• New MSG Game: Gyre

    From =?UTF-8?Q?Luis_Bola=C3=B1os_Mures?=@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 12 04:19:33 2017
    Here's an equivalent way of formulating the Gyre rules:

    "The perimeter cells and the single central cell of the hexhex board are designated as star cells.

    "The game ends when there is a set of connected cells occupied by stones of the same color such that no set of connected cells outside of it includes a majority of star cells. The owner of the stones in the former set wins. Draws are not possible, and a
    board full of stones produces exactly one winner."

    This allows for easy generalization: the game works with any odd number of star cells in any distribution. Seven star cells (the six corners plus the center cell) looks like a natural choice to me. Of course, three star cells on the corners of the Y
    board yields Y.

    Also: turn star cells into movable neutral objects and you'll get a (hopefully interesting) Veletas-Gyre mix.

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Luis_Bola=C3=B1os_Mures?=@21:1/5 to All on Sun Mar 28 20:24:20 2021
    Of course, as mentioned elsewhere, you can even designate all cells as star cells.

    It has also been pointed out that center play might be too powerful in this family of games. Here is a related game idea intended to produce a better balance between edge and center play:

    On your turn, place a stone of your color on an empty cell. When the board is full, the player with the greater sum of the ranks of their groups wins. A group is a set of connected stones of the same color. The rank of a group X is number of cells in the
    biggest set of connected cells (whether empty or occupied by either player) that includes no stones in X.

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Luis_Bola=C3=B1os_Mures?=@21:1/5 to All on Mon Mar 29 02:28:57 2021
    On your turn, place a stone of your color on an empty cell. When the board is full, the player with the greater sum of the ranks of their groups wins.

    Oops, I accidentally described the misère variant instead. I meant to say the player with the *smaller* sum wins.

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