SL-Mark: "Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."

This thought is probably good for schoolboys and schoolgirls, at the beginning of their path in life. For those who have seen "this and that" it's clear that achieving goals in life is a combination of luck(chance) and skills(choice) ... we can control only small partion of our lives. Budda beautifuly answered when asked about our free will: you have two legs and lift the first one . You can do it, right ? now, still holding the first leg up, try to lift the second one. You cannot, right ? It's a perfect example of mixture of what we can and what cannot do ...I don't think most of us know exactly why we choose either dice or non-dice games. I personally feel relaxed playing dice games and tense when playing non-dice games. Dice games are more exciting for me since the unknown feature. Are they more intelligent than non-dice? 

Andy.

When you look at the statistics, the first 20 games on the list have only 4 games that are not dice-based: Chess (classic), Five in a row (another classic) and two invented and implemented games here: Frog Finder and Knight Fight. It is interesting to think about the reason behind such a popularity of the dice games. In my opinion, dice and the unknown outcome of the roll are somewhat like life itself, where we are getting set of facts and situations that are beyond our influance, and later on we have to deal with them, one by one. And we are never in total control of our lives. Such similarity, life itself and dice games, is what draw us to these games. On the other hand we are like children that need some help from Lady Luck, and when we do not get it, at least we can blame Her for bad fortune. Uknown is what fascinates us in dice games, and unexpected turns of luck is what we are wating for. Even Knight Fight has some elements of luck and unknown because of its random distribution of initial board. I do not know much about Frog Finder, but probably even there are elements of mystery and our goal is to "find what we are looking for ..." . There is one game played without a die, but as a matter of fact, it uses die character. It's Behemot, and what is interesting it not only "rolls" 1-4 spaces, it MOVES in 8 dirctions. It's a fantastic concept, something what "linear" Ludo is lacking.

I would be happy to hear from you about dice games, your ideas and thoughts.

Best regards,

Andy.  

Universal Eyes:

yahoooo ! looks great, thanks you so much ... but it doesn't tell me how many numbers are  still needed in each categories and if there is any surplus somewhere in the column or deficyt.

But it helps.

coan.net:

sounds good, but if you play one game at a time. playing more games, with more opponents there is no way by looking at the table to know immediately where you are. how about displaying in the upper left corner small number telling how many numbers were entered ? or just completely get rid of displaying scores, and showing only how many numbers were entered ... you could then recognize your situation at once.

happyjuggler0:

sure, but you still have to remember at least 12 spots ( doubled and trippled column at least) and how many numbers you recorded in them, especially because it displays multiplied values and not how many numbers you recorded.

there should be one more row in the upper section that gives current score for columns, this way we can control how far we are from the limit, and if it make sense to score in the upper section. Now I have to add many numbers to get some idea where I am on  the road to get my bonus.

It would be also nice to have this limits displayed somewhere in columns.

Best regards,

Andy.

happyjuggler0:

In order to get a bonus in Tripple Dice Poker, column in the Upper Sections should read:

63 ... 126 ... 189 and in Tripple Dice Poker 6D column should read: 84 ... 168 ... 252 , right ?

I guess it is a little bit cloudy for the players, especially beginners, and should be explained more clearly. 

Thanks for your reply

Could someone explain to me the rule of bonus in this variant ? I am not getting it. You are suppose not to reach 84 points to get the bonus (this is the way I understand word "limit")?

In my game I scored way beyond 84 points in the third column and didn't get anything ....

http://brainking.com/en/GameRules?tp=107&fwa=ShowGame!g=5686506

in Ludo ... maybe new achievement ?

Ludo (Max_Max vs. Herlock Sholmes)

and this is my opponent's reaction (scroll down, to message box):

Ludo (Max_Max vs. Herlock Sholmes)

strange chase begins at move no. 68 and after 13 moves I loose the game having huge material advantage ... single king made it ... and honestly I was sur this game is mine ... after a while I realized in panick, that I may loose ...

Dice Chess 10x10 (omega3007 vs. Herlock Sholmes)

I play this game with passion ... the more I play it, the more I am excited ... it's the only game I know in which by losing pieces you actually increase your power ... to the point that a single king alone can be the most dangerous weapon for all your heavy pieces and your kings still on the board ... why is it so ? well, statistics is the answer ... when you have only one king you can be sure yuor next move can only be done by your king ... it creates very uneasy situation for your opponent ... even having a queen, two rooks, knight and pawns your victory is not certain ... this single king will try to come close to your pieces and if luck won't be on your site, you will loose these pieces ... it's the only game I know you can enter the mouth of a lion and still get out of it as a winner ... it's the only game your pawns can bypass heavy pieces with grace and get promoted ... it's the game of luck and intricate tactics (more than it looks at first) ... a game of fun after all ... thanks to the inventor for creating this game for us.

Andy.

here is a very nice solution to "empty" rolls problems in chess played with dice ... you can play java program ...

http://math.lfc.edu/~yuen/dicechess/index.html

Andy.

it's classic situation: give then one finger, soon they wil ask for the whole hand ... let's be honest ... we are not going to find a site we can talk, complain and actually talk to the owner ... everybody makes mistakes and Fencer is not immune from them ... but he'd done much more good things than bad for turn based gaming ... I played on many sites and always felt like being no more than my nick ... here I am Andy ... and many of us feel the same. Let's support this site with constructive ideas and make a list of the most important changes we would like to see ...

tsunami, quakes and volcanos are the main actors in my new series of variants ... please go to my blog and enjoy ...

http://mychessvariants.blogspot.com/

Andy.

Hi Everybody ... I invite you to visit my chess variants blog ... instead of clogging our boards with my uncontrollable urge to create new, useless variants I decided to write about them in a separate place. These variants and games are all my own creations. They just pop-up in my head and I record them. Some may have some value, some probably not. Some may inspire, some won't ... Some are perfectly playable head to head, some require software to manage the board and pieces. I think that creating chess variants is the biggest pleasure I found in my gaming life. Bigger than actualy playing them ... No game is perfect and they constantly change. And I like to play and discover unknown territories. Unknown is what excites me the most. Have fun visiting my blog. Hope many variants will give you unending pleasure to explore this garden of imagination.

http://mychessvariants.blogspot.com/

Andy (Herlock Sholmes).

it's interesting to look at running games statistics ... out of first 20 games mostly played, there are 15 games that uses dice ... it's 75 percent, if you will, taken by backgammon and its clones plus all the dice poker games and the absolute king Ludo ... remaining 5 are chess (traditional favorite) plus 2 battleboats version and two games created by the users of this site: Frog Finder by coan.net (aka Big Bad Wolf) and Knight Fight by me, Andy. And this situation stays pretty much the same unchanged. Why ? What constitutes the most desirable game to play ... Look at Ludo ... it's a game with a very limited level of needed skills ... so what makes it so exciting ? UNKNOWN ... waiting for the big roll, this is what makes it a great game ... the same basically applies to all backgammon clones and poker games ... now, how about Frog Finder and Battleboats ? Again UNKNOWN ... but this time unknown placement of basic elements that need to be discovered ... Knight Fight has different qualities ... everything is known and what makes it interesting is the fact that this game is a racing-running game in nature, combined with known chess knight problem ... so we are back to Ludo running quality, but not "around the pond", but instead thru carefuly planned jumps across the chess board ... I would appreciate your comments and thoughts.

Andy.

this is the number of initial positions for Massacre Chess ... or

63 ! = 1.98260832 × 10⁸⁷

cd power: did you hear about chess blunders ? here is what wikipedia says:

In chess, a blunder is a very bad move. It is usually caused by some oversight, whether from time pressure (see time control), overconfidence or ...

In chess you better stay till the end ... I've seen and studied many blunders, such stupid moves made by top masters ...

DeaD man WalkiN: My condolences ... the only thing that comes to my mind now is: life has no opposites and down, deep inside we live forever ... what dies is only our physical body, our immortal body of soul moves from area of mind to another ... what looks like death is not  death at all ... it's illusion caused by our attachement to the external manifestation of the universal mind ... think about your grandson as still existing in simple another realm ... and you will meet him one day ... hope it helps you ... I am with you,

take care,

Andy.