Percy Wong
United States
Princeton
New Jersey
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Hello all, I'm new here though I've been lurking around a bit and using BGG to manage my game collection. This is my first review so please go easy on me.
Recently a bunch of us math/physics/economics graduate students have started a weekly boardgaming group. Even though we rarely play Set, I figure it'd be a good place to start a review here.
The rules
At the beginning 12 cards are dealt onto the table. Each card depicts an element in the vector space R^4 of the form (Z/3Z)^4 (the 4 dimensions being colour, shape, shading and numbers). A set is defined to be three elements that (after possible identification up to periodicity) lies in a one dimensional affine subspace in R^4. The first person to identify a set can take the three cards that form it. Another three cards will be dealt afterwards and the game continues until the deck runs out. The deck contains one copy of each element of the desired form. At the end, whoever has the most cards win.
In the rare event that there does not exist a set within the 12 elements on the table, another three cards will be dealt.
The good
Rules are easy to explain, usually within 2 minutes anyone can start playing.
The bad
It is a speed game, there is no strategy/tactics involved whatsoever
The ugly
Not colour blind safe.
Remark: This is not meant to be a review for someone to learn the game from. It is purely for my own amusement.
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Jon Cooper
United States
Boise
Idaho
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Can you review Caylus?
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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What does the Z/3Z bit mean? I did group theory to second year level. Set and Take It Easy contain Steiner Triple Systems, in fact you can play Set with Take It Easy tiles.
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Scott Johnson
United States
Cloquet
Minnesota
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Yeah, but is it FUN?
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Matthew Eklund
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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scottsnew1 wrote: Yeah, but is it FUN? :p
who cares? it's got "one dimensional affine subspace" so i'm all over it
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Lacombe
Louisiana
It was a dark and stormy night.
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faichai wrote: The rules
At the beginning 12 cards are dealt onto the table. Each card depicts an element in the vector space R^4 of the form (Z/3Z)^4 (the 4 dimensions being colour, shape, shading and numbers). A set is defined to be three elements that (after possible identification up to periodicity) lies in a one dimensional affine subspace in R^4. The first person to identify a set can take the three cards that form it. Another three cards will be dealt afterwards and the game continues until the deck runs out. The deck contains one copy of each element of the desired form. At the end, whoever has the most cards win.
In the rare event that there does not exist a set within the 12 elements on the table, another three cards will be dealt.
The good
Rules are easy to explain
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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Friendless wrote: What does the Z/3Z bit mean?
Heh, google found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_field which has Z/3Z in an example of a finite field.
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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russ wrote:
Oh right, that one. Except the Set cards don't really form a ring because there aren't two operations, and there's certainly not an operation with an identity. It's really a Steiner Triple System S(2,3,81).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steiner_system
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Friendless wrote: ...in fact you can play Set with Take It Easy tiles.
That sounds interesting. How do you manage that?
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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guitarsolointhewind wrote: Friendless wrote: ...in fact you can play Set with Take It Easy tiles. That sounds interesting. How do you manage that?
Each Take It Easy tile has three numbers, each of which can have three values. Each colour has 27 tiles. So with three colours of tiles, you have the same tiles as a deck of the Set cards. The dimensions are vertical number, forward sloping number, backwards sloping number, and tile colour. For three tiles to be a set, in each dimension the three tiles must be all the same or all different.
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