Matt Ollis

Flip 7 or Can't Stop?

1200/12 = 100, so it's a bit more than 100 half-days, so a bit more than 50 days, call it 2 months.

Sounds great!

My family of three have had a few slightly disappointing experiences with games that were fine but would've been better with 4+ players recently, so a game that is specifically designed for three is very tempting.

Really cool game!

Oh, I just thought of another connection: "heat maps" for things like players' positions on a football pitch are exactly the 2D colour thing and also have the temperature intuition built in.

Translate that up a dimension (as colour or temperature) and we have the three-input version visualised.

Yep, colour works really well with two inputs. I find temperature easier to think about as something that happens in 3D, but some sort of rainbow fog effect does the same thing.

Now do the same with an extra dimension: imagine filling space with temperature points that are hotter at the middle and fade away to freezing in each direction.

You can get three input Gaussian distributions like this, at least as a mental image. I'm not saying it's a practical physical option!

And instead of a point 20mm above the sheet, make it 20C there.

So, you have a complete flat 2D sheet that is hottest in the middle of your distribution, trailing out to freezing at the edges. We've managed to get the 3D picture that had two input variables and one output one into a 2D thing....

Go back down to the one with two Gaussian inputs.

Imagine a flat metal sheet that has the coordinates and that you would usually have your topography above. Now instead of having a point 30mm above the sheet, make that point of the sheet 30°C...

One way to do it is to have the three input dimensions all as space, exactly as they are for one and two, and then do something different for the output variable, which we need to imagine in space.

Temperature can work: hot near the centre/peak and cooling as you move away.

I've attached the Hamster Roll wheel to the steering wheel for on-the-go balancing fun.

Oh, we have that but haven't played for ages. We should dig it out.

We've also added Hamster Roll to our collection since this post. That and Nekojima are probably our most regularly played games at the moment.

I lost, but enjoyed it. I have a couple of turn-based ones going too now. Thanks for sharing (and designing) it!

But the game has just started with two other first-timers. I'll wing it with them and take it from there.

Ooh, I'll give that a go. It might mean I don't make such terrible moves over the first few multiplayer games.

I've read some quick-start rules and I'm waiting for opponents. Looks fun!

This was my guess too.

A Layman's guide to set theory?

Manchester Music Mill had an interesting mix of stuff and a welcoming atmosphere. Nice basses, but the highlight was the lap guitar they had as I'm slowly (and incompetently) attempting a plank-based two-string lap bass build. $2000 was a bit much to bring it home as an example!

Success.

The Bookery is a great bookshop, with a nice cafe and an Emerson student as an employee---always great to meet them in the wild!

Double Midnight Comics was fun to browse, although it didn't quite click with exactly my subtype of geekery.

I also enjoy wandering around looking at things. Particular sights or areas of town to aim for?

I might have an hour or so to kill in Manchester NH during the day soon. Recommendations for stuff to do? Places that sell board games or scifi books most likely to get me to accidentally part with some money. Bass guitars also fun to browse, but I probably have enough discipline not to buy one.

Doesn't post much.

I love em dashes---my plan is to use them so often that nobody could think an AI would be so bad at writing to use them---that---much---.

Can't abandon good writing practices if you didn't have them to start with. <taps forehead intelligently>

I learned solo a couple of weeks ago, but by playing all four roles. I figured I get more of a full sense of the game that way. It worked and it was fun, but I haven't tried the actual solo mode yet to compare.

Good luck!

Oooh, a perfect example of what I'm looking for, and looks like a great game! Thanks!

I'm also interested in near-misses. For example, Draft and Write Records has a 5 by 3 grid with 5 symbols, which appear once in each column and /at most/ once in each row.

(It also has a true latin square of order 4.)

Castles of MKL is a favourite here and we have Between Two Castles unplayed but ready to go next.

I agree that a spatial aspect in a tableau game can make it pop. Along similar lines, we like Verdant too. I'll check out Suburbia.

A latin square of order n is an n by n grid filled with n different symbols, arranged so that each symbol appears once in each row and once in each column. A completed sudoku grid is a latin square of order 9. The Azul board where you place tiles is one of order 5.

Request for #BoardGameSky and/or #MathSky.

I'm looking for examples of latin squares in games (definition in next post, but if you've played Azul or done a Sudoku, you know what one is). As many and as varied as possible.

It's for a thing. I don't know what thing yet, but definitely a thing.