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Play Go - On A Mobius Strip?
Lewey Geselowitz writes "Freed Go is a new freely downloadable game for Windows and Mac OS X that extends the 'game of Go' on any arbitrary 3d graph. These include Mobius strips, spheres, tori, cubes and so forth, and even a few flat boards but with 3, 5 or 6 neighbored nodes. To anyone who has played the game, or is interested in this great game, I assure you that you will find this site interesting and it will help you expand your understanding of the game." There's also Freed Invasion - looks like these are both from the author of the similarly unconventional Quake II stereogram implementation, as previously mentioned on Slashdot Games.
As in, I have my own board, stones, etc. I have played numerous games, but am horribly amateur. This is besides the point though, I've read a lot about Go, it's history, etc. And I find myself confused - what's the point of slapping a graph on a 3 dimensional object and calling it a Go Board?
Because I'll clue you in, just because it has the rules of Go, doesn't mean it is Go. This is the result of boredom and a little too much use of artistic license.
You're not playing Go on a mobius strip, you're playing something else on a Mobius strip with the same rules. Feh.
I know about a billion Chinese people who would mod this as +5, insightful, but I have a feeling I'm going to get -1, flamebait. Enjoy.
schild
editor, f13.net
the XiStrat did the same and more couple of years ago. However it seems the project died qietly because of lack of attention.
In 'legal' terms, I wouldn't call it Go. Go is a game played on a two-dimensional board.
In spiritual terms, I would. Go, as I see it, encourages thought, strategy, willingness to sacrifice, looking at the big picture, thinking ahead, getting your priorities right, etc. I used to be utter rubbish at Go: I though that since two eyes were immortal, if I got two eyes, I'd have a huge advantage over somebody without them. Needless to say, I lost every game while playing like that. I'm still probably rubbish, but at least it's uselessness as opposed to stupidity. </digression>
As I said, Go is a game about strategy. If you play on a diffeent board, you still need strategy, perhaps moreso. If it follows the rules of Go (excluding those relating to board layout) and encourages thought, it's Go. If it doesn't follow the rules or doesn't bring forth your inner deviousness, it isn't.
From what I understand of Go, the corners and edges are important strategic areas. Wouldn't wrapping around defeat that?
The concept of a 'winner' is not too emphasized in most Go games, so I don't think it's really that important. It's not like chess or something where you work towards one well defined goal (checkmate). In go, if you're worse, then that doesn't mean that you still can't capture and control portions of the board.
The fact that there are multiple scoring systems emphasizes the fact that the game is not about the score you get.
In most games you play, there are areas of the board which you are happy with, because you were able to play well, and make headway into enemy territory and capture territory, or successfully defend against a well planned attack.. and then there are areas you feel that you did badly in.
But regardless, when you are done with the game, the finished board state reflects both your triumphs and your failures. It's not an all-or-nothing mentality that occurs with games like chess, where it doesn't matter how well you executed some plan, if you still end up getting checkmated.
The scoring is an afterthought to me. An exercise at the end to mark some numbers down. Most of the time, I don't even do it. It's more fun to talk with the opponent about the progress of the game, and explain your strategy, and listen to his strategy, and compare the results of the clash of ideas on an informal basis based on the layout of the endgame board.
-Laxitive
In case anyone is wondering, the goal is to hold the most territory. The parent poster's idealistic views are pretty and even a bit inspiring, but they aren't very realistic, 8^)
In a fit of nerdliness, I once defined a game I called Mango (Math Nerd Go), which generalizes Go. Some might find it amusing. Not feeling like slashdotting myself, I'll give the Google cache link. :-)
You need to score so that you can get an idea of your rank, which you need (among other reasons) so that you can play fairly even games. Of course, I pretty much only play Go online, so it's a somewhat different situation. (Everything's calculated nicely and quickly for you.)
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor