Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

Nate · 2014-12-23 05:46:29

You might know me as "incident clemency", #1 on the profit leader boards. I started with $5.00 and now I have over $18.00 after just 1 day of play.

Since I'm doing so well right now, I'm not going to explain my strategy in detail, but if Jason wants to know what strategy I've been using, he should feel free to e-mail me. Let's just say that my current strategy relies very heavily on the graph to the right, but I'm working on a new strategy that will take into account the numbers on the board. My goal with this experimental new strategy is to anticipate my opponents moves, which of course could be countered easily if they figure out that I'm doing it. The most important part of my strategy so far involves "knowing when to fold".

I have been a huge fan of Jason Rohrer since I played Passage in 2007, and I've played almost every game he has released. In my opinion, Cordial Minuet is BY FAR the best game Rohrer has ever made. I predict that it will do VERY well with both critics and gamers... And most of all I think that this game will Jason rich enough to buy about $1,000,000 worth of lentils. I found this game to be more addictive than Dota... Seriously, I didn't play Dota at all today because I was too busy GAMBLING! I smell a hit.

The gameplay is perfect for a gambling game. When you lose, you really feel like it's your fault. It's rare that gambling feels fair yet skill based yet luck based... and at the end of the day it's just damn fun.

Side note, the way that the "colored markers" animate and blend together is truly artistic. I've programmed many 2D games and I think he put in a ton of skill and effort to make the animations look like actual ink and paper. The main part of the presentation/UI that I wish was different would be the coins themselves. They just look too plain to me, compared to the asthetic of the game board itself. It would also be cool to see the entire menu UI redone in "ink and paper" fashion, to match the beautiful game board. A full screen mode would be nice, too.

The UI generally feels great, but one VERY SMALL change I would make would be in the case that only 2 columns are left, it would be nice if the cursors each popped in to a space automatically, so that I don't have to drag them both from the side.

I would also love to see this game come to mobile.

Side tangent:

About 4 years ago, when I was a high school senior, I messaged Jason about how I should become a game developer. He told me "If you must go to college, go for computer science. Don't go to a Game Design college because they will force you to texture Orc ankles for the rest of your life. Also, 3D games are a fad."

I ignored some of his advice, and went to RIT for Game Design and Development. Two and a half years into that program I dropped out. It wasn't a bad program at all (very similair to Software Engineering), but when I gained enough skills to become a proper indie dev, I decided to start a company (alone) making games full time. If it wasn't for developers like Jason, I would never have had the courage to start a one-man game studio... So most of all, a big thank you and good luck goes out to Jason for leading the indie community by example for nearly 10 years now.

Let's talk about the story/mystery of the game. I sent the link/code to some of my friends and one of them asked me "are you in a cult now?" And I said "No, this is from a well know game developer, he's just pretending to be a cult (or should I say, occult). So just shut up and type in your credit card number."

The home page of Cordial Minuet is spooky, mysterious, and has some of the best writing I've seen in or around a game. The use of capital letters, along with the general tone, reminds me of Dr. Bronner's Soap labels. There are a lot of mysterious diagrams and phrases on this page that I was completely unable to decipher.

Let's look at the text on the game board. Il Mondo is Italian for "The World", where as L'Abisso is Italian for "The Abyss". These two phrases label the green and red axis of the game respectively. These phrases are relevant to Cordial Minuet's gameplay, because "The World" represents the axis from which the player interacts with the game, whereas "The Abyss" represents the axis from which your opponent interacts with the game. This could be seen as Jason's commentary on the phenomenon of players demonizing or vilifying each other... which is a dynamic that is already present in any competitive game.

In the upper left, the name "Minosons" is scrawled messily. According to demons.wikia.com, this is the name of a demon who "insures winning in all games". There is also a strange diagram in this corner which I was unable to decipher.

I went to hebrew school for 9 years, and I noticed right away that the hebrew lettering was out of order. The top axis seems to say "זוהקצע" and the left axis seems to say "חטילנס". Neither of which are Hebrew words. Perhaps it is an anagram, or crypt, or perhaps there is some numerology involved with the numbers that I'm missing.

The game's icon reads (from right to left, as Hebrew is written) "Aleph Yod" or "אי". This was strange to me, because "יא" means "eleven" in Hebrew, but "אי" doesn't seem to mean anything in modern Hebrew. In ancient Hebrew, though, according to one source, Aleph Yod means "nothing" or "no limit"...perhaps those are the two of the fates you can expect while playing this game... you might get "nothing" yet "there's no limit to what you can earn". http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/app5.htm

The closest I felt to uncovering the game's mystery is discovering that there is an 1891 Italian novel called L'Abisso. The plot was summarized on Wikipedia as follows: "The protagonist Durtal, a mediocre author Parisian conducts an investigation of Gilles de Rais that, in the fifteenth century, was accused of raping and torturing dozens of children. These surveys exert a strange fascination for Madame Chantelouve, who soon falls in love with the writer and becomes his mistress. Fedele of Satan, she learns from him that, in Paris , continue to be celebrated of the black masses. Durtal then approaches the Satanism, conversing with his friends of occultism , d ' astrology , of spiritualism , of magic ."

Maybe there's some more clues in that novel.

Also, the game board is 6x6. And the numbers all add up to 666. LIKE THE DEVIL!? LIKE SATAN!?!? COINCIDENCE OBAMA!?

Anyways, I wish Jason and his family the very best. This game is going places, and I truly believe that Jason deserves all of the success that is going to come his way because of this game. In the name of Minoson, good luck to us all!

Last edited by Nate (2014-12-23 06:53:45)

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-23 07:14:40

Wow, what a post! It's very gratifying that you've studied the game so deeply.

There is meaning in every aspect of the game, and you're close to hitting most of it.

The one place there is no intended meaning is in the Windows icon for the game---that's just a cutting taken from a Hebrew magic square, one cell in the square. This square, in fact:

http://sourceforge.net/p/hcsoftware/Cor … k/amulets/

Maybe you can shed some light on why some of those cells have two characters (like the Aleph Yod that I used).

The Hebrew column and row labels do have meaning however. The only hint, for now, is that there are 12 of them...

.. · 2014-12-23 09:02:53

Wow, spectacular showing for one day.

A full screen mode would be nice, too.

No one makes size 666x666 screens!

I found out what the Hebrew letters indicate by poking around the source for the game.

jere · 2014-12-23 12:46:18

Congrats on your very quick climb! I'll probably never see the top slot again on profit ratio since I started with $10. I played against you several times yesterday and in fact, against my better judgment, decided to play a $4.20 game while showing the game to a friend and lost. I'm pretty emotional with this stuff honestly, so that was kind of upsetting. However, I did win it back by the end of the night with a series of $1 games and a $3.33 game.

So you have an interesting strategy obviously and parts of it are similar to that of another poster, AnoHito. I was absolutely sure that it was Ano. Since you don't want your strategy spoiled, I will just say that to me it resembles "gambling" a lot more than my normal play style. Like literally betting a bunch of money on coin flips. Skill certainly plays a huge part in this game, but I don't buy the argument that there is no luck. At least not among mere mortals. Anyway, between the perception of coin flipping and the runaway stakes ($4.20,$6.66), I made a comparison to Martingale.

Which leads me to my final point. The best piece of advice I've received is Asminthe's Bankroll Management. Since then, I've tried to stick to ~$1 stakes and, while slow, it has produced consistent results. Don't get me wrong. $6.66 stakes are the most AWESOME stakes for this game, both thematically and because it would be the largest stakes to date (beating out $5 games IIRC). But it's also 1/3 of your current bankroll, which can be dangerous. Something to think about.

I decided to start a company (alone) making games full time. If it wasn't for developers like Jason, I would never have had the courage to start a one-man game studio... So most of all, a big thank you and good luck goes out to Jason for leading the indie community by example for nearly 10 years now.

Oh interesting. This is sort of a pipe dream for me. Do elaborate!

Nate · 2014-12-23 21:26:32

Don't stick to $1 bets people... I personally want to see $10 bets taking place all the time. Then, playing Coridal Minuet could be a full time job... so I can drop out of game development to become an e-sports pro.

No one ever took my 6.66 bet yesterday... seriously people it's just 6 bucks. It's the same odds either way so lets just get it done with and bet everything at once. *Macho gambling rant over.*

jere wrote:

I played against you several times yesterday and in fact, against my better judgment, decided to play a $4.20 game while showing the game to a friend and lost.

Yes that was me! I seem to recall you rage quitting right as you lost your final coin, before the animation fully played out. I love that this is possible, because it subtly illustrated how salty you were. Gotta love it.

Unfortunately I can't show my game yet because it's a music/rhythm game and the music licensing agreements are not 100% final. But if you see a music game released in about a year by Nate Software, LLC....that's me!

My game is going super well but it's kinda hard to work alone all day. I've been working on my game for 3 years alone now... the first year seemed fine. But then it started to wear on me. My career rewards me for spending time alone right now, and it's just starting to suck. I wonder if Jason has experienced this as a fellow solo indie coder dude.

Nate · 2014-12-23 22:02:51

Also, Jason, I took a look at the picture of the magic square you posted, and I figured out a few interesting things about it.

As you might know, every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a number associated with it. I calculated each row of the Hebrew magic square you posted and found out that they all add up to 34.

All of the numbers are written normally according to Hebrew numerology *except* for "אי" pronounced "Aleph Yod" from right to left, which is just 11 written backwards.

This whole picture seems like it comes from Qabalah, not Judaism, for several reasons, including the spelling of "אי".

A quick correction to my original post: I originally thought I was posting a link to Jewish numerolgy there, but it was actually from a text of Qabalah, which is disctinct from Judaism in many ways. Here is that link again, which explains the verbal meaning of "Aleph Yod" in Qabalah: http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/app5.htm

Last edited by Nate (2014-12-23 22:04:18)

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-23 22:16:46

Good stuff!

CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

#1 2014-12-23 05:46:29

Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

#2 2014-12-23 07:14:40

Re: Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

#3 2014-12-23 09:02:53

Re: Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

#4 2014-12-23 12:46:18

Re: Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

#5 2014-12-23 21:26:32

Re: Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

#6 2014-12-23 22:02:51

Re: Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

#7 2014-12-23 22:16:46

Re: Cordial Minuet GOTY 2015

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