmas was the next day and he hadn’t any plans for this celebrated occasion. The three mice noticed his saddened expressions and decided that it was their duty to provide Mr. Clause with the enjoyment that he had allowed so many others throughout the years.

The mice formed a plan. “What could make an old man happier than seeing children playing in the snow?” they thought. So they borrowed the man’s hat and ran out into the cold in search of some young children. They found a young man named Timothy wobbling around with a crutch under one arm. So they dropped the hat in front of the boy with a label that said the following: Nicholas Clause, 1238 North Pole, Pennsylvania.

Timothy noticed the hat on the ground and read the note. As quickly as his fragile body could carry him, he stumbled down the road in search of the address. After a good amount of traveling, confusion, and exhaustion, Timothy found himself lost in a place he had never seen before.

Mr. Clause was going for a walk about that same time. Seeing the boy lost and confused, he invited him into his home for some cookies and milk. Timothy was always taught not to talk to strangers, but this man was jolly and had a sparkle of fatherly caring in his eyes and Timothy followed the man inside. After asking the boy what he was looking for, Nicholas discovered that he was the one Timothy had come in search of. Nicholas wished he could reward Timothy for his efforts but couldn’t find anything in his home suitable for a gift. He led Timothy home and told him that if he ever wanted anything, he should simply write him a letter and he will see what he can do.

The three mice wished that they could do something for the boy because Mr. Clause was not able to give anything to Timothy. So they worked and worked and worked and finally they had completed their gift. They wrapped it in red ribbon and green felt and delivered it to the boy’s house in the middle of the night, between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. The door was locked however, and they could not get the present inside, so they placed it under a tree for safe keeping and put a shiny red ball in the tree above the present, to draw attention to what it’s branches harbored beneath their snow covered bark.

On Christmas day, Timothy slowly crept out of his room. His parents were still in bed, so he climbed onto the couch and looked out the window, planning to pass time by dreaming of playing in the snow and making a model of his father out of large round snowballs.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the ornament in the tree and ran outside to retrieve it. But before he could grab the sparkling sphere of red, his attention was captured by a little present underneath the tree.

There was a note which said “Merry Christmas, from Santa Clause.” He ripped open the package with unrestrained enthusiasm and found inside a wooden carved model of a horse-drawn sleigh with reindeer instead of horses and a miniature version of Nicholas Clause in the seat of the sleigh. He wished to show his father, but he would still be sleeping. He put the model in one of his father’s socks which were hanging over the fireplace to dry so that he would find it when he finally woke up.

The boy wrote “Santa Clause” a letter, and from that day forth, every Christmas, they would exchange gifts and do many things to recreate the joy of that season.

Through what conspired on that Christmas Day, not so very long ago, many traditions were formed and many people will still be heard wishing you, a very 

Merry Christmas.

When All Else Fails, Use Fire

Me and my brother used to make up songs on the spot all the time back in the day. Now that I'm hanging out with him more since graduating from college, we've decided to pick back up this classic tradition. This time around, though, we're recording it!

We haven't done this in a while and we'll get better as we do more of them, but here are the first two recorded improv songs that we've done. Please excuse my terrible singing and just enjoy the lyrical improvisation. My brother is playing the guitar and is the other voice that will chime in as the song progresses. 

For this first one, we asked a guy named Tony to give me a suggestion to sing about. He failed in that endeavor and so I had no choice but to sing about him. (Don't worry, he enjoyed it.) Thus a song was born and it's name was "Tony Ruined It". 

https://soundcloud.com/figment4444/tony-ruined-it

For our second foray into madness, my friend Rob was there to witness and inspire. He loves watching road rage videos on youtube, so we sang about that. Here it is, "Sophisticated Road Rage". 

https://soundcloud.com/figment4444/sophisticated-road-rage

If you have any ideas of what we could sing about next, post a comment below and we'll see what happens. 

Thank you for allowing me to assault your senses with my creativity!

Cheap Warfare

In my last post, I shared the rules to a game me and my friend Rob created named "Dominoes of War". In this post, I'm going to share some pictures of Rob and my brother playing the game so you can see what it looks like.

Here you can see the basic playing field layout of 8x8 tiles.

These are the 5 types of soldiers. From left to right: Grenadier, Grunt, Sniper, Kamikaze, General.

 The players have chosen the locations for their bases.

Now they have stocked their bases with soldiers of their choosing.

You can see the walls that they've placed on the field outside of my brother's base. Also, he's made his first moved and flipped over the domino under his soldier.

You can really see it, but this domino added up to 10 and allowed him to spawn an extra soldier.

Here my brother has defeated all of Rob's army except one last sniper holed up in his base. Rob had given up by this point, of course.

After 2 games - one with me vs. Rob and one with Rob vs. my brother - we came up with the traits for the cowboys and indians, but we haven't tried them out yet.


Also, I forgot to mention that you can play with more than 2 players to make it more interesting. We'll probably use a bigger playing field for that, though.

Dominoes of War

A few years back, me and my friend Rob came up with a game that only uses army men and dominoes to play. It's a strategy game that can be tweaked in different ways. You can mess with the size and/or shape of the playing field or add factions to the game. I'll post the rules as we created them, but feel free to play around with the rules after you've tried it our way.

The next blog post has pictures of two people playing the game.

Dominoes of War

By Seth Lyons and Rob Deckard

Pieces

Dominoes – At least 80 dominoes all the same size and color on the back, the front doesn’t matter.

Army Men – Must have 5 distinct types of army men with at least 3 of each type.

(Optional) Cowboys – Also must have 5 distinct types of people with at least 3 of each type.

(Optional) Indians – Also must have 5 distinct types of people with at least 3 of each type.

Making the Game

If you’re going to play with two factions of army men, then you’ll have to somehow mark them as different. We used red and purple nail polish to color code the two different factions. Allow time for drying.

Set-Up

Step 1 – Count out 64 dominoes. Place them face down on the table and mix them up. Then place them into an 8 by 8 grid pattern leaving enough space between them to be able to flip each of them.

Step 2 – Flip a coin or play Rock, Paper, Scissors. The winner gets to decide who goes first. The player that goes first will set their base first and make the first moves in the game.

Step 3 – The player who is selected to go first will place their base. Choose anywhere around the outside edge of the playing field (the dominoes set into a grid pattern) to place your base. Put the dominoes of your base perpendicular to the tiles that make up the playing field so that you can easily tell them apart. Your base must have 1 or 2 entrances, be made up of exactly 6 dominoes which all have to connect, and has to follow the same grid pattern as the rest of the board.

After the first player has placed their base, then it is the second player’s turn to place their base following the same rules.

Step 4 – The first player places a wall down. A wall is a domino set on its side in between any two dominos in the playing field. Walls block troop movement and cannot be attacked through. After the first player places their first wall, the second player then places a wall anywhere they want. Then the first player places a second wall, followed by the second player placing a second wall. Now that there are 4 walls on the field, move on to step 5.

Step 5 – Stock your bases. Select a troop from your army to place on each tile of your base. If you want secrecy while you stock your base, you can put up a temporary divider and then take it down after both players have stocked their bases.

After the bases are stocked, you’re ready to begin playing.

How to Play

On your turn you can perform 3 actions. These actions can each be used to move a troop or to attack with a troop. You can only use one action on each troop per turn. For instance, you cannot use two actions to move a troop and then attack with it, you can only move or attack with each troop per turn.

Each type of troop has its own way of moving and attacking. Troops can change direction in the middle of moving.

When a troop lands on an un-flipped tile on the playing field (not in a base), you have to flip over the tile, then check for an event.

            If the tile is a double (1-1, blank on both sides, etc.), then it is a mine. The troop that landed on the mine explodes (take him off the board) and the tile gets replaced with an extra tile. The mine tile goes to a discard pile where it stays for the rest of the game.

            If the tile adds up to any of the following totals then you get a bonus. Bonuses must be used immediately or forfeited.

            Total    Bonus

            10        Spawn a troop in your base without using an action.

            12        Perform an extra action on your turn. May use it on a troop that has already used an action on that turn.

            17        Add an extra tile to your base. May be an entrance. Has to be attached to base.

            20        Move a wall of your choice to anywhere on the field.

           

After a player has used all three actions, it is the other player’s turn. A player does not have to use all of their actions. They can pass without doing anything if they wish.

A players troops can enter the enemy's base. Troops can attack from inside the base or shoot into the base.

Goal

Victory is achieved when a player eliminates all enemy troops on the field and in the bases.

Troop Types

Army Men

General

Move: 1 space in any direction.

Attack: 1 space in any direction.

Other: Can use an action to spawn a troop into the base. The General must be out of the base to spawn a troop.

Grunt

Move: 3 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Attack: 4 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Sniper

Move: 2 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Attack: Infinite in the direction it is facing.

Other: At the end of your turn, you must choose which direction each of your snipers will face. On your next turn, they can only attack in the direction they are facing.

Kamikaze

Move: 2 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Attack: See "Other".

Other: The kamikaze can run onto the same tile as an enemy, causing an explosion that kills the enemy, the kamikaze, and anyone on the 8 tiles surrounding the enemy, unless there is a wall in between the kamikaze and a troop.

Kamikazes will also exploded when shot, causing anyone on the 8 tiles around the kamikaze to die. A player can shoot their own kamikaze to make him explode.

A kamikaze can also run into a wall to blow it up. They have to have enough movement to get through it. (For example, a kamikaze cannot blow up a wall that is between 2 tiles and 3 tiles away.) Blowing up a wall causes anyone on the 8 walls around the kamikaze to die, except for anyone who is on the other side of the wall that is destroyed (or any other walls that may be around).

If a kamikaze lands on a mine, they still cause a 3 by 3 explosion.

Grenadier

Move: Diagonally 2 spaces.

Attack: 2,3, or 4 spaces away horizontally or vertically. Can throw over walls and other troops.

Cowboys

General

Move: 1 space in any direction.

Attack: 1 space in any direction.

Other: Can use an action to spawn a troop into the base. The General must be out of the base to spawn a troop.

Quick Shot

Move: 2 spaces horizontally or vertically

Attack: 5 spaces split between 2 directions horizontally or vertically. (Has to shoot in two directions, so max range is 4)

Shotgunner

Move: 2 spaces in any direction.

Attack: 2 spaces in any direction.

Gunslinger

Move: 2 spaces in any direction.

Attack: 2 spaces in any direction.

Other: Can use multiple actions on one turn.

Sniper

Move: 2 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Attack: Infinite in the direction it is facing.

Other: At the end of your turn, you must choose which direction each of your snipers will face. On your next turn, they can only attack in the direction they are facing.

Indians

Chieftain

Move: 1 space in any direction.

Attack: 1 space in any direction.

Other: Can use an action to spawn a troop into the base. The Chieftain must be out of the base to spawn a troop.

Sniper

Move: 2 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Attack: Infinite in the direction it is facing.

Other: At the end of your turn, you must choose which direction each of your snipers will face. On your next turn, they can only attack in the direction they are facing.

Shotgunner

Move: 2 spaces in any direction.

Attack: 2 spaces in any direction.

Spear Thrower

Move: 2 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Attack: 3 spaces in any direction. Can throw over walls and other troops.

Lightfoot

Move: 3 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Attack: 2 spaces horizontally or vertically.

Other: Can climb over walls (move like the wall isn't in the way).

If a tile turns out to be a mine, it does not explode on him (just leave it there). 

Piano Man

Today I have something I am very proud of. I don't remember what made me want to do this, but I decided to make a piano. Now, I'm on vacation from work so I've had a lot of time to do nothing but Minecraft. :D

As a result, I built 3 pianos yesterday and then today I built the zenith of my Minecraft pianos. 

The first piano is one that any player can play around on. If they step on a key, it will play that note. I guess this was probably inspired by the floor piano at FAO Schwarz. Here's a great video of the employees playing Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach on the floor piano: Floor Piano.

Minecraft has some limitations, but I'd like to see some people work together to try to play a song on my piano. :D

Here is the first one I built. At first it used pressure plates that you stepped on to press the keys. That was really ugly and made clicking noises whenever you stepped on or off of the pressure plates, so I changed it to where now there is a clock (a repeating pulse of "electricity") that checks if a player is on a key and then if they are it plays that note. Pretty simple, not too sophisticated, and it can cause some lag because of all the stuff under the hood. Not too bad, though.

 

Here is the inside of the piano. The clock is the glowing thing halfway down the box. If you don't know much about redstone components then the rest won't make much since to you. That's ok, just move along to the next bit.

Here is the second piano that I built yesterday. I wanted to make one of those player pianos that plays itself at the push of a button, so I built this. This one actually has the keys depress when the note is played, so it really looks authentic. This model is just one of the first iterations, however. The player pianos get better with each one. They keys work by being attached to sticky pistons which are kept fully extended until that key is played. The problem with this is that pistons are very noisy.

This view from the top allows you to glimpse into the belly of the beast.

Now we're really getting in there. This player piano works by having a ribbon feed that tells the piano which key to play at what time. The red bits are the notes for the left hand and the green ones are for the right hand (if you were really playing on a piano). 

... Ok, where was I? An ice cream truck came by and I had to go get some, for nostalgia's sake. Alright, back to the pianos.

This player piano and the one after it play "In the Hall of the Mountain King", which is a song I personally love and can play on the guitar (picking, you know. I can't actually play piano.) One of the problems with this piano is that the ribbon can only feed through at one speed, and that speed is slow. The ribbon is cycled through with the use of 25 pistons at each of the four corners. If I set the clock too fast, the pistons won't retract fast enough to get out of the way of the incoming blocks and the whole system will get blocked up (pun intended). 

I built a glass walkway for people to go inside the machine and see the cogs in motion so to speak. I actually really like this picture, I think it turned out pretty cool looking. I am on the  walkway inside the ribbon cage.

This is the "processor" if you will. The current is always on, but it only pushes through to the other side when one of the red or green blocks is in front of it. The glass does not allow current to pass through it, so if there is glass, the note will not play and the key will stay in it's default position, which is up. If one of the red or green bits is in front of it, the current will travel through, sounding the note and causing the pistons to lower the key.

By the way, each vertical strip of the ribbon corresponds to a note on the piano, so the two red blocks on the right side of the picture will both play the F# below middle C, but will do it four beats apart. The left hand part seen in red alternates between F# and B on beats 1 and 3 as you can see by the red bit just a few blocks down the ribbon tunnel.

Alright, here comes the player piano version 2. This one is also supposed to play "In the Hall of the Mountain King" but I never finished programming the song into it. The building and designing of this piano was a long and tedious process and, as usually happens, partway through the very last step I realized a better way to do it. I said to Rob, "Rob, I just thought of a way to do it better. Now I've got to build another one. He keeps asking me, "How many pianos is it that you've built now?" I've only built four, so calm down. Anyway, I didn't possess the fortitude to carry this one through to the end. Either way, let's see how it's supposed to work.

This one works by a string of delayed current that passes through blocks that play the note, press the key, and lift the last key. This one is vastly better than the last model for several reasons. It doesn't use pistons, so there's not that annoying clicking sound constantly interfering with the music. It doesn't have the same ribbon as last time that limited the song to 46 beats. It can also have varied delay between notes, allowing for near proper timing of the music. It doesn't cause as much lag either, because it doesn't have any sort of clock. When the button is pressed, the song plays through from beginning to end through the string of blocks which play notes and change which keys are pressed.

The problem with this design is that I had to program each block individually and also each note. This means that I could have mixed up some of the programming so that a different key is pressed than the one that you hear. Also it takes forever to make, which is not a good thing. Additionally, it can only play one song, and that song takes forever to put in. If I wanted to change the song, I'd have to rebuild the entire thing.

Finally, we have the 4th and final piano. This player piano is better in every way, but could still improve. However, since I've been making pianos for two days straight, I think I need to move on to something else. I was told that pianos needed to be made out of wood, so I made this last one out of wood and it turned out really beautiful I think.  

 

Here is the replacement for the old ribbon style of song programming. This has a delayed current that runs through once when you push the button. As the current goes through, the blocks communicate to the main processor which note to play and the processor (for lack of a better term) takes care of the rest. This means that I don't have as many opportunities to mess up and the key being pressed will always match the note being played. Another great thing is that this one is designed to be easier to set the timing for. The last one caused some difficulties and the space was too busy and confined.

Probably the best thing about it, though, is that it's easy to put more songs into this piano. It takes significantly less time than the other two models, and I can have more than one song on the same piano. If I ever end up adding another song to this one, I'll probably make it so only one song can play at a time. Otherwise that would sound cacophonous. By the way, this piano plays a simple version of Fur Elise, which is another great song that I can also play on guitar.

 

This is the "processor". When the ribbon tells it what note to play, it plays the note, presses the key, then lifts the key after letting it stay down for a short time. On the last model, I had to do all of those on every beat. This is a vast improvement. It's also fun to watch this part of the piano when a song is playing. 

Ok, we're at the last picture. This is a picture of the piano playing Fur Elise. It's not really something that comes across very well in a picture, but I wanted to show you what it looked like when a key was pressed. If you look to the right of the picture behind the piano, you can see the ribbon lit up. Judging from where the current is, the song is almost over. I did just the first part of the song, so it goes by pretty quickly. I could add more if I wanted.

Here is a video of the piano in action:

And here is a video explanation for how it works in case you'd like to build your own or if you're just curious.

That's all folks! Thanks for reading!