Rambling + Rules for micropul, finally!

Thanks Seth, that would be really appreciated.

Torrent, about the starting tile this is one I thought about really long because I think there is a very very very slight possibility that at game start nobody could play. If a player only drew blocks with black micropuls and the starting block is only white micropuls. Having a wildcard starting block would eliminate this problem but the tightness of the playing area will be lost, I tried it.

I think the solution I currently have (which I thought of very recently) solve almost all problems (see below) as well as balance the advantage of starting, having 1 more turn.

It can still happen that player 2 have nothing to play and lose immediately. I think this is a problem but the possibility it happens is very small. Also, since it happens at game start it might not be a real problem. Just a stroke of luck, or bad luck for the second player :)

It's pretty hard to close groups. You're better trying to close only small groups. The point is to simplify final counting and to give a way for interaction / competition in a 2 players game. In a solitaire "puzzle" trying to make big groups and balancing your block draw is a great challenge to get the most points. The big micropul is worth 5 points as written in the Game End section, a small simple bonus for flavor.

Fissions are not used up. I should really clarify that, thanks. For one, it would be way to complicated keeping track of all fissions used up.

Check the images, the stones are pretty small too.

Thanks for the comment. I think you hit the spot! It's a very visual game and you need to find the patterns, rotate the blocks in your head. It's not easy to wrap your head around how it works at first but from playtests once it's understood there's no real problem with kids (13+) and adults (20+ to 40+)

First of all, thanks for your interrogations. You made me discover a big bug, a flaw in the rules, something that wasn't mention and would have stalled a computer if it was a video game. :)

It's either tiny or impossible, I should do a simulation. Actually wrote a small python script that can load all the blocks infos and manipulate them.

Oops! I didn't explain something correctly. The confusion here is I guess with the sentence : "If no action is possible, that player must withdraw from the game." I don't mean he withdraw a tile, I meant the player withdraw/lose the game.

The player will have "no action possible" only if his hand is empty, his supply is empty and all his 3 stones are in play. Meaning he have no resources at all in front of him, he thus lose. This situation will never come up by luck. A player will have to play very badly, not activating any fissions. In that sense, it make sense that he lose.

I should really explain it like that instead of the current sentence which you need to have played the game to understand. Thanks again!

If you have a big stack of supply tiles and can't play any of your blocks in hand, take one from your supply. Of course you "lose" 1 point (supply=2, hand=1) but that's the point. If you mean having a hand of 6 tiles and cannot play then I'm pretty sure that once there is at least 2 blocks in play it is impossible with all permutations but I might be optimistic and in denial about that.

Actually, if the "can't play" problems mentionned happen too often. I might consider it again. So thanks for that suggestion too.

Yep, supply stacks is the biggest source and easiest. At some various points I decided that hand blocks would be worth nothing, emphasising the "optimize your moves" portion of the game but found that having more choices (taking tiles from the supply) at the cost of 2 points is a bit too much and players would rather play with a limited hand.

The groups are a very unstable/risky? source of points, theorically each block you play to a group is worth between 0 and 5 points but it often needs sacrifice to close them, ie: playing a "corner" tile and not drawing from the community stacks. If ignoring groups altogether is the best strategy, something will have to change to make them a bit more valuable but not too much. Because having the supply blocks worth 1 points, hand worth nothing and groups worth the same as now would shift the focus to groups too much and players won't be drawing as much resulting in a longer game! Phew, balance is a very fine line.

Big hearty thanks!

You're right about being concerned because it's the part that gave me the most headache to explain efficiently. See the Rules section at the beginning? Where does it really belong? In the tile-laying action section that is! That would have been way too hard to digest in one shot. In reality, I like to think that it does works nicely :) because you think and do the two steps simultaneously. That might be a problem for some though.

In the pictures you see them standing up just fine. Rocking the table will make them fall as they are indeed thin, 3/16". If I can find thicker blocks at the same price I'm all for it!

Thanks, that's something I hadn't even thought about.

About the theme or lack of theme. I agree that the game is abstract, it looks like a bunch of circles, dots and + signs. I like to call it an invented abstract theme. Micropul doesn't exist and there isn't, to my knowledge, a real life equivalent so in that sense it is abstract.

If you were to stumble over it in a store, blocks of circles and dots would not be shown on the cover. It would have a giant immaculate lightgray sphere cut (like the earth is cut to show the center in thoses atlas books) at several spots to show it's beautiful interior. Two cool sunglasses-wearing scientists in white flowing labcoats bombarding (like a wizard would) the sphere with micropuls, fissions and micropuls flying everywhere, not drawn like the game components but stylized version. All of this drawn in an illustration minimalistic style like you would find on airplane emergency intructions and like the illustrations in the rules. A simple title, black on white "micropul" would be shown. Now, on the back you have the relevant informations with pictures of the real game.

1) I think there should be a special start tile, either blank or some sort of checkerboard pattern of Micropul's. It seems weird to force one player to play out one of his tiles without any possibility of gain.

If this is required (and I am not sure that it is) an easy solution is for the first player to draw 7 tiles then choose one to place as the start tile.

The player who use up his block as the starting tile have the advantage of control (he can put a tile that will match perfectly with a second he has in hand) and can play first if he has such a "combo".

I'm starting to feel, from your comments and with an objective "hat", that it's indeed too convulted and fiddly for such a tiny one-shot decision taken only once per game.

I won't be going back to my previous mechanic of having a random block from the community stacks be the starting tile. But, a checkerboard block for a starting tile sounds better and better each time it's getting recommendations!

Seth, that 4x4 starting block idea is pretty cool. It would feel more like the scientists are "infusing/sending/bombarding" micropuls to a "core" from where new blocks are created. Both sides of the tile could be used for two different patterns of start. 2 inch square blocks are .15$, .08$ for 1 inch. Not too bad... 48X.08 + .15 = 3.99

3x3 would not work because of the "line up" you mentionned. It will not work because of how I designed the positions of the elements on the blocks. They are farther away from the center than the corners, what I mean is that the elements are slightly more in the corners and not equidistance. I'm having a hard time explaining it but you'll see when you see the blocks. So it's entirely my fault but I knew what I was doing at the time and chose that because it was more beautiful. I agree that a game (another game) with blocks not lining up could be very rich & interesting.

Thanks again for the comments. I uploaded a printable pdf of the game for anyone interested. You'll have to provide 6 "stones" or markers.

http://www.neutralbox.com/micropul/files/micropul-Game-1.0.pdf

There's 24 "original" blocks and the 24 others are mirrored version of the original, replacing the white micropuls with black and vice-versa. Yes, there's 4 duplicates to be exact.

It's not a problem. I wanted to design other games with the "micropul system" at some point. You could separate the blocks by their colors, A white player and a black player. 20 blocks each with 8 neutral blocks.

I'll be going with your suggestions guys. There will be a starting block instead of the current convulted way to start the game.

Chance of stalling will be an absolute zero! I found 12 tiles that are able to attach to any other tiles.

http://www.neutralbox.com/micropul/data-blocks.html

The latest rules are available at http://neutralbox.com/micropul/rules/micropul-Rules-1.1.pdf . Just edited the first post to reflect this update (stupid of me not to have done it earlier) One suggestion though, if you have the time try one or two games solitaire. That way you'll have an easy time explaining the system.

Seth, thank you for the feedbacks. Great, great great! You seem to have picked up on it real quick. On your second game, you're already beating my scores. Do you think it takes a certain kind of person to play and enjoy this game? It's a bit of a puzzle-like game. You can also play it sparsely since it's often so tactical. On the other hand, when going for bigger groups it tends to go overboard on the what-ifs and seeing moves ahead.

The big groups strategy seem to work nicely. What happened to the third group? No 3, 4 micropul's group to take?

I certainly felt that "balance" yesterday while playing the 4 games described above. It actually matter if you try harder, but you don't have to over-optimize to get a good score. Luck of the draw play a slight role in that too, I guess. Kickass compliment, won't deny it makes me feel good about micropul.

It changed names quite a lot of times. First it was dot then point (dot in french; Points as in score is also points in french so it was utterly confusing having point and points), nanopul (confusing to someone that's learning the game), fissure, crack and finally fission. Fission is a noun in french. I'm open to all suggestions!

Game 3 is interesting because it shows that errors are unforgiving. But you can chalk up to inexperience that fact that you didn't see the 17 wasn't closed. So as you said, 71 is not bad.

For game 4, I'm impressed you managed to close two huge groups. Your only 9 blocks left in hand shows that you had to use some corners to close your groups at the end (I think). Do you remember if your groups were very open during the game and you closed them at the end or were you "controlling" their growth from the begnning?

Cool idea, I'll try that.