On the other hand, this game is not (really) available anywhere else, because of its inherent real-time nature. If the technical limitations could be overcome, this would be awesome.

This begs for a boardspace implementation. In fact, given the flaws with the timers in the real-life version, a boardspace edition could be the only one to best represent the original intention of the designer, Kris Burm!

You could implement this as a non-realtime game, where players can choose how much time to "spend" on their turn.

You can play this way on gamerz.net. It definately loses something.

Thumbs up, but I have a suspicion (perhaps unjustified) that the designers would take offense. They are trying to set up a server for playing it online at their site.

They now have ... www.pentago-online.com

Awww. While I am happy that it is available somewhere, I like being able to go to one site and find many players for a diverse set of games.

I guess that is what game night at my FLGS is for.

Their site is down and has been Abandonware for quite some time
now - http://www.pentago-online.com/

This would certainly be a welcome addition to Boardspace, but I must correct a misconception.

Shogi Club 24 is the premiere realtime shogi server:

http://www.shogidojo.com/eng/engindex.htm

English menus are available, and you can send stock phrases to your opponent in Japanese if you wish like "thanks for the game" etc. Thousands play on this every day, in all skill levels. Handicap games are possible.

This is free outside Japan.

It's also on gamerz.net, with support for multiple piece sets and handicapping.

Boardspace members would love this game. Tag this with mini-shogi and you'll have a winner.

This is available on the igGameCenter -
http://www.iggamecenter.com/

And the version there is pretty good, the site seems pretty well supported too.

Should Boardspace.net focus its energy on other games?

I would love to see this on Boardspace. BTW there is an operating realtime server that does Twixt:

* Download Client: http://www.gamerz.net/k2z/download
* Server URL: www.gamerz.net Port: 57017(default)

You can now register online for free! You might like to check out the way in which the GUI was implemented with regard to the fiddly stuff like swapping sides and link removal. Actually I have my own ideas about how a GUI for Twixt should be implemented, but I'm not the one doing the programming. Please contact me if you would like to meet an opponent there.

Yes, please.

I think Punct (which already appears on boardspace) is a better "one side to the other" implementation than this.

This is also available on the igGameCenter -
http://www.iggamecenter.com/

And the version there is pretty good, the site seems pretty well supported too.

Should Boardspace.net focus its energy on other games?

Dice are NOT randomizers, so I would not apply "no dice rules". This is a very good game. Another dice as pieces games isDuell but Chase is better. Also in this line from TSR is Steppe which you might want to look at too.

Chase is already on Superdupergames

I would love to see Chase on BoardSpace.net
It's one of my personal favorites.
Not many people play it at SuperDuperGames.
Putting it on BoardSpace.net would expose new people to this great game.
I know rossum has communicated with Tom Kruszewski in the past. Maybe he can get in touch with him again.
I assume he gave permission for it to be on superdupergames, so I bet he'd be fine with it on another site...

This is a fantastic game. There is a very good realtime play site run by the game's inventor with a sizeable player pool, at www.arimaa.com, I think.

i love this game. I love labirithins

of all the games currently on the list (as of july 07), this gets my vote by a pretty wide margin.

You may not be allowed to implement Quorridor, but it's embarrassingly similar to an old game from the 1970s: Blockade

Isn't that ironic.

I like Quoridor, i think i would like it.

It's on my personal watch list, but it's hard to get.

It's available at Toy's 'r Us in the Netherlands. Want me to send you a set? jan.de.graaf@newlimit.nl

I rather like the game. You may try it at http://www.yucata.de. It went online last week.

I want to second this motion. I haven't actually played the game yet, but I've read all of the reviews and the rules, and I've ordered the game and replayed a few on Yucata. From just this I can tell that it is a superior game. I think I would actually start playing on Yucata more, but I'm fairly partial to Boardspace with it's real-time capabilities and, of course, Dave's ability to add bots. Please consider this soon! Thank you.

Just to update ...
I've now played in excess of 40 games at Yucata and I literally can't get enough, playing around 10 games simulataneously. I think a real-time version of this would be totally awesome! And thanks for recently adding Dvonn.

Second update, 03/13/2009. Man! Close to 400 (4-hundred) games now on Yucata. This game is an instant classic. Elegance in design, simple rules, tough decisions, delicious scoring mechanism and dual move choices. My all time favorite now, bar none. I'm glad to see this moving closer and closer to #1 on this list. If Dave does fulfill my fantasy and finally gets this game implemented *real time*, I may get fired from my job, alienate my family, and gain 200 pounds from playing so much on Boardspace. Come to think of it Dave, you better just spare me the inevitable pain and suffering. Have a heart dude. :-)

Haven't tried it yet (I'm somewhere else right now), but I think it looks very interesting. I'd say it is worth it!

Looks very good.

When this gets implemented here, please make sure that the designer sanctioned (and now preferred) 12x12 board is used.

I am the author and programmer of this game. If you need my help please contact me. Thank you for adding TAIJI to this list.

This game is really good. When I first heard of it, it sounded so cheesy and "thematic" that I doubt it'd work well as an actual game. Taiji is a Chinese thing about the Ying and the Yang and all that stuff. And in the game, the two players play the same type of pieces with both players colors. I thought the deliberate design attempt at creating this Ying Yang mechanism would compromise the actual playability of the game. But it actually turned out to be a decent game, not as random/tactical as I first feared.

I'm so happy you like the game! See you on flexgames ;-)

Yes, while somewhat obscure, I'd really like to see this too!

I haven't even played this yet but read through the rules and am starting to play the online version via AI. I still need to play it more to see how long it takes to move cuz if it's 5 mins a move then it's better via PBEM. If it's 2 or 3 mins max a move then realtime is definitely duable seeing how it seems this game can end at any moment.

I have played it many, many times. It is already available online, though. (I think it is on gyges.net). However, there are few players there -- I think it deserves more playtime, so I would encourage it. To respond to the other posting -- moves often take less than 30 seconds or so, although there are always those who ponder and ponder......

I would give a thumbs up to this game on Boardspace.

Games with randomness don't seem in the apparent spirit of boardspace.net (though I have no idea if that is an actual policy).

This game is better than I expected. A mixture of Xiang Qi and Breakthrough. Granted not as good as either of those, but still good.

It a diferent concept in games...

Not so enthusiastic. The modern corresponding game Dvonn is much more fun.

I've played both and agree that Dvonn is the better of the two.

CH

Yes, Dvonn is far better. Focus have the problem of playing mirrowing, thends to go to draw.

But is a nice game also.

Pensator - mindsama

Dvonn can be played everywhere online, while Focus is a forgotten classic. It's a wonderful game.

Try Dvonn with 3 or 4?
This is a classic, I prefer to Dvonn.
Try the PC vesion http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/9579 (will get you started)

Mirroring won't result in a draw. In fact, draws are exceedingly rare. Mirroring must be addressed though. Several fixes were proposed by Sackson, so it's not a problem at all.

On a server, there would probably be an option to have the server generate a random intial tile layout. The problem with this option is, there is a good chance that such a layout might be strongly imbalanced for one side or the other. It would be difficult to make sure this could never happen. I have noticed the same sort of problem on BSW playing Dvonn.

This looks like the sort of game where a decent program could kick almost any human's posterior around. I don't recommend it, but maybe others would like it.

You're quite right, but that doesn't necessarily make a bad game.
All games have to have some novelty in each new play. Trippples
doesn't have a deep strategy, but each new board is it's own puzzle.

+1

I'd love to experiment this one ! I have built my own set, but am still looking for an opponent