Re: [pbmserv-dev] playtesters needed for Gyges

[Lyman Hurd <lhurd@yahoo.com>]

Okay, here's my first draft at a help file (with a few
quick notes of things I am trying to improve in
version 2).  Of course anything is open for
negotiation aside from helping find bugs!

Thanks,

Lyman

Help For the Game Of Gyges

Introduction

Welcome to the network Gyges server. The rules of
Gyges are given below. The Gyges challenge 

command is described here. Other commands are the same
for all pbmserv games.

gyges challenge user1 user2 

Start a new game between userid1 and userid2

Each side starts with six pieces: two each with one,
two and three rings.  Once in play the 

pieces do not belong to either player, but the player
must always play a piece originating 

in the row nearest him.

The first two moves of the game consist of placing the
pieces which one does by listing the 

six pieces in order, e.g.,
2,2,3,3,1,1

Here is an example of a board after the first two
moves [note in this version North goes 

first which I now understand to be incorrect, South
should go first...next draft]:


                         North
                       +-------+
                       |       |
                       |       |
                       |       |
       A       B       C       D       E       F
   +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
 6 |  ( )  | (( )) |((( )))|((( )))| (( )) |  ( )  |
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
 5 |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
 4 |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
 3 |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
 2 |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
 1 | (( )) | (( )) |((( )))|((( )))|  ( )  |  ( )  |
   |       |       |       |       |       |       |
   +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
       A       B       C       D       E       F
                       |       |
                       |       |
                       |       |
                       +-------+
                         South


The goal is to place one of your pieces in the
opposing goal.  A move consists of a series 

of intersections, e.g.,

a1-a2-b2 [in the next release you will not have to add
the intervening moves; i.e., this 

move could be entered simply as a1-b2]

You may only move pieces in the row closest to you
unless all the pieces in that row are 

blocked, in which case one can move a piece from the
first available row.

A piece moves as many intersections as it has rings
and may not pass through a space 

occupied by another ring.  If the piece ends its move
on an occupied intersection, it can 

either continue its move for as many intersections as
the number of rings on the piece it is 

bouncing off of, or it may choose to occupy the
intersection and shift the current piece to 

another intersection.  A piece that bounces is simply
written as a longer series, e.g.,

a1-b1-a2-b2-b3

If the last move results in a shift, it is written
with a colon e.g.,

a1-b1:f5

The shifted piece may not be placed closer than the
row currently nearest the opponent.  The 

shifted piece cannot be placed in the goal square.

The goal is considered adjacent to all squares that
occupy the row farthest from you.  Only 

your goal is available and a piece must end its turn
there by exact count.

During the course of a turn a piece may never traverse
an edge between two intersections 

twice (independent of direction).

By default the board is shown with the current player
at bottom (i.e., the current player's 

goal at top), however one can change this default by
the set command:

gyges set user password [flip | noflip]

The default option is "flip".

The Gyges implementation was written with the kind
permission of Swiss Games.

--- Yves Rutschle <pbm@rutschle.net> wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 05, 2005 at 08:13:22PM -0800, Randall
> Bart wrote:
> > >www.gyges.com.
> > That's a really bad web site.  It has a small
> fuzzy font, and it's an image 
> > not text so there's no way to change it.  Then I
> got to a page labeled 
> > "Press Kit" with no buttons to go anywhere.  I
> never got to any actual 
> > rules.  Maybe it's better in French.
> 
> Seen from here (south of France) it looks worse: I
> just get
> a little red square in the corner of a large white
> square,
> and a "Applet methys started" message, then nothing.
> 
> I'd send them a quote to make their site accessible,
> but
> there is no e-mail address in sight. Ah well :-) 
> 
> 
> To unsubscribe, send a message to esquire@gamerz.net
> with
> 	unsubscribe pbmserv-dev@gamerz.net
> as the BODY of the message.  The SUBJECT is ignored.
> 
>