Thom27: A third option is to HIDE in the move list when someone guesses wrong - so you KNOW the opponent guessed wrong, but you don't know the exact square they guessed at.

joshi tm: Yea, that is very annoying. Myself, I don't do those "wasteful" moves unless my opponent starts to do the same thing.

Rose: I don't know of anything that has changed - I thought in tournaments, you never could - but just regular games, you could.

... that is unless it has changed, but haven't heard anything about it changing.

AbigailII: "Neither
is the auto revealing of squares neighbouring a 0 - that will make the
game shorter, but it still doesn't pay to reveal information."

But it does work - since you basically *HAVE* to reveal information on every move, since you are no longer able to make "dummy" shots - every shot will at least say something new about at least 1 square. They you have to start to look at your shots - and of course you want to shot somewhere that will reveal as much information about as many squares as possible - since if you just reveal it about 1 square... well then you could be giving your opponent too much information.

Have you tried it yet - I think it works very well.

On this site - Frog Finder is a great game - but even in my opinion, Frog Legs is missing something - it ends up being a very long drawn out game.

Over on YourTurnMyTurn.com & Jijbent.nl - they now have a Minesweeper game based on the Frog Legs concept, with some changes:
(1) You don't see where your opponent guesses wrongly - so you can now guess without the fear of giving your opponent too much information.
(2) Spaces which give no new information is automatically shown - so there is no more just making "dummy" shots so you don't reveal anything new
(3) Slight scoring change - losing only 2 points for a guess - making it much better to try to guess.

YourTurnMyTurn.com = English language site
Jijbent.nl = Dutch language site
Brettspielnetz.de = German language site (game is not released there yet - might be with different rules)

Anyway, I suggest to go check it out - They don't have the number of games that this site does - but they are great sites with a nice selection of games

**** Oh, and if you wanted - check out the "Practice" - you can play against the computer ****

AbigailII: Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm 100% for the request of showing guesses on the board. That along with some other minor changes in other games would be great so I don't have to have the move list open at all.

But it does kind of stink that I have to leave the move list open (which slows down page load) because of a few games in which you have to have information from the move list to play the game correctly.

AbigailII: In the current version, I agree it would be nice to see where you have guessed at - but not 100% needed since you can see it in the move list. (which a long term request is to make all games be able to be played without having the move list on - but I've given up on that request.)

Anyway, yes - if the guess would be hidden from your opponent, there has to be a way to show you where you guessed at yourself... even though I see Fencer solution would be just hide the wrong guess ? from the move list from your opponent - but would be nice to have it shown on the board.

By hiding the guess from your opponent I think will stop many of the people making "safe" moves - probable not all, but I think it would help out a lot.

I agree that Frog Legs is not as good of a game that I thought it would be - I had imagined it as more of a game where you guess & taken chances - but as seen once brought here, the game is boring since there are players who will not take chances - and just "waste" shots - so half the game is just making stupid wasted "safe" shots.

I have gotten a different variant released on http://www.jijbent.nl/ (dutch language site) based on the Frog Legs concept with some changes - which makes it a REALLY fun game.

A slightly different variant is being worked on http://www.brettspielnetz.de/ (german language site) that also deal with getting points when you reveal a number... kind of what joshi tm is talking about I think. [note - not released yet]

Anyway, I'm not sure if Fencer could do this easily (or if he wants to change it), but I think there is one small thing that could be changed with Frog Legs to turn in back into the game which is was meant to be.... and that is where players take more chances and guess more.

Hide from your opponent where you guess at.

Right now, if you guess - you not only lose points - but possible give your opponent information where the frog is - so you end up losing A LOT of points. If the location of where you opponent guessed at stays hidden, I believe it would start to encourage players to start guessing instead of making "dummy" shots.

Rose: Your red.... looking for Blue, so you did not find 2 blue.

They found all your red. (25 points + 2 points for each unfound frog = 29)

coan.net: .... which I will wait until after the server move is done... since if I bring it up now, he will be too busy with other stuff to think about it and the idea might get lost in his list of things to do..... but will bring up the idea soon after.

Rose: I don't know if Fencer reads this board - but I haven't had time to bring it up to him yet - but I will bring it up with him soon to see what he thinks.

Rose: Well I have been thinking about ways to change this for awhile now, and there are 3 ideas. Here is what I have:

Since a lot of players do not make wild guesses (unless they are very behind or about to lose), these posts & ideas do not take into consideration -3 points for bad guesses.

Currently, if a frog is hit – player loses 5 while other player gains 5

If player continues and finds the other 4 frogs, they will end up with 15 points (plus winning 2 points + 1 point for each frog)

Player 2 would have to at least find 3 frogs to still win the game. [so they have to find 3 before the other players find 4… since one is not out of play]


Idea #1:

If a frog is hit, player loses 5 points (that is all – other player does not gain 5 points)

Results:

If player continues and finds the other 4 frogs, they will end up with 15 points (plus winning 2 points + 1 point for each frog)

Player 2 would have to at least find 4 frogs to still win the game



Idea #2:

Take how Frog Legs is started – with a space in the middle.

My thoughts: Even though this works great for frog legs, I fear that doing this would give player 1 more of an advantage since they get to go first.


Idea #3:

Change the bonus points at the end of the game to something like 2 bonus points for win, and 2 bonus points for each frog left unfound.

So if player 1 hits a frog, but finds the other 4 – they will have 15 points + 2 for win + 2 for each frog unfound.

If Player 2 finds 3 frogs, they will have 20 points, and player 1 will get 6 bonus points for a total of 21 points and win.

If Player 2 finds 4 frogs, they will have 25 points, and player 1 will get 4 bonus points for a total of 19 points and lose.

==============================================

I think Idea #2 is too much. Idea #1 would work, but might confuse people.

Idea #3 would still achive the goal of making the other players still find 4 frogs to win - and should be very each for Fencer to reprogram the game (changing the old bonus of 1 point for each unfound frog to 2 points each)

Of course Fencer does not want to make any changes to games unless they are thought through completely - which is what I've been thinking about these ideas for awhile now - so what do others think. Do you think Idea #3 (change the bonus points slightly) will fix the issue and still make the game as playable as before?

AbigailII: I don't think I have ever played a player who helped revel where their own frogs were... well at least players who knows how to play.

Artful Dodger: Also don't forget you get bonus points for winning & bonus points for the number of frogs not found. (not a lot - but can make a difference if people make bad guesses.... and if I'm down a frog, I make more guesses in the chance of making up for the dead frog)

But yes, I do understand what you are saying - but I think any less then what is there would then make it easier for player 1 to win (since they could get an extra move per game) and start to make the game less balanced then it currently is.

Artful Dodger: But think about the poor frogs...... who would want to shoot and kill any of those cute poor frogs??????

But seriously, it is a lot of points and does make it harder to win if you shoot a frog - But I've done it before - and have had it done to me also.... and at the same time, you now have less frogs to find (only 4 left).

I have also wondered if the 13x13 board with a 0 in the middle like in Frog Legs would be a good idea in Frog Finder also - always giving a person a place to start.

..... but I can't ignore the fact of how even the win/loss is for each player (50.2% vs. 49.6%) - so going first may give you an advantage of getting an extra chance to shoot/guess - but possible with the disadvantage of the bad chance of shooting a frog evens everything out.

What some had done (and myself at times also) - in your FIRST SHOT - Don't shoot, but guess in a spot. (you will lose 3 points - but that is a lot less then 10 points... and will give you a place to shoot next time with no fear of hitting a frog) Just an idea - not sure if it is the best strategy, but I guess is a good one to get away from not shooting a frog at the move.

troydaniels: Plus an idea that just popped in my head as I read your last post. (and an idea that may be good or bad - but not sure since I've only given it a thought for the past minute)

How about:
1 bonus point when your shot shows a 1
2 bonus points when your shot shows a 2
... and so on for 3-8

Of course once a frog is guessed, the "1" that is shown for that frog NO LONGER gets bonus points.

Even though this may not solve the problem, but it could start to reward the player who makes shots to show more of the board - and not shots to "waste" so they don't give any information to their opponent.

Again, an idea I would have to think about a little more. (maybe even double bonus - 2 points for every "1" your shot shows, etc....)

AbigailII: OK, I see what you are saying now. Hum.... maybe there is a solution in changing around the points awarded (and lost for wrong guess)

AbigailII: In the idea of hiding where your opponent guesses, I'm trying to see how you would think revealing a 1 (or higher) would become worse than it is now. If I shot and reveal a 1, my opponent will still have the same chance of guessing where the frog is as they did before. Only now if they do decide to take a chance and guess (and guesses wrong), it would be to my advantage to try to guess also. But also lets say there are 3 possible places a frog could be (33% chance) - I may also decide to guess - at worse (if my opponent did not guess at all), at worse I would end up -1 point (guess wrong twice, then correct third time) - but also keep those points away from my opponent.

As for the other ideas (my quick opinions)

1. 49 just seems like way too many. 25..... now that might be interesting. It will leave less 0 spaces on the board - but also might "block" part of the board in which players would have to take "wild" guesses behind a "row" of frogs. (then again 49 might work - I would have to see what a board would look like)

2. I think that would end up with players on turn 1 taking a shot which only reviels 1 space - that way on turn 2 they could guess correctly. Would help speed up the game, but my quick thoughts is not make it much better.

3. To me shooting the frogs instead of guesses seems like more of a different game - that is possible a different variant other then a solution to help Frog Legs.

4. I think it would end up like #2 - that is players would try to only make shots that give information to just 1 space (that way they can use that information next). A solution which may not make the current game any better.

And yes, and idea should be thought out very well - tested outside of the site if possible before anyone tried to convince Fencer to change something. (which is why I would LOVE to hear from anyone with ideas or suggestions or comments about other ideas.)

Overall - I would like to see something small changed which will (1) not change the game too much and (2) make it so it is worth to take more wild guesses. when there less then 100% chance of guessing correctly.

lukulus: I'm guessing you are talking about Frog Legs. One of the things I liked about Frog Finder was that I was able to sit down with a friend in real life and test that game many times on paper before it was brought here. So I was able to get many of the rules, points and such pined down - and I think that shows in the finished game stats of it being a very balanced game [red 8731 (50.03 %) vs. blue 8694 (49.81 %)] After over 17,000 games, about 40 games difference between the 2 players.

Anyway, for Frog Legs it was harder to test in real life - since we would had needed to have a person just play the "computer" while 2 others did the guessing.... so it was not tested as much as the original.

One of the main goals of Frog Legs was to introduce more guessing - getting more to take chances, and making more guessing. Of course I see this goal failing mostly because a person who does guess and gets it wrong - their opponent then has a much better chance of guessing correctly.

If anyone has suggestions, I'm happy to read them. As for your suggestions, I think #1 would go to far. #2 wouldn't be that bad - but I don't think that would help in getting people to guess more often.

My idea: To hide where you guess at from your opponent. This way if there is a 50/50 chance of where the frog is, and you guess - your opponent can see you guessed - but WILL NOT KNOW WHERE. So that will leave your opponent with either (1) going on with their game like normal and leave you to guess correctly next turn, or (2) take a 50/50 guess themselves to try to find the frog before you.

So what do you (anyone) think of this idea?

For those interested in both Frog Finder & Frog Legs - I have to prize tournaments starting soon:

Feb 5 - my 5 year anniversary on the site - coan.net 5 YEARS on BK Frog Finder

Feb 29 - Not often we can start tournaments on this date - coan.net new game Frog Legs PRIZE

Should be fun - come and join!

Fencer:

Fencer: OK - So then hopefully the bug has been fixed then!

WellyWales: I would think (and this is a total guess) - but I would think that the game would not be "created" until someone picked up the game - which gave it the game number 3022152

... which the last game mentioned in the bug tracker was 3021714

So I would guess your game was made after the last bug was "fixed" - but maybe it does have something to do with it sitting in the waiting room... but would not think so. (again, just guessing)

WellyWales: Which would mean that Fencer has not fixed the bug completely yet.

AbigailII: Hum... and the game below looks like it was started after Fencer's latest fix (if I'm reading the time of everything correctly).

WellyWales: I would not think so - hurry and put that in the Bug Tracker so Fencer can find it and fix it.

note: I would think that since Fencer has it set up for the first middle square to be zero when the game starts, he did not remember to make the random frogs not to be put in the spaces next to the zero. (would be my guess on the bug)

joshi tm: Well if it ends up not working with the current point system, then of course I'm sure we can get Fencer to change that if needed..... but we won't know that for sure until we see a few hundred games played.

Nope, never played on MSN network - about the only place I've played minesweeper is the version that comes with windows.

AbigailII: Yea, it will be interesting to see how much cat/mouse type of play - that is would it be better to just make a dummy shot that you know will show a 0, or take a guess when you have a 33% chance (or 50% chance) - since a wrong guess will only cost you 3 points.

It will be interesting to see if a "safe" game or an aggressive guessing game will work the best.

YEA - A new Frog Finder Variant - Frog Legs.

It is played the same way Frog Finder is.

The difference: Instead of each player having 5 frogs, there are 9 frogs that BOTH players are looking for. So your opponent will see your shots - will use the information you got in their next move (and you will use theirs).

So you have to be careful to not give your opponent too much information - and at the same time, don't be afraid to take more guesses since if you wait to figure out 100% where the frog is, your opponent will just swoop in and take it away from you!

HAVE FUN!

I was playing a few games recently, and I noticed someone who is each of our games would make a guess the very first move, then after losing 3 points for bad guess - would take their first shot there.

At first I thought maybe they did not know what they were doing - then after thinking about it (and noticing they have a higher rating then me so they must be doing something right), I started to think if this was a good strategy.

Of course if you have very first shot and shot a frog, all of a sudden you are 10 points behind (since you lose 5, and your opponent gains 5) - this way, they are only down 3 points to start.

Taking a look at about 25 of my past games, the closest score I could find was 5 points - with a few at 8 points, and most more then 10 points separate the 2 sides.

So obviously 3 points lose at the start would not do much damage - but I was wondering what others thought? The risk of hitting a frog on the first shot is slim: 5/139th chance. So what do others think of this strategy?

Here is the other interesting game, now that it is complete:

Frog Finder (grillyx vs. coan.net)

B2 is actually a 5 box! (If I had an extra move before losing, I would have taken it to show the "5", but had to guess quickly before losing)

5 box - 4 of my own, and 1 of my opponents hidden in there - making it really hard to find without giving up my own!

Now to find a "6 box"

Here is a game which has 4 of my opponents frogs in an area which I got a "4" box:

Frog Finder (kleineme vs. coan.net)

(and even though I found those early and thought I had a good chance of winning, I still lost.)

I have another interesting game, but it is still ongoing so I will post about that after it is complete.

WellyWales: Actually Frog Finder is the most balanced game on the site!

After over 11,000 games:

red 5938 (50.0 %)
blue 5921 (49.85 %)

To have a 17 game win/lose difference after so many games - WOW.

I've been thinking for awhile about if it would be a good or bad thing to set up your own frogs. (ignoring the fact that there has to be a check in place to make sure frogs aren't setup on same spot)

After thinking about it for awhile, I don't think it would be good for the game.

Why do I think that? Well if I could setup my own frogs, I would probable mostly set them up close to each other - that is for example, put 4 frogs in one of the corners - making it impossible to even see the 4th frog hidden in the corner - leaving someone to either guess blindly - or wait until he checks all other squares on the board.

It could also become more predictable. For example, if I know another player always sets up their battleboat boards - I can learn things like how they normally setup boards. Do they never have any touching each other. Do they never have any touching the side. Do they ... etc.. etc... So if a person always set's up their own frogs, it would also become predictable.

So even though occasionally the random computer will set up my frogs in a "bad" way, after thinking about it - I think it is still best to have the computer randomly place the frogs rather then try to let the users do it themselves.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you seen a setup which would put 4 frogs touching 1 square? (that is to possible see a "4" on a square)? (or a 5 for that matter, even though that would be VERY rare.)

SKA: Thanks. I'm just so happy to see this game already in the top 10 of active games on this site (Since January 2007) - and almost 10,000 games complete! (currently 9590 complete)

Not only that, when working on the game - I played around with the points of what is won/lose for awhile - and after almost 10,000 games - I can see the game is VERY well balanced.

Red: 49.98% win rate
Blue: 49.85% win rate

When I think up new games, I've been posting them on my website: http://coan.net

I think the co-op version of this game (as mentioned below) would be a great variant - where both players go after the same frogs - so you don't want to give away too much information to your opponent - and will make for more guessing and more chance taking while playing.

Anyway, I'm happy to hear people who like it.

Looking to see if we can get close to 20 into this tournament:

The "South of Canada" Frog Finder for 20 players!

Looking for some extra games - JOIN NOW!

joshi tm: I say 9 because I know most people don't like longer games - for example, the game Froglet - the game was fun for myself & others at first for awhile, but then when games took so long and seem to drag out, at least for myself - those games are less fun. (so a smaller board version of Froglet is still a suggestion I make)

But anyway, back to Frog Finder Co-op. I say 9 to keep it small - but possible have a big variant at a later day with something like 15 or even up to 21 could be a fun variant. But from my years of playing games, smaller & shorter games seem to be more popular in the long run.

At least that is my reasoning for picking 9 as the number of frogs to find (since it is close to the current 10, and with 9 will hopefully help make sure there are less ties then if there were 10 frogs on the board)

Variant Name: Frog Finder Co-op

Difference: 9 COMPUTER frogs are put on the board randomly. (There is no player 1 / player 2 frogs)

So each player is looking for the same frogs. So when you find an area that a frog is in, you can either (1) take a wild guess, (2) try to reveal more info - which will help your opponent or (3) go shoot somewhere else and see if your opponent will do either 1 or 2.

This game will encourage more guessing since you will not want to shot until you know 100% sure where the frog is since your opponent will then have a chance to guess where the frog is and get the points.

So what do people think? Similar setup to Frog Finder, but totally different strategy to play it!

WellyWales: I have thought about that also. But also on the flip side, the first player has the advantage of the first turn - that is player 1 could win the game in 5 turns (with 5 perfect guesses), and the 2nd player would not get a last "equal" amount of turns to tie.

So to give player 1 a "free shot" - and even a chance to find an opponents frog for free would give player 1 a VERY BIG advantage.

Looking at the game stats, the game seems VERY even right now.

red 2626 (49.82 %)
blue 2633 (49.96 %)
Draws 11 (0.20 %)

I did not go through all the games, but after 5,000+ games - that is as close as even that almost any game could get!

Gordon Shumway: Thank you. It is one of those games that because of how it is set up, it was hard to test in "real life" to make sure it was playable. Was able to test it some-what with my wife, and glad that is was as playing as we thought it would be on-line. At first it was going to be "men", but when Fencer started to make it - I said why not use the frogs in Froglet as the men..... and soon enough, the game became Frog Finder.

I have another game idea in my head - involves dice.... hum... maybe I should use the frogs in that one also... (that is if Fencer likes the idea and does the game - but I need to test the playability of it first - the idea is still stuck in my head right now.)

rod03801: Imagine it with 4 players! 4 different frogs in the pond!

Of course Fencer need to introduce multi-player games first, but that is my untimate vision for the game. 2 players work nice, but 4 players would be very cool.

dresali: but then you would know which squares your opponents frogs might be at.

An easier variant is just have 2 different boards (like Battleboats) where you can set up your own frogs.

Maybe to even add to that different types of frogs - like a "king" frog - fake "lilly pads" to help throw your opponent off, etc...

AbigailII: Just twice. In one game I don't know where my mind was, but I guessed the exact same spot 3 times in a row! Ugh! Talk about not paying attention!

Game is like minesweeper - the 1 player game that comes with most windows PC... but for 2 players.

10 frogs are put on the board randomly at the start - 5 for 1 player, 5 for another player.

LOSE POINTS: If you shot a frog, or guess wrong - you lose points.

GAIN POINTS: If you guess correctly, and find all opponent frogs first.

Play:

You shot a space on the board, which will then show a number between 0-8. That number tells you how many frogs are in the 8 spaces surronding the shot.

So if you get a 1, that means in one of those 8 surronding spaces is a frog. NOTE: It will also show your frogs, so be careful not to give too much information to your opponenet.

Once you think you know what space a frog is on, you can guess that space.