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I played this game monday night with a friend, who is a good chess 960 player.
We played using a chess set with post-its on the traps.
I decided that I would just make moves more or less whimsically at first, until the game mechanics “gelled” in my mind. I managed to lose a camel and a cat swiftly, but then I got a really good position near all four traps and managed to win back the material.
I had a rabbit close to the end, protected by powerful “buddies”, when the game was interrupted by an emergency phonecall.
I’ve been hesitant to try this game—I’ve never liked the silver/gold look, and the rules seemed awkward— but I had fun.
Four moves per turn made the game feel a little bit like Magic: The Gathering. Let’s see, I’ll do this, that, and a little bit of that. Your turn.
I never tried to calculate. I tried to just set up good positions, make multi-purpose moves and create “either-or”-situations. I quickly became good at seing how much I could do with a single move. Like if there are up to two empty squares between you and the enemy, you could move it: move move push/pull move.
I like playing with chess pieces. It was fun seeing the two “kings” next to each other. I like how the game looks like chess and thus makes us look smart without us actually having to drudge through a game of chess. I like chess 960 for the same reason.
But my opponent disagrees and wants make Arimaa pieces now.
I like that the elephant is more or less immortal. It just so happened that we had played Pikemen immediately previous and it has some similar things going on—in it, the large pieces become immortal when pointing towards heaven.
I don’t like that bunnies can’t go backwards.
We both had a hard time remembering the freezing rules (but they certainly made the game better).
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Fritz Juhnke
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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It's great to hear some first impressions. I've been playing Arimaa so long I forget what it is like when newly encountered.
Quote: I never tried to calculate. I tried to just set up good positions, make multi-purpose moves and create “either-or”-situations. I quickly became good at seing how much I could do with a single move. Like if there are up to two empty squares between you and the enemy, you could move it: move move push/pull move.
Awesome. Getting bogged down in calculation is probably what turns some people off of the game at first. This is unnecessary, because Arimaa is a very intuitive game, and can be played by gut feel at a high level. Plus it is more fun to fly by the seat of your pants!
Quote: I like playing with chess pieces. It was fun seeing the two “kings” next to each other. I like how the game looks like chess and thus makes us look smart without us actually having to drudge through a game of chess. I like chess 960 for the same reason.
But my opponent disagrees and wants make Arimaa pieces now.
For some reason it doesn't matter to me what pieces I play with. I am unusual in this regard. I abstract away from what the pieces look like to what they can do. Probably this is why I use the terms "rabbit" and "pawn" interchangeably when I talk about Arimaa. I know what I mean.
Quote: I like that the elephant is more or less immortal. It just so happened that we had played Pikemen immediately previous and it has some similar things going on—in it, the large pieces become immortal when pointing towards heaven. I don’t like that bunnies can’t go backwards.
From the perspective of having played 2000 games, Arimaa's strategic depth is what makes it a great game. After just one game, nobody can be expected to have any idea whether it is a deep game or, if so, why. But somehow you managed to strike on the two essential rule features without which Arimaa would have little depth: indestructible elephants and non-retreating rabbits. Is there any particular reason you like/dislike those features on first exposure? Some observers feel right off the bat that it damages the game for the elephant to be so strong, and immediately want to suggest variants to weaken the elephant. Omar Syed himself didn't like the non-retreating rabbits rule at first, and added it reluctantly only after play-testing made it seem like a good idea.
The actual combination of rules that make up Arimaa is viewed by some game designers as an arbitrary jumble, but it isn't. The method in the madness is not some a priori principle of what makes a good rule, but rather constant adjustment based on patient testing of whether various combinations made a good game. Syed approached game design with an utterly pragmatic attitude that he didn't know what would work, so he tried lots of things until he found something that did work. Would be game-designers take note: sometimes perspiration produces a better game design than inspiration, as proved by Arimaa.
Quote: We both had a hard time remembering the freezing rules (but they certainly made the game better).
Yeah, playing on-line where the interface keeps track of the legality of moves makes me forget that it is a bit of a headache in live games, especially for beginners.
Thanks again for sharing!
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Fritzlein wrote:
For some reason it doesn't matter to me what pieces I play with. I am unusual in this regard. I abstract away from what the pieces look like to what they can do. Probably this is why I use the terms "rabbit" and "pawn" interchangeably when I talk about Arimaa. I know what I mean.
Yes, I guess we’re different in this regard. I want both the components and the rules to be good. ← edit: hmm I guess this might come off snobbish, that wasn’t my intention. Just that I’ve never understood things like “I only care about the gameplay” and so on.
Quote: From the perspective of having played 2000 games, Arimaa's strategic depth is what makes it a great game. After just one game, nobody can be expected to have any idea whether it is a deep game or, if so, why. But somehow you managed to strike on the two essential rule features without which Arimaa would have little depth: indestructible elephants and non-retreating rabbits. Is there any particular reason you like/dislike those features on first exposure? Some observers feel right off the bat that it damages the game for the elephant to be so strong, and immediately want to suggest variants to weaken the elephant. Omar Syed himself didn't like the non-retreating rabbits rule at first, and added it reluctantly only after play-testing made it seem like a good idea.
I like the strong elephant because it makes it easy to remember that like can’t push like, it has to be stronger (which feels consistent). I like thematically how it is almost always safe. It’s relaxing and makes the game feel more fun than “sharp”. I can’t get really really behind like I can in Chess 960 if I blunder away a major piece. It’s also part of what makes the game feels similar to Magic. Sometimes there’s just a huge monster on the board and we have to deal with it best we can.
I don’t like the non-retreating rabbits because that rule makes it harder to teach, and harder to remember myself. I caught myself almost doing it by mistake several times. I think it’s an inconsistency upon the rules. And sure, maybe the whole game would be too defensive and bogged down without that rule… I don’t know. But I really really dislike that rule.
Quote: The actual combination of rules that make up Arimaa is viewed by some game designers as an arbitrary jumble, but it isn't.
It really looks that way and that’s probably the biggest reason why it’s taken me so long to play it.
Quote: Would be game-designers take note: sometimes perspiration produces a better game design than inspiration, as proved by Arimaa.
I don’t know, I think both are needed. Consider the stories behind the two fun games Homeworlds and Zendo. Both evolved significantly during playtesting. Yet the former seems like a weird mass of small decisions that are hard to remember at first “You mean green give me only the smallest? And blue gives me the same size? What if there is no same size?” and so on, while Zendo just feels perfect, rule-wise. Because of inspiration as well as perspiration.
Quote: Thanks again for sharing!
NP. Thanks for all your work on wikipedia.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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Interesting discussion!
2097 wrote: I don’t like the non-retreating rabbits because that rule makes it harder to teach, and harder to remember myself. I caught myself almost doing it by mistake several times. I think it’s an inconsistency upon the rules. And sure, maybe the whole game would be too defensive and bogged down without that rule… I don’t know. But I really really dislike that rule.
Interesting, that you have such a strong reaction against that rule! I think your dislike for the rule is making you overstate how "inconsistent" or "hard to remember" it is. Sure, without that rule, the game rules would be slightly simpler (all pieces move identically, instead of the additional rule that rabbits can't move backwards), but that's not exactly a huge complicated mess of additional rules that are hard to remember. After a little more experience (e.g. 1 or 2 games), I can't imagine you will really have trouble remembering it.
Quote: I don’t know, I think both are needed. Consider the stories behind the two fun games Homeworlds and Zendo. Both evolved significantly during playtesting. Yet the former seems like a weird mass of small decisions that are hard to remember at first “You mean green give me only the smallest? And blue gives me the same size? What if there is no same size?” and so on, while Zendo just feels perfect, rule-wise. Because of inspiration as well as perspiration.
I certainly agree that Homeworlds has more complex rules Zendo. But they both feel very natural and close to "perfect" to me, in the sense that the rules of Homeworlds seem like you couldn't add or delete anything without messing it up. They are more complex, but they do work quite well, like a finely designed and built complex machine which would become worse if you tinkered with it, and the game continues to delight me and give me aha-experiences. Indeed, as a game, Homeworlds seems far better and deeper and more interesting to me than Zendo, which is more of an excellent simultaneous puzzle-solving experience.
And both took inspiration and perspiration to create. Probably like most games. 
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George Leach
United Kingdom
Salford
Greater Manchester
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I really got into Arimaa for a while but got bored of playing bots. If only it had a more regular group of players for real time games. It's a really great game played in person.
Remembering pinning was certainly the thing that caught me out the most when I sarted playing.
I think as you improve you'll come to realise that slight material advantages are just as important as in Chess but making the difference count is usually a much slower process in Arimaa. I think that is still it's biggest fault (winning a won game takes too long) and perhaps why it won't last, long term.
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Ururam Tururam
Poland
Krakow
Unspecified
Experimenting Warlock
Caffa et bucella per attractionem corporum venit ad stomachum meum.
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2097 wrote:
I like the strong elephant because it makes it easy to remember that like can’t push like, it has to be stronger (which feels consistent). I like thematically how it is almost always safe. It’s relaxing and makes the game feel more fun than “sharp”. I can’t get really really behind like I can in Chess 960 if I blunder away a major piece.
Don't be overconfident.  In one of my latest games I let carelessly my elephant be blockaded very early - and the game was basically over before it really began.
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Urtur wrote: Don't be overconfident. :D In one of my latest games I let carelessly my elephant be blockaded very early - and the game was basically over before it really began.
It can be blockaded but still live on, in the fiction at least. It doesn’t have to plummet to a gory death. It’s just… stuck, for a while.
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Saluton amiko!
russ wrote: Interesting discussion!
Interesting, that you have such a strong reaction against that rule! I think your dislike for the rule is making you overstate how "inconsistent" or "hard to remember" it is. Sure, without that rule, the game rules would be slightly simpler (all pieces move identically, instead of the additional rule that rabbits can't move backwards), but that's not exactly a huge complicated mess of additional rules that are hard to remember. After a little more experience (e.g. 1 or 2 games), I can't imagine you will really have trouble remembering it.
Sure, it can be overcome. But it will have to be overcome for every new player I teach the game. There are some other things in the games that are consistent—any size buddy can unfreeze, just as any size buddy can save from trap—so this seems like a wart on the game for me. All pieces move identically, that would’ve been so nice so nice!
Quote: I certainly agree that Homeworlds has more complex rules Zendo. But they both feel very natural and close to "perfect" to me, in the sense that the rules of Homeworlds seem like you couldn't add or delete anything without messing it up. They are more complex, but they do work quite well, like a finely designed and built complex machine which would become worse if you tinkered with it, and the game continues to delight me and give me aha-experiences. Indeed, as a game, Homeworlds seems far better and deeper and more interesting to me than Zendo, which is more of an excellent simultaneous puzzle-solving experience.
Homeworlds was at one time my favorite or second favorite game, but I always, even then, thought its rules at first glance seemed like such a mess. I agree with every single decision (unlike the rabbits backwards), but there are so many little things to remember for new players. The exact winning condition, which stars the wormholes connect to, and, most common, who can use which powers where. I now make a point in my examples to show a big non-red ship using the power of red, and also to point out that green build can only build the ships of the color of the ship that’s building the ship of that color. As long there is another green ship nearby or we’re in a green system. It’s a mess. It’s the exact same mess I would’ve ended up with if I were making the calls, but…
Zendo, one of my current top three games, is brilliant with it’s master/mondo dilemma. The master needs to know a bunch of these arbitrary definitions of what is inside the koan and what is outside, and so on, but the game as it looks from the perspective of the players is perfect.
As far of which is the deepest of those two games I’m not so sure about Homeworlds. It’s so tight, and tight games like that I fear can be searched. The computer is scared of the sacrifice options in the mid/endgame, but the banking aspect of the game often makes me wish I was a computer. The first move is so scripted, the following moves are also a choice between very few, and then… whoops, we’re in the midgame with someone having an advantage.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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2097 wrote: Saluton amiko!
Saluton! Lastatempe diversaj homoj neantaŭvidite salutas min en Esperanto...
Quote: Homeworlds was at one time my favorite or second favorite game, but I always, even then, thought its rules at first glance seemed like such a mess. I agree with every single decision (unlike the rabbits backwards), but there are so many little things to remember for new players. The exact winning condition, which stars the wormholes connect to, and, most common, who can use which powers where. I now make a point in my examples to show a big non-red ship using the power of red, and also to point out that green build can only build the ships of the color of the ship that’s building the ship of that color. As long there is another green ship nearby or we’re in a green system. It’s a mess. It’s the exact same mess I would’ve ended up with if I were making the calls, but…
Well, that all means that it's a harder game to teach to newbies. I agree. Sometimes you have to invest more effort to get a benefit.
It's less elegant than an abstract strategy game "should" be. But then I view it as an odd hybrid of abstract strategy game and sf-themed light economic/wargame (with the extra fiddly baggage the latter category implies). If someone wants a "pure" traditional-style abstract strategy game, Homeworlds may not satisfy them. (Though if forced to pigeonhole it, I'd call it an abstract strategy game more than anything else.)
Quote: As far of which is the deepest of those two games I’m not so sure about Homeworlds. It’s so tight, and tight games like that I fear can be searched.
I wonder if there exists an analysis (either theoretical or empirical based on archived games) of the branching factor in Homeworlds. In a midgame position, I think it's actually pretty high (though of course not super-high like Arimaa). It's just that we intuitively exclude many "obviously" stupid options (even though in unusual situations a "stupid" move can be good). E.g. most sacrifices which don't use all the points of the sacrifice.
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Fritz Juhnke
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Jugular wrote: I really got into Arimaa for a while but got bored of playing bots. If only it had a more regular group of players for real time games. It's a really great game played in person.
Arimaa at the moment is dominated by man vs. machine matches, and I agree that playing bots eventually gets boring. Human opponents are so much more creative in making new plans and shifting gears in response to your threats. Fortunately, the Arimaa World League, which just started up, provides a dollop of relief. Sign up for one of the four teams, and get paired for a live game against a human opponent in your approximate strength range. (Perhaps Ring of Fire is the best team to sign up for at the moment because they are short of players so you are more likely to get to play.)
The Arimaa World League is a nice vehicle for scheduling human vs. human matches, but in order for it to pick up steam, more interested parties like yourself need to sign up! Right now each team only fields three players each round, but if there was demand, I'm sure that could be increased to four players per round for the return matches.
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George Leach
United Kingdom
Salford
Greater Manchester
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Could you provide a link to some more details Fritz?
I'm interested to know how long the scheme is set to go on for and whether consideration will be given to player's time zones.
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Fritz Juhnke
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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2097 wrote: Saluton amiko! russ wrote: Interesting discussion!
Interesting, that you have such a strong reaction against that rule! I think your dislike for the rule is making you overstate how "inconsistent" or "hard to remember" it is. Sure, without that rule, the game rules would be slightly simpler (all pieces move identically, instead of the additional rule that rabbits can't move backwards), but that's not exactly a huge complicated mess of additional rules that are hard to remember. After a little more experience (e.g. 1 or 2 games), I can't imagine you will really have trouble remembering it. Sure, it can be overcome. But it will have to be overcome for every new player I teach the game. There are some other things in the games that are consistent—any size buddy can unfreeze, just as any size buddy can save from trap—so this seems like a wart on the game for me. All pieces move identically, that would’ve been so nice so nice!
The cost of learning rules is obviously amortized over the number of times you play. I totally sympathize with disliking the movement exception for rabbits after one play of Arimaa, because the entire cost of having to remember that bit of inelegance falls on a single game. And while I agree with Russ that it isn't such a big deal already after three games, because by then your cost per game has gone down by two thirds, this thread is clearly titled "first thoughts after first game".
I recently played Dungeon Lords for the second time, and while I enjoyed it more due to having a vague clue what to do, I am never going play Dungeon Lords enough times to compensate for having learned its heaping mess of rules. In comparison to something like that, Arimaa is sheer elegance, not to mention being able to stand thousands of plays. (Tops on arimaa.com is 11,903 plays!)
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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If you are open to playing asynchronously (email/web instead of realtime - although sometimes we do many turns back and forth quickly), I recommend joining the nifty automatic postal pairing system at arimaa.com. When you finish one game, it automatically pairs you with another human of similar strength. I've played versus about 4 people now in the past few months thanks to that.
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Fritz Juhnke
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Jugular wrote: Could you provide a link to some more details Fritz?
I'm interested to know how long the scheme is set to go on for and whether consideration will be given to player's time zones.
The official rules and standings are at http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/2011_Arimaa_World_L... , but to answer your direct question, time zones are handled by a scheduling algorithm. Both players enter their preferences, and the algorithm finds the best match. Occasionally the best match of two players in different time zones is very awkward, but almost all the time it works out well and the game gets scheduled on the weekend for, say, afternoon in Europe and evening in the United States.
One round has been played, leaving five more rounds, but your commitment would be only one match at a time. Each round the captain asks for volunteers, and selects from the players available.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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Fritzlein wrote: I recently played Dungeon Lords for the second time, and while I enjoyed it more due to having a vague clue what to do, I am never going play Dungeon Lords enough times to compensate for having learned its heaping mess of rules. In comparison to something like that, Arimaa is sheer elegance, not to mention being able to stand thousands of plays. (Tops on arimaa.com is 11,903 plays!)
Yep, I totally agree. And yet I know tons of gamers (Cultists of the New) who learn such rulesets very often, maybe a new game at every club meeting even, yet perhaps playing any individual such game a handful of times at best on average, if not only once.
So I sincerely don't see the "difficulty" of teaching Arimaa. Its rules are so much shorter and sleeker and cleaner than most eurogames (to say nothing of ameritrash and wargames). The rabbit rule is just one extra sentence, maybe 5 or 10 seconds to explain: "you can't move your own rabbits backwards". I've successfully taught it to a gaming almost-newbie (previous experience only with Blokus and a handful of others). It's not like we're talking 12 or 24 pages of rules here or something.
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George Leach
United Kingdom
Salford
Greater Manchester
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I'm not sure why but I really didn't like playing Arimaa asynchronously (it could be I didn't like the interface at Arimaa.com).
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Fritz Juhnke
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Jugular wrote: I'm not sure why but I really didn't like playing Arimaa asynchronously (it could be I didn't like the interface at Arimaa.com).
Ah, well, in a few decades when Arimaa has displaced chess in popular culture it will be easy to get a face-to-face game.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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Jugular wrote: I'm not sure why but I really didn't like playing Arimaa asynchronously (it could be I didn't like the interface at Arimaa.com).
I'm not a big fan of it either (but it's the same interface for realtime games!)
In particular, WTF is up with the tiny tiny tiny, like 4-pixel high, tiny tiny tiny icons showing the captured pieces?
And when a game is over, how do I see the chat messages my opponent and I made?
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Fritz Juhnke
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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russ wrote: And when a game is over, how do I see the chat messages my opponent and I made?
That used to be a feature, but it didn't make it into the new javascript client, and the javascript client is now the default. Thus to see your chat from the game, you now either have to change your preferences (under "Settings" on the left-hand menu bar) to an older client, or add "client=1" to the URL as in
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/showGame.cgi?gid=193205&s=w&c...
Of course if you click on this URL right now you won't be able to see the in-game chat, as that feature is reserved for the players of the game, and the above link is to one of my games. You would need to be logged in as yourself and the "gid=" would have to be for a game that you played. So maybe I shouldn't suggest URL modification as a workaround; just change your preferred client instead.
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Russ Williams
Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk
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That's pretty embarrassingly inconvenient...!
And why are the captured pieces only a few pixels high? I've played the game with new players and had them actually not even realize the client was showing them the captured pieces, they are so barely noticeably tiny? Surely someone has pointed this out and requested it be improved, right...?
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Fritz Juhnke
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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russ wrote: And why are the captured pieces only a few pixels high? I've played the game with new players and had them actually not even realize the client was showing them the captured pieces, they are so barely noticeably tiny? Surely someone has pointed this out and requested it be improved, right...?
I don't recall that there was much ruckus about it, since all of us old hands were used to a client that didn't show captured pieces at all. I was used to counting pieces on the board to know who was ahead, probably something that I learned in my on-line chess days from interfaces that didn't show captured chess pieces. So when this new feature appeared in the Arimaa interface, there was no general outcry that it wasn't as much of an improvement as it could have been.
Omar Syed has been very good in some areas where other abstract gaming sites fall short, for example promoting discussion and the spread of strategic knowledge, making a large and interesting stable of AI opponents available at all times, and building a friendly, welcoming community. I agree with you, though, that he hasn't produced a slick presentation such as people might expect from playing Blokus on-line.
I'm reminded of the slogan from the jelly company: "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good." The company poked fun at itself for standing by such a homely name, but decided it to spin it as an advantage, because you know the product itself is outstanding if it succeeds despite weak marketing. I might say the same for the continuing success of Arimaa despite the cobbled-together Web site. We fanatics obviously aren't flocking there for the snazzy visual experience, so you can guess there is something awesome about the game per se.
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