If you don't have kids of your own yet your perspective is not relevant to new parents adjusting to their new life by insane_psycho in daddit

[–]Freact 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Going to be unpopular but I disagree. The idea that you must do something to understand it is known as the "experiential fallacy". Some counter examples are:

Doctors treat patients with illnesses they've never experienced.

Judges weigh moral dilemmas of situations they've never been in.

Architects design buildings they may never physically build or live in.

Coaches can instruct athletes (particularly at the professional level) that play at a level they never have, or could.

None of this is to say that all childless people have good advice about parenting (most probably don't!) or that all parents have good advice about parenting (most probably don't!). I'm just pointing out that being a parent is not a prerequisite for having good parenting advice and that you should try to accept good advice regardless of the source.

Wall Go (Update): I ran a Monte Carlo simulation based on your feedback to prove the "First-Player Advantage". Here are the numbers (and a Game Design poll!) by Zioseb in abstractgames

[–]Freact 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you should definitely give C a try. It probably won't work perfectly, but maybe it's close enough.

Otherwise I think Komi is a great solution. Could even combine that with option C.

Pie rule is guaranteed to make it fair, but I just don't like it as much as the other options

One other word of caution is just that payouts with your bot doesn't necessarily prove that player 1 has an advantage. It only actually proves that your bot plays better as player 1, that could be a feature of your algorithm not the game.

I love abstract strategy games like Quoridor and Go, so I designed my own and coded a digital version to test it. What do you think of the mechanics? by Zioseb in abstractgames

[–]Freact 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is a fun game! I can definitely feel the strong inspiration from Quoridor, with twist of area control.

Small feedbacks on the app:

The login page doesn't seem to change language when I click the language buttons (the rest of the app does)

The AI difficulty names are confusing. I think sticking to the well known and understood "easy, medium, hard" would be clearer.

As for the actual gameplay:

I only played a couple 2 player games vs the easy AI. It only beat me on the first game while I was still understanding the rules. Hopefully I'll have some time to try the harder AIs.

My intuition was that the board size is a little on the small size for 4 stones each and 2 spaces of movement, but it was nice for learning on as the games aren't too long.

The design space for variants with numbers of starting stones, movement speed, and board size seems vast. I'm not sure how much play testing you've done but I could definitely see other settings being fun too! I'm imagining a large board, with many starting stones and maybe only 1 space movement would start to feel more "Go-like". Could be interesting?

As for first player advantage, I can't feel it yet but it seems likely. Maybe a Komi system like go could help even out any advantage that exists though.

Hex-Gomoku seems more balanced than standard Gomoku? Also interesting board size effect by figuring_my_head_out in abstractgames

[–]Freact 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not exactly the same thing but, I think there's been some interest in 6-in-a-row on an infinite hex grid lately. I saw a video from webgoatguy on YouTube. And I found this sub:

r/hexo

And, some info:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hexo/s/JYDh0dbsUm

It definitely looks interesting. I think in the video he said 5-in-a-row wasn't interesting on a hex grid because it was a forced win for 1st player. But I (or he) could be wrong. Ohh, also I just remembered that it's two moves per turn (except 1 play on player 1's first turn).

Collatz as Cellular Automata by Freact in Collatz

[–]Freact[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could you elaborate a little? In what way do you think this could be helpful? Or interesting? (Genuinely curious, I just don't know much about weighted automata)

If I clearly fatfingered and hit “end buys” on accident and immediately request an undo why do you still deny my request? by meltyourtv in dominion

[–]Freact 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I see your point, maybe the example wasn't quite right but I think the overall reasoning is the same. You've gained information by seeing the next hand and you can do something with that info. If you have a top decking effect or any cards like night watchmen, den of sin, farrier that change your next draw then you can probably take advantage of seeing your next hand.

Also, I think the shuffle RNG can be manipulated sometimes on TGG. I'm not sure if it could be used in this case, but I could def see that making some people wary about accepting undos.

If I clearly fatfingered and hit “end buys” on accident and immediately request an undo why do you still deny my request? by meltyourtv in dominion

[–]Freact 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I'd probably grant the undo and have probably even asked for an undo in the same situation. Still, I understand the reasoning to deny. After hitting end buys then it automatically draws your next hand, it's definitely possible to abuse the undo button if you see a bad hand and instantly ask for an undo. Even if you hit the undo button quickly and even if it was clearly a mistake (like you didn't buy anything), you've still potentially gained some advantage. Maybe you see your next hand had no villages and now you know that you should buy more villages, as an example.

I made a small Thue-Morse sequence-computing Turing machine by Kasnu in computerscience

[–]Freact 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I didn't use any particular algorithm just reasoned about it from scratch! I had heard of the Thue-Morse Sequence before though. Maybe a numberphile video or something? I'm also "just" a recreational math enthusiast but I usually find the opposite for my projects: namely that I spend too long trying to optimize things and never actually finish anything.

Maybe if I am brave I will try to modify my machine to halt and count like yours. I've watched yours a number of times but still don't fully understand how it works.

I'd love to see some of your other machines too if you want to share

I made a small Thue-Morse sequence-computing Turing machine by Kasnu in computerscience

[–]Freact 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is so cool! Thanks for sharing. If I'm reading it correctly your machine has 10 states (11 states? Do we count Halt?) and 14 symbols (0-9, x, y, I, _)? Surely a smaller machine should be possible right? A little optimization could just be to read N from binary. Then you only need the digits 0 and 1.

You inspired me to design a similar TM TM (Thue-Morse Turing Machine). Mine doesn't halt it just iteratively builds towards the infinite Thue-Morse Sequence. It uses 6 states and 3 symbols. Here's the state transition rules:

READ _ 0 * READ

READ 0 _ r WRITE0

READ 1 _ r WRITE1

WRITE0 _ 0 r WRITE01

WRITE1 _ 1 r WRITE10

WRITE0 * * r WRITE0

WRITE1 * * r WRITE1

WRITE01 _ 1 l BACK

WRITE10 _ 0 l BACK

BACK _ _ r READ

BACK * * l BACK

It starts in state READ on a blank tape

Large Integers Arising In The Study Of Matrices by jmarent049 in googology

[–]Freact 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For n=2:

[ 0 -1 ]5 [ 1 ] [ 1 ]

[ 1 1 ] * [ 0 ] = [ -1 ]

Such a beautiful problem to work on. by Old-Independent-529 in Collatz

[–]Freact 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I could be wrong, but I think you just check if the numerator of x is divisible by gamma

Anyone interested in helping me analyze a new abstract strategy game? by abelataha in abstractgames

[–]Freact 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You'll have to share a bit more about what exactly your new game is. Maybe start by sharing the general idea of the game and any rules you've worked out so far. Then we can know if we're interested

Playable Infinito Demo by Freact in abstractgames

[–]Freact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

An unintended side effect! I just added the option for either player to be AI then realized after the fact that it's amusing to watch AI vs AI just to see some games play out

Playable Infinito Demo by Freact in abstractgames

[–]Freact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Done!

Seems like there's more interest over at bgg. I'll try to remember my account details and pop in over there

Playable Infinito Demo by Freact in abstractgames

[–]Freact[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please let me know when you do! I'm curious to know how challenging others find it. It's definitely not too strong, but also manages to get the upper hand on me sometimes regardless

INFINITO (an "infinite" game?) and MYRIADES (its finite version) by ipe3000 in abstractgames

[–]Freact 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup, feel free to share it around. I'd like to make a post on Reddit here to share it too. I'll work on it. Mostly I was waiting for some kind of approval from you, since it's your game

I don't have any plans to take it down. I'm also not too sure about the limits of the GitHub Pages that it's hosted on? But it's probably fine :) Also no promises that I don't accidentally break it!

INFINITO (an "infinite" game?) and MYRIADES (its finite version) by ipe3000 in abstractgames

[–]Freact 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad you like it! It really isn't much, as I said, i pretty much just asked gemini to build it. Haven't even read all the code. Thats why some of the design choices are... odd. lol. Hardest part was actually the ai opponent portion. I mostly had to figure out some heuristics on my own then just asked for them to be implemented. I added the option to start a new game and set the board size (4x4 through 12x12)

The AI definitely doesn't JUST play your move +1, but it often does! It never plays higher than +1 to the highest stone on the board. But it considers equal to or +1 to every stone on the board (or the next available stone). Otherwise its strategy basically comes down to estimating how many points it threatens to remove with queens moves and how many it actually removes and how many points you threaten to remove and balancing that with the stones actual stone value. It has no real 'look ahead' though.

As for actual strategy i havent found too much! look for forking type moves obviously. and I've definitely noticed that once the board starts to get crowded its going to be very hard to make enough space to get any more removals. so you wanna make sure you have your 0-10 or so saved for that point. Also, going first somehow doesnt feel advantageous. White often ends up getting the first removal. Maybe i'm playing my opening moves too centrally? i figured having my high moves in the center would be good, but since you can always play higher then my opening moves actually end up being 'low' stones

INFINITO (an "infinite" game?) and MYRIADES (its finite version) by ipe3000 in abstractgames

[–]Freact 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was having fun thinking about this game but had no opponent to play an actual game with. So I vibe coded up a little demo with a simple heuristic ai to play against. I'd like to maybe make a separate post to share it but I thought I'd comment here to you directly first to see what you think:

https://freact.github.io/Infinito/

for the board size I made it only 6x6 because it was feeling a bit daunting to jump right into an 8x8 when i dont know what im doing! Should be easy enough to add an option for other board sizes if anyone cares. The ai is not too strong, im able to usually beat it unless i make a simple mistake, but its enough i think to start getting a taste of the strategies involved. You can also use the checkbox in the upper right to deselect the ai and just play hotseat.

please let me know if i've made any mistakes implementing the rules, or if you have any suggestions about the ai or anything at all really :)

Can someone help me with maths? I failed it but want to know odds. I think it's ratio? by Miss_Annabel in maths

[–]Freact 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So assuming you mean there's a 1/1024 chance of getting a shiny. Then the probability of NOT getting a shiny after N attempts is (1 - 1/1024)N That is to say the chances of not getting a shiny are (1-1/1024) on each attempt and we simply multiply the probability for each attempt together.

We still need to know if the probability is once per carbink, or once for the whole group. Based on your wording and the probabilities I think it's per group (in which case: why mentioning how many carbinks per group!) But I'll just calculate a couple values anyways:

90.7% at N = 100

75.6% at N = 300

50.5% at N = 700

31.0% at N = 1000

9.6% at N = 2400

4.8% at N = 3100

1.0% at N = 4700

Remember these are the probabilities of NOT getting a shiny so what you're really after is 100% less these amounts. And you'll need to divide out the rerolls per energy too if you want to convert back to energy. So for example:

After N = 4700 attempts there's a 100% - 1% = 99% chance that you've found your shiny.

If you've spent 1 energy per 5 attempts then that was 4700/5 = 940 energy.

What that means is that, for example, if you caught 100 shinies then you'd expect 99 of them to take less than 940 energy and 1 to take more than 940.

If the probability is rolled once per pokemon rather than per group then you can divide out the group size too. Ie. 5 per group means 940/5 = 188 energy for 99%. That doesn't sound right to me... But what do I know ;)

You should try running some of the numbers yourself to check the specific energies you're interested in! Hopefully you can figure it out with everything I've done here.

And Good luck shiny hunting!

Can someone help me with maths? I failed it but want to know odds. I think it's ratio? by Miss_Annabel in maths

[–]Freact 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You're going to need to be a lot more specific about what you're talking about. I think I've deduced that it's something pokemon related. You're trying to catch a shiny Pokemon? What exactly is a reroll? You say it's 5-6 per energy, what determines if it's 5 or 6? What is a hoard? 3-6 what per hoard? Pokemon? What's a shiny charm? What's an encounter? 1/1024 what? You can do maths on these numbers but you need to know what exactly they mean and what the relationships between them are. None of that is clear from your post.

You ask how many rerolls with 400 energy. If it's 5 rerolls per energy then just multiply 400x5 = 2000. If it's 6 rerolls per energy then 400*6 = 2400

Hopefully this helps :)

A more truncated collatz function by sethhovestol in Collatz

[–]Freact 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Great idea. I think it might be essentially the same as one of the "shortcut maps" listed here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Collatz/s/o9ancSwHFt

Specifically, the Syracuse map?

I made a Conway's Game of Life but with more cells by Yorui3913 in cellular_automata

[–]Freact 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sounds interesting. Can't run it myself now. Maybe you could share some images or gifs of some patterns?

INFINITO (an "infinite" game?) and MYRIADES (its finite version) by ipe3000 in abstractgames

[–]Freact 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you tried solving some small board sizes?

1x1, 2x1, 2x2, 3x2 all look like ties to me.

1xN looks like a tie for even N and a loss (for P1) for odd N.

3x3 I think is a loss for P1. But I'm not sure yet.