Out-there idea for a "better" game

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-18 02:32:36

There has been some discussion with various people over the past 8 months about what this game lacks compared to Holdem poker. That somehow, this game doesn't have the drama that Holdem has (not even heads up Holdem). After all, in Holdem, AA can be beaten by 7d-2h. A hand can go from being the best to being the worst depending on what other cards appear.

In math terms, the "turn another card" function is non-monotone in the "X beats Y" partial order where X and Y are pairs of hole cards. Turning a 2 card suddenly turns AA > 22 into AA+2 < 22+2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_theory

In CM, the partial order of scores is simply the the standard "<" on their numerical total. The "Make another pick" function simply adds a new number in. So, if X < Y, and you consider what would happen if either player got Z added in, we know that X+Z < Y+Z.

This is further amplified by the lack of shared values, because it's never the case in CM that both players get Z added in (the way that the turned 2 card affects both players in Holdem).

Effectively, if you have two strong picks on the first two, and you suspect your opponent has two weak picks, your third pick really doesn't matter much. There's no drama there.

Here's a variant of this game that would partly improve the game in this direction:

A version of Cordial Minuet on a 6x6 grid with numbers from 1-9 (instead of 1-36) and four suits (skulls, hearts, coins, and pentagrams). Then, you can get three of a kind (three 8's), which beats a flush (three hearts) which beats... I dunno, I'd have to work out the math. But you could have straights (5-6-7) and straight flushes (harder than 3 of a kind? not sure). Anyway, this would be a brand new game with brand new math, different from Poker. No longer a real magic square, though, which means making the grid balanced and fair may be non-trivial (could use a method proposed by Cullman... 9s 9h 9c 9p are 36, 35, 34, 33, and 1s 1h 1c 1p are 4, 3, 2, 1... then just use the normal magic square code.... the game could even use the exact same protocol as CM, just with different graphics for the 36..1 numbers, and different code on the server to determine the winner).

You wouldn't need the score graph anymore, either, because the numbers wouldn't sum up at all. It would be a pattern matching game like Poker instead of an arithmetic game. No scores at all, just hand strength. You know, 9-2-1 would beat 8-6-5 because the 9 is high.

Maybe the final pick could produce two shared cards instead of more hidden cards. So, players would use their 2 hidden picks plus one of the two visible picks to make the best 3-pick hand that they can.

It might be a way better game... but still not a huge draw for the poker crowd. Still, a way better game means it would have more chance of growing from 1000 accounts over time, just through "this is awesome" word of mouth (despite all the heads-up problems we have discussed).

On the other hand, it loses all of its true magical stuff. 666 becomes 270, etc. Also, much more gamey (it would look like a match-3 game or something).

I was aware of this possibility long ago, but avoided it for these reasons. I really like the elegant, inventive purity of the current game. I just feel like there is something missing. I still play loads of Poker, but I rarely want to play CM.

There's yet another version where you keep 1-36 and just add 4 suits. Then you sum scores as normal, but give bonus points for flushes. This is not quite as interesting as either extreme.

card · 2015-05-18 05:04:26

I think your proposed game definitely has merit but here are my initial thoughts:

-It is hard to know without playing but it seems like it could be more complex than CM. I think two of CM's strengths are purity of experience and ease of introduction, both of which could be potentially lost.
-Without the score graph, I think the game would lose a major psychological element that makes it fun to me personally. Would you still have a reveal?
-Losing the magical stuff would be a major bummer, although I suppose you could still try to use the same art style.

Hopefully these are not too harsh, I am just trying to provide some food for thought.

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-18 05:53:21

Well, I do like that this game, as it stands, is a totally new, unique invention. The score graph and all that. I'm very proud of that stuff.

I'm now considering this other game as a separate mode. Nothing like that (a suited version, where players are picking rows and columns and trying to make pairs, trips, straights, and flushes) has ever existed before either. Yeah, there would still be the reveal. Exact same game, with exactly the same graphics, except the 1..36 numbers would be replaced with 1..9 in four suits (or 1..12 in three suits... or 1..6 in six suits?). I'm considering this as an experimental mode, where when you're starting a game, you can pick that mode, and it will appear differently on the game list.

This generally goes against my philosophy of design purity, but I'm really interested in playing that other version of this game, and this is the path of least resistance to actually getting to play it (1000+ existing accounts with real money in place and a betting system, etc.)

computermouth · 2015-05-18 06:32:55

I'd play alt-mode, for sure.

Professor Chin · 2015-05-18 11:57:24

I would be very much interested in the new game format proposed!

As much as I like and admire the symbolic and mathematical elegance of CM, I started to feel a certain "tiredness" as several other long-time players expressed lately...
I agree that the monotonic nature of how the value is computed must have a role in it.

The game would probably become more complex in the new format, but I believe that it would nevertheless be by far more welcoming and "tempting" for the newcomers, at least for two reasons:
- an enormous lot of people are familiar with cards style and value system (and gambling with cards is well established and "accepted")
- Maths scares people. Of course the base calculus is just a sum and the graph on the right does all the homework... still most people say "no thanks" as soon as they see a grid of numbers (maybe unconsciously avoiding that horrible feeling associated with Maths at school...).

In CM's chat there's the joke "all CM players are programmers"... maybe that's a reason for that

Apreche · 2015-05-18 12:33:35

What you say about order theory isn't wrong. Yet, I think you are too close to the problem, and are missing the big picture. The lack of excitement and drama in CM stems from something much more fundamental. Drama comes from uncertainty. Uncertainty comes from luck. Luck has been entirely, or almost entirely, removed from CM. If you want drama, you have to add in luck, which is pretty much contrary to the core principle of the game. Legally it also means removing the real money.

Dan_Dan84 · 2015-05-18 13:28:09

"Alt-mode" does sound intriguing. I don't want to misrepresent you again, Jason, but I seem to remember you mentioning in an article on CM that you initially wanted to do something like this, but the feedback you got was that "It's too complicated." But the way you've described it here, it definitely sounds manageable: both for you and potential players. The hardest thing would be working out the order of hands and then conveying that to players. A new version of the score graph could do that, I suppose.

Anyway, I love the elegance and numerological (?) underpinnings of CM, but I can see everybody's point.

As for drama, uncertainty, and luck... Well, I still find there's a lot of uncertainty in the game, which provides the emotional impact. I admit that I have felt some of the "tiredness" Prof. Chin and others have mentioned, but that could be just because I've been playing so many games recently ("too much of a good thing" and all that). Unless you're always getting the top number, there will always be some uncertainty: Did I just fold the winning hand? Could he really have that 35? Will she actually call my all-in?

Anyway, I like this "Out-there" idea, and I think people have made some good points so far. I particularly like the idea of a Holdem-style "public cards" pick. I hope the psychological elements stay, while possibly finding a way to add in that element that you feel is missing from the current game.

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-18 20:04:40

Yep yep.... so v25, just released, contains this experimental mode. Exactly the same game played with different things on the grid and scored differently.

Defiant00 · 2015-05-18 20:21:08

Wow, that was quick. I'll have to give it a go this evening.

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-18 20:29:15

Yeah, it was pretty crazy how little code needed to change to make this work. Client side, it's basically just a new skin for the numbers 1..36. Server side, it's basically just a new scoring method.

.. · 2015-05-18 21:24:16

Wow, fast.

Initial impressions from a single game:

I miss the scoregraph. You can still have it. The scoregraph shows the strength of all possible "hands" you and the opponent can get, descending down the game tree. In CM hand strength is the total score, in this game you would just compute where a hand lies in a linear order of hand strength and display that, which will still show what your chance to win is.. (I haven't thought about how many different strengths there are, because I still don't know the rules!) I guess you've probably borrowed the hand ordering rules from poker, though personally I thought poker hand ranking strange as they're not ranked by rarity, and most hands are nothing. But rarity isn't necessarily what leads to most interesting tactical decisions.

Deciding what pick to choose seems considerably more difficult, even if the score graph was put back in. You can't just glance at the board and see the valuable squares. Which is the point. But double-guessing my opponent seems less pratical when the mental calculations are more complex, which could make the game less deep? (Well, the depth of double-guessing only occurred amongst focused advanced players anyway) So I'm mostly making random moves right now, especially for the first pick.

(EDIT: Moved the offtopic last paragraph to the other thread)

Last edited by .. (2015-05-18 21:54:13)

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-18 22:00:10

Poker hands are ranked by rarity. It's harder to get a flush than a straight, etc:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability

Ties are broken based on card rank, though, so maybe that's what you mean. AAxxx is no more rare than KKxxx, but AAxxx wins.

I suppose there are certain hands that poker doesn't even consider, like a 4-1 partial flush, which is pretty rare, but worthless. Maybe that's what you mean? Yes, certain hands are dubbed special, but among the special ones, they are ranked by rarity.

Anyway, the ranking in this game is slightly different than in Poker, because it's only 3 squares, so there's no full house and no 4-of-a-kind. 3-of-a-kind is much more rare, relative to other hands, than it is in Poker, so here it's the second best hand, beating flushes and straights.

But poker rankings mostly translate.

9's in this game are way more valuable than 2's (they are the Aces in this game), so some squares are still the attractor points.

But regarding your point about things needing to change to keep people interested... well, that means the core game just isn't strong enough, on its own. I don't want people saying, "Man, I am SO sick of playing this game, but I really want that amulet."

I also find that the CM becomes more interesting for me at higher stakes. But that's not the case for me with Poker after playing it for years (yes, it is more tense at higher stakes, but it's just as engaging on a pure game level at low stakes or even with play money).

I hear you about the possibility of a score graph here

There are 7000+ possible hands for each player. I'm not sure how many ties there are in there, though.

Looking just at flushes, there are 84 distinctly ranked hands (computed by C(9,3) ).

There are also roughly 84 distinctly ranked "nothing" hands. 7 of those are straights.

There are 7 straight flushes.

There are 72 distinctly ranked pair hands.

There are 9 distinctly ranked triple hands.

That's 263, which is more than will fit on the current score graph.

.. · 2015-05-18 22:32:30

OK, seems I was misremembering about the poker hands.

To fit in a score graph the simplest solution is to use bucketing, for example place all 98X nothing hands in one bucket. This reduces from 77 nothing hands to 36. At least that's easy to understand. Would also be possible to compress the range by not graphing hands that won't be seen this game.

Regarding higher stakes being more interesting (which was in reply to the paragraph which I moved to the "Fundamental issues that limit critical mass" thread), I can see why. If you're both good players focused on the game fighting for every round then the mind reading magic happens. I really have no clue what poker has that this is missing, aside from critical mass.

Last edited by .. (2015-05-18 22:33:41)

Discordant Mind · 2015-05-18 23:03:44

I've tried out a few hands of the experimental game, and I'm enjoying it more than Vanilla CM. It seems that some of the same strategies for Vanilla CM apply - selecting columns based on variability still influences the outcome, and choosing columns for yourself with higher possibilities than your opponent will beat random picking, but there's also the unknown factor of suits and special hands, which can lead to surprising results. I'm having an easy time deciding on a column for myself, but my opponent's hand is mostly a blank to me. Maybe I need more experience to get a better feel for my opponent's picks.

Kudos on the new design; it's got some real potential!

zed · 2015-05-19 00:03:30

I was sceptical at first, but after trying the new design, I do think
something like this could be interesting.

Having it so similar to poker is a bit boring, though, and it's a shame to
lose the cabalistic connotations. I also just find 9*4 an aesthetically
displeasing decomposition of 36. I wonder if there couldn't be a neater design
waiting to be discovered.

Here's one idea. 36 is 9 choose 2, so it's the number of lines on an enneacle
(which appears to be the etymologically correct term for the analogue of a
pentacle with 9 vertices). I don't know if this coincidence has been remarked
on in existing daemonological texts... but there's nothing wrong with
inventing new daemonology!

So in place of the numbers 1 to 36, each square could be a single line between
two of nine points equally spaced around a circle.

Then once you've picked three, you draw the three lines on a single enneacle,
and see what pattern results. Rarer and more aesthetically pleasing results
are worth more. So maybe a triangle would be worth most, followed by having 3
connected lines forming a path which isn't a triangle, followed by a path of
length two. Having two or three lines of the same length could also be worth
something, and ties could be broken by looking at the lengths of the lines
involved. With appropriate graphical indications of why a pattern is worth
something, I think a system like this could be learnable.

Last edited by zed (2015-05-19 00:13:09)

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-19 01:58:22

Long time no see, Zed!

I agree that 9*4 and the relation to poker hands is boring. This is just a first experiment on this concept. Does non-monotonicity of hands make this more interesting?

In my initial plays of the experimental mode, I don't think that it does. Maybe its slightly more interesting, because it engages the pattern-matching brain more than the number one does (you can look after pick 3 and easily see that they have a potential flush... you can look before pick 3 and see that you can force either a straight or a flush for sure... wowee!)

But I find that I'm pretty much playing this the same way as I played the other game. There's a chance my opponent has a better hand than me, or I know that I've won, etc, after pick 3.

What's missing from this game that Poker has is really lack of information. That moment when you have AA and your opponent has no way of knowing is the sweetest gameplay moment in the world. Yes, "luck" has something to do with it (it's like the heavens have aligned for just you at that moment). But there's also just something amazing about being in the wise when your opponent knows nothing. Having the secret way-upper hand.

In this game (regular CM and the suited version), there is simply too much information about what your opponent might have, especially after pick 3. The following happens reasonably often:

--You KNOW you've won, and your opponent KNOWS you've won too.

That NEVER happens in Poker.

What does happen in Poker is the case where you know you've won (like you do regularly in CM), but your opponent never knows.

Though this case may come very rarely (every 500 hands or something... even AA only comes every 221 hands on average, and AA is usually not a guaranteed winner after the flop), it comes often enough, and the experience is sweet enough, that it's worth it. There's a saying that poker players loath to miss a hand. You don't even want to get up to take a break, because the next hand could be one of these (this isn't rational, but there it is).

There is no way to get around this difference with any kind of crossing-choices-on-a-grid mechanism. Well, unless the grid is huge or something, but then the players are just replacing a RNG. Yeah, that might route around the law, but it's no fun task for the players. There's a reason we write computer programs to compute random numbers for us (because rolling dice or whatever is tedious and uninteresting---a non-choice that the computer should automate).

I mostly implemented the experimental mode as a lark, just to make such a game a reality and try playing it. It was way faster to fold this into CM than to make a paper prototype or whatever. Without playing it, the question remained: is it the non-monotonicity in Poker that makes it hum?

So, anyway, mostly likely, the numerical purity and beauty and occult-nature of the original will reign, just because it's better to make a totally novel and self-consistent game than a poker-like game that isn't all that much better anyway.

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-19 02:23:43

Just watched my 12-y-old wipe someone out with close to a sure-thing flush on pick 3 (3/4 chance of hitting), which he hit as a 5-high flush. The opponent could have hit a 9-high flush, though, so it was scary. After reveal, it was clear that the opponent didn't have the flush. At showdown, the opponent had a 7-high straight.

What a sweet sight those 3 little green leaves were at the end...

LiteS · 2015-05-19 02:30:41

Initial thoughts:
This new mode is definitely more fun. I'm enjoying it as a game much more than the default.

With the default version there were two ways to conceivably win when you get a 1-4 round one, either bluff your opponent by betting and make them fold, or choose your columns carefully, trying to may your opponent think you didn't get the 1 and hope for a higher total. Both were hard to do. With this version, a 1 isn't so bad, you can still try for a straight, flush, or 3 of a kind, the top hands in the game. Which means people will bet more, which may be what was missing.

I'd like to put a third vote in to the "I wish I had a score graph" camp. I've already lost to a flush thinking my straight was unbeatable, but maybe that's a skill I haven't learned yet about game. But deciphering all possibilities for my opponent is a tall order, and if I had something that said "giving this column will block a flush draw" that'd be wonderful. On some hands, after I've made my pair and 3 of a kind is impossible due to game tree reasons the only thing I'm able to do is block my opponent's possible straight, flush, or higher pair draw with the final column, and deciphering the possibilities manually between two columns on a timer is nerve-wracking.

In poker, Aces are high and low, making them even more valuable than they already are. As long as you're considering losing the 666, opening up one more straight possibility and replacing 1's with Aces (8-9-1) might be interesting, but hey, I'm not the game designer .

Dan_Dan84 · 2015-05-19 04:07:26

I got a straight flush-- in my first game!

I do think this is an interesting idea (and I'm amazed at how quickly this "out-there" idea appeared. When I first saw the new board, I thought for a moment I was having a fever dream brought on by too much CM. At the height of the launch contest, I dreamed that the CM board was replaced with some animated clock).

However, after playing a few experimental games mixed with vanilla CM (or as vanilla as demonic 666 rituals can be), I think I still prefer original CM. I think it's more exciting, and it allows for more mind games and effective bluffing/trapping.

With that said, further experiments with more public cards and shared picks might make experimental CM more interesting.

Anyway, cool experiment. Thanks for letting us give it a go!

card · 2015-05-19 04:30:31

I like playing the experimental mode more than I thought I would. Pattern matching scratches some primitive itch in my brain. I'm surprised to find how much differently I approach playing it given how similar it is to the original. Why did you decide to create your own suits rather than using the traditional ones, Jason? I prefer yours but wonder if traditional would appeal to a wider audience.

jasonrohrer · 2015-05-19 05:24:11

Those are just throw-away suits that I drew quickly in GIMP, and I simply subtracted the existing 1-9 sprites from them (so the identical 9 shape repeats 4 times, each one is not hand drawn). Just trying to get it going as quick and dirty as possible. If I decided to keep it, I'd hand draw all 36 combos somehow, and likely devise better looking suits.

But I would hope to stick with an occult aesthetic for the suits.

shotgun · 2015-05-19 05:38:52

i thought for sure you'd go for cups/wands/pentacles/swords

Dan_Dan84 · 2015-05-19 17:47:21

jasonrohrer wrote:

What's missing from this game that Poker has is really lack of information. That moment when you have AA and your opponent has no way of knowing is the sweetest gameplay moment in the world. Yes, "luck" has something to do with it (it's like the heavens have aligned for just you at that moment). But there's also just something amazing about being in the wise when your opponent knows nothing. Having the secret way-upper hand.

So I was thinking about this: the excitement of knowing something your opponent doesn't know you know that gives you a major advantage. But, because of the skill-based nature of CM, it can't be hidden information given to you by chance (as is the case with AA in Holdem).

I remembered this thread from a while back, which discussed ways of reducing anti-climactic situations in the game. There was talk of adding little "trickster" functions, such as an extra high tick on the score graph, or an extra first-pick column that you select to tell your opponent which column you did not pick for green.

This got me thinking, and since we're talking about "out-there" ideas... Here are two "tricks" I thought of:

1) Choose your green column after you see which row your opponent gave you.

2) Click on a red square. If it goes dark, your opponent does not have it. If the rest of the column goes dark, then it means your opponent has it. In both cases, the score graph updates to reflect this additional information.

These tricks, of course, would not be unlimited. Perhaps you can use one every three or six rounds or something.

The information you get, especially from the second trick, could give a real advantage-- and there's no way your opponent would know that you used it. You click on that 33 and it goes dark, revealing that you indeed have the highest score, while your opponent thinks he can bully you with a high score potential. Alternatively, if the column goes dark and the 33 stays illuminated, you know you should fold.

Anyway, just an idea I had to mirror some of those "secret way-upper hand" moments in Poker. I know these tricks would somewhat affect the purity of the game, but it might also help with some of the issues we've been discussing.

Apreche · 2015-05-19 20:46:10

Dan_Dan84 wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
What's missing from this game that Poker has is really lack of information. That moment when you have AA and your opponent has no way of knowing is the sweetest gameplay moment in the world. Yes, "luck" has something to do with it (it's like the heavens have aligned for just you at that moment). But there's also just something amazing about being in the wise when your opponent knows nothing. Having the secret way-upper hand.
So I was thinking about this: the excitement of knowing something your opponent doesn't know you know that gives you a major advantage. But, because of the skill-based nature of CM, it can't be hidden information given to you by chance (as is the case with AA in Holdem).
I remembered this thread from a while back, which discussed ways of reducing anti-climactic situations in the game. There was talk of adding little "trickster" functions, such as an extra high tick on the score graph, or an extra first-pick column that you select to tell your opponent which column you did not pick for green.
This got me thinking, and since we're talking about "out-there" ideas... Here are two "tricks" I thought of:
1) Choose your green column after you see which row your opponent gave you.
2) Click on a red square. If it goes dark, your opponent does not have it. If the rest of the column goes dark, then it means your opponent has it. In both cases, the score graph updates to reflect this additional information.
These tricks, of course, would not be unlimited. Perhaps you can use one every three or six rounds or something.
The information you get, especially from the second trick, could give a real advantage-- and there's no way your opponent would know that you used it. You click on that 33 and it goes dark, revealing that you indeed have the highest score, while your opponent thinks he can bully you with a high score potential. Alternatively, if the column goes dark and the 33 stays illuminated, you know you should fold.
Anyway, just an idea I had to mirror some of those "secret way-upper hand" moments in Poker. I know these tricks would somewhat affect the purity of the game, but it might also help with some of the issues we've been discussing.

A good way to implement tricks or special abilities is to make it so that if you use one, you must make a minimum wager on the next betting round before being able to fold. This introduces an interesting bluff where you can make your opponent believe you used your power when you didn't.

Fortune Letterhead · 2015-05-20 04:51:11

I really like this mode. Maybe because I haven't lost yet. I really do like the change suits make. In normal CM, it's easy to have a bad first pick and just throw the game away. In this mode, a bad first pick can still turn into something pretty awesome.

Edit: Had to go and open my mouth, didn't I? Lost next game I played.

Last edited by Fortune Letterhead (2015-05-20 05:15:08)

CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

#1 2015-05-18 02:32:36

Out-there idea for a "better" game

#2 2015-05-18 05:04:26

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#3 2015-05-18 05:53:21

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#5 2015-05-18 11:57:24

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#6 2015-05-18 12:33:35

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#7 2015-05-18 13:28:09

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#17 2015-05-19 02:23:43

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#18 2015-05-19 02:30:41

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#19 2015-05-19 04:07:26

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#21 2015-05-19 05:24:11

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#22 2015-05-19 05:38:52

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#23 2015-05-19 17:47:21

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#24 2015-05-19 20:46:10

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#25 2015-05-20 04:51:11

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