Re:I have a shorter Tetris implementation
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Tetris In 140 Bytes
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I'm editing this post to be less confrontational. When I feel that someone's being an ass to me, I tend to be an ass right back at them, and that tends to escalate into some sort of competition. Which you, of course, would lose, as I'm more of an ass than you are.:P
I agree entirely that most games should have fun, structure, goals and players. While there's some interesting work on the fringes of ludology to probe at exactly how much you can reduce the latter three elements, those are the basic elements. I largely agree with Gauthreaux on this. The issue, of course, is with the attempt to draw equivalencies with the terms in square brackets, which he does not do. For example, to claim that 'goal' is equivalent to 'victory condition'. Which, of course, it isn't, as we've already seen. You still haven't addressed the fact that there is no victory condition in an endless game like some versions of Tetris and other similar puzzle games. Your only response has been to continuously claim that since there are versions which have victory conditions, all versions have victory conditions, which clearly isn't the case. A game either has a victory condition, in which case the ultimate goal is to reach that victory condition, or it doesn't, in which case it tends to have an unending series of other goals, typically more abstract. The goals in an unending game of Tetris primarily revolve around reaching the next level, or clearing a certain number of rows. But reaching each goal doesn't win the game - instead it just sets the next goal, which should be of increased difficulty.
Since we're quoting game definitions, why not go back to Wittgenstein from that Wikipedia article:
Wittgenstein demonstrated that the elements of games, such as play, rules, and competition, all fail to adequately define what games are. Wittgenstein concluded that people apply the term game to a range of disparate human activities that bear to one another only what one might call family resemblances.
I think that sums up the problem quite nicely. You can try to provide a neat all-encompassing definition of what a game is, but the reality is that the edges of that definition will remain somewhat fuzzy.
I'll disagree with you in more specific and less adversarial ways on zero-player games. I think you're overreaching to make Progress Quest fit into those four categories. Interaction that's limited to starting the game up is not interaction in any real sense, in my opinion. There's also no real challenge, as score increases monotonically over time without anything that could be described as challenge. And as far as I know, though it's a long time since I've 'played', there's no 'maximum progress' except as defined by the limitations of the coding, and it's debatable as to whether that should be counted as a goal in the game itself, though it is set as a goal by players of certain games, with the top-rank goal being to play the game until it crashes due to coding errors. I'd say that Progress Quest doesn't meet most of those definitions, and I'd also say that as a result it isn't really a game. It's a parody of a game, and the nature of that parody is exactly that; to remove the genuine game-like features from a game while keeping the domain model. Sort of the reverse of gamification.
Core Wars is a different story. It isn't a zero-player game. The gameplay in Core Wars isn't in running the game engine (which looks like a zero-player game). It's in developing the redcode programs that fight in the game engine. There's no equivalent to that in Progress Quest, but in Core Wars it provides interaction and challenge. Each battle or set of battles has victory conditions. It's really a multiplayer or solitaire game. Though again, the victory conditions become a little less well-defined in solitaire mode; how do you, the player, 'win' when you're pitting two of your own creations against each other? Another of those fuzzy edges...
I take
Re:I have a shorter Tetris implementation
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Tetris In 140 Bytes
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· Score: 1
I wouldn't go as far as to say 'most' (difficult to tell, given just how many Tetris variants and clones there are out there), but yes, some Tetris implementations have a defined end with victory conditions. Some offer multiple game modes, in which some have victory conditions and some don't.
So even though I correctly assert that loss avoidance is not a victory condition in single-player continuous play Tetris, I happily agree that when you introduce victory conditions into it in other ways (through the multiplayer game or through setting arbitrary points at which the game ends) it has victory conditions. It was, however, pretty clear that this wasn't what we were discussing, or the point would have been raised earlier and I'd have agreed with it. So yes, I would be wrong to claim that all versions of Tetris have no victory conditions, and I wholeheartedly agree that some versions and some game modes of it do. But to be specific, single-player continuous-play Tetris (ie. with no artificially imposed game end) does not have victory conditions, because there is no victory state for the game.
Re:I have a shorter Tetris implementation
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Tetris In 140 Bytes
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· Score: 1
You're moving the goalposts again rather than addressing the points. Yes, of course multiplayer Tetris has a victory condition. The change from single player Tetris to multiplayer Tetris involves adding such a victory condition. This makes your argument "Tetris has a victory condition because if you add a victory condition to it it has a victory condition" which is, unfortunately, not a very good argument. There are universities that have programs that award degrees including modules on basic logic; perhaps you could consider one.
There are whole classes of games that thrive on not having victory conditions. What good would an MMORPG be that had victory conditions that allowed you to reach a state where you'd 'won' the game? At that point there's a real option of stopping playing. So you don't provide victory conditions; the game remains open ended and unending.
You say that the Wikipedia page lists loss avoidance as a victory condition, but unfortunately you haven't read it properly; it refers to that specifically in a competitive game such as your Tetris example. The victory condition isn't avoiding loss, it's avoiding loss while the other players fail to do so. The victory condition is being the last player standing, which is a perfectly valid victory condition. At this point you have won the game. The game is over. You are victorious. The same does not apply to single-player Tetris. Avoiding loss there does not make you the victor. You have never won the game, because the moment your attention is distracted you promptly lose. It's still a perfect example of a game that neither has nor needs victory conditions.
You seem to have failed to understand what that section of the Wikipedia article is actually describing. Let me quote it for you.
These mechanics control how a player wins the game.
Their emphasis, not mine, though if they hadn't done it, I'd have had to. When we're talking about video games, not all games have the concept of winning. Ironically, since you grouped the two together as necessary features of games, it's quite often score-focused games that don't have such a concept; a perfect player could continue playing forever in theory, but in the real world a player will always lose.
Let's look at another quote from this article that you put so much faith in:
Other examples include the availability of a sandbox mode without predefined goals nor progression
Worth mentioning because you still wrongly insist that games must have predefined goals. Any sandbox game will tend not to, allowing the player to set their own goals should they wish to. Stepping out of the realm of video games, any well-run RPG (to my mind) is unlikely to have hard and fast goals; it's also unlikely to have victory conditions.
Is this a good time to point out that in the past I've written and received payment for a number of games, both pen-and-paper RPGs and computer games? Some of those had victory conditions. Some of them had scoring. Not all of them had either, though. So yes, I have experience on the subject, in a more practical way than a theoretical university course. I've also played plenty of games, and I can recognise a victory condition when I see one. Unfortunately, it appears, you can't.
Re:I have a shorter Tetris implementation
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Tetris In 140 Bytes
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· Score: 1
We're taking Wikipedia as the only definition of what a game is now?
I guess my response ought to be that dictionary.reference.com defines a game as "1. an amusement or pastime", and that therefore your definition is invalid.
I could list games that lack some or all of those elements, and you'd probably just define them as non-games, so what's the point? I disagree with the definition of loss avoidance as a victory condition as well - because you never reach a state where you have attained the victory condition. The one feature that I'd personally say is [b]absolutely[/b] mandatory for a game from your list of four elements is interaction. But then, since we've decided that Wikipedia is the arbiter of all things game-related, I'd have to see the entry on zero-player games and query whether, for example, Progress Quest can be counted as a game. Probably also rules, although there are plenty of games where the rules are emergent from a very small initial set (Nomic and its derivatives, which [b]also[/b] typically start with no goals, and may continue without them pretty much through to the end in some cases).
You've certainly moved the goalposts, of course. Victory conditions are not the only type of goals, and score systems are not the only type of challenge. As a result you're not even actually disagreeing with my original point - you don't need victory conditions or score systems even to fulfill your definition of a game as including goals, rules, challenge and interaction.
Re:I have a shorter Tetris implementation
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Tetris In 140 Bytes
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Why on earth does a game need victory conditions? There are a vast number of games (including, of course, Tetris) that don't have them. There are a huge number that don't have score either. And there are plenty of games that don't really have either.
Re:Obilg Bill Gates (if he ever said it) reference
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Tetris In 140 Bytes
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No, it isn't. A lack of belief in God(s) is weak atheism. A belief in the lack of God(s) is strong atheism. Agnosticism isn't a lack of belief - it's a belief that the existence of God(s) is unknown and/or unknowable.
I've always been amazed that anyone could default to anything other than agnosticism and weak atheism...
'Mindreading' isn't really the right word for the discovery that what the device does is what you wanted it to do - and if it isn't what you [b]thought[/b] you wanted to do, then you were wrong.
That's kind of Sony's fault, though, isn't it? I was a big fan of theirs back in the day, but since they've been so anti-consumer and... well, straight out evil, that they give Microsoft and Apple a run for their money.
Loads of people here care about the Android sources being available. Personally I work with the Android source, and need it available to me where possible. But for people who don't, many of them still want to be able to use Cyanogenmod or other ROMs developed from the source. Even if they don't see it personally, they can get benefit from it.
I wrote a touch-typing tutor on those, and that was about 25 years ago too.:(
Seems like it's still available to download online. Not that I'd recommend learning to type on an emulated BBC Micro program written by a GCSE student, but it's nice to know it's still out there...
The lack of BBC Micros - or something similar - has been a kick in the teeth for learning to program for many many years, IMO. When I was at primary school I taught myself to code on a ZX80, then progressed to the BBC Micro. By the time I was in my last couple of years there I was writing educational games in a combination of BASIC and Assembler for the kids in the lower classes to play. These days there isn't that ability to jump right in and start simple coding on most platforms.:(
Enter the music business under a different brand name, so that you're not stepping on someone else's trademark? Come to an agreement with the holder of that trademark?
Certain types of application don't give you the choice to 'do things the Android way', of course, Games being one as you point out.
When you've got a pre-agreed range of devices to work on, 'not supporting that device' isn't an option either. For hobbyists, sure you can go that way. For professionals, not always.
Sure, in a lot of cases people don't need to have the full range of devices. But to claim that they're never required before checking up on what the actual dev work is is just a little irrational in my opinion. But then, I'm speaking as someone who does work under these constraints and does find it vitally important to be able to test across a large range of devices.
There are all manner of bugs that can show up in an application that are dependent on the exact configuration of the Android device you're working on. Test an app on the stock Android emulator and it just works across the board, right? Wrong. An obscure quirk of the way the input method works for the custom keyboard on Samsung devices makes it crash in an embarassing way. The UI's thrown out of kilter by a different size status bar. All sorts of things can happen that you won't track down unless you test on those devices.
Sure, if you're just throwing out simple apps on the marketplace that's not too bad, but if you're delivering something that has very specific requirements to run across a certain range of device, you've got to test on those devices. It's the same old story that it's *always* been with Java - Write Once, Test Everywhere.
If you don't understand the difference between perceived performance and actual raw performance, and how the former can frequently be more important than the latter, then I'm guessing you haven't had to deliver a complex user interface based product before.
They've also taken the whole 'screwing with consumer rights' thing to astronomical levels. You can sue the crap out of Sony, but they might turn out to be allowed to take your immortal soul, first-born child, and Linux running functionality.
You seem to be confused. It's generally the Apple fanboys who feel the need to tell everyone else that their personal preference in phones is objectively wrong, and that Apple provide a phone that does everything anyone could possibly want to do (anything it doesn't do, of course, you shouldn't want to...)
No, the illiterate people who aren't capable of thinking about driving rationally - such as yourself - cause the problems.
The question was how to get through an average speed limit camera zone without getting ticketed. It's undeniable that the best way to do this for all concerned is to go through it at the speed limit - slightly under if you're paranoid about getting a ticket.
But just the mention of driving at the speed limit causes people like you who are obsessed with your entitlement to drive at high speeds to blow a blood vessel and go off on a rant about how the man's trying to keep you down and the law's only there as a personal insult to you, while completely ignoring the context of the discussion. If driving causes that level of emotion and irrationality in you, then fuck it, you shouldn't be on the road.
The people doing 'the legal speed limit' around a blind bend who can't cope with coming across a vehicle going at 30mph the other side of it are dangerous drivers. What if someone had broken down round the bend? What if there was a turning the other side of the bend that they didn't know about and someone had just pulled out of it and hadn't accelerated to 60mph yet?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm editing this post to be less confrontational. When I feel that someone's being an ass to me, I tend to be an ass right back at them, and that tends to escalate into some sort of competition. Which you, of course, would lose, as I'm more of an ass than you are. :P
I agree entirely that most games should have fun, structure, goals and players. While there's some interesting work on the fringes of ludology to probe at exactly how much you can reduce the latter three elements, those are the basic elements. I largely agree with Gauthreaux on this. The issue, of course, is with the attempt to draw equivalencies with the terms in square brackets, which he does not do. For example, to claim that 'goal' is equivalent to 'victory condition'. Which, of course, it isn't, as we've already seen. You still haven't addressed the fact that there is no victory condition in an endless game like some versions of Tetris and other similar puzzle games. Your only response has been to continuously claim that since there are versions which have victory conditions, all versions have victory conditions, which clearly isn't the case. A game either has a victory condition, in which case the ultimate goal is to reach that victory condition, or it doesn't, in which case it tends to have an unending series of other goals, typically more abstract. The goals in an unending game of Tetris primarily revolve around reaching the next level, or clearing a certain number of rows. But reaching each goal doesn't win the game - instead it just sets the next goal, which should be of increased difficulty.
Since we're quoting game definitions, why not go back to Wittgenstein from that Wikipedia article:
I think that sums up the problem quite nicely. You can try to provide a neat all-encompassing definition of what a game is, but the reality is that the edges of that definition will remain somewhat fuzzy.
I'll disagree with you in more specific and less adversarial ways on zero-player games. I think you're overreaching to make Progress Quest fit into those four categories. Interaction that's limited to starting the game up is not interaction in any real sense, in my opinion. There's also no real challenge, as score increases monotonically over time without anything that could be described as challenge. And as far as I know, though it's a long time since I've 'played', there's no 'maximum progress' except as defined by the limitations of the coding, and it's debatable as to whether that should be counted as a goal in the game itself, though it is set as a goal by players of certain games, with the top-rank goal being to play the game until it crashes due to coding errors. I'd say that Progress Quest doesn't meet most of those definitions, and I'd also say that as a result it isn't really a game. It's a parody of a game, and the nature of that parody is exactly that; to remove the genuine game-like features from a game while keeping the domain model. Sort of the reverse of gamification.
Core Wars is a different story. It isn't a zero-player game. The gameplay in Core Wars isn't in running the game engine (which looks like a zero-player game). It's in developing the redcode programs that fight in the game engine. There's no equivalent to that in Progress Quest, but in Core Wars it provides interaction and challenge. Each battle or set of battles has victory conditions. It's really a multiplayer or solitaire game. Though again, the victory conditions become a little less well-defined in solitaire mode; how do you, the player, 'win' when you're pitting two of your own creations against each other? Another of those fuzzy edges...
I take
I wouldn't go as far as to say 'most' (difficult to tell, given just how many Tetris variants and clones there are out there), but yes, some Tetris implementations have a defined end with victory conditions. Some offer multiple game modes, in which some have victory conditions and some don't.
So even though I correctly assert that loss avoidance is not a victory condition in single-player continuous play Tetris, I happily agree that when you introduce victory conditions into it in other ways (through the multiplayer game or through setting arbitrary points at which the game ends) it has victory conditions. It was, however, pretty clear that this wasn't what we were discussing, or the point would have been raised earlier and I'd have agreed with it. So yes, I would be wrong to claim that all versions of Tetris have no victory conditions, and I wholeheartedly agree that some versions and some game modes of it do. But to be specific, single-player continuous-play Tetris (ie. with no artificially imposed game end) does not have victory conditions, because there is no victory state for the game.
You're moving the goalposts again rather than addressing the points. Yes, of course multiplayer Tetris has a victory condition. The change from single player Tetris to multiplayer Tetris involves adding such a victory condition. This makes your argument "Tetris has a victory condition because if you add a victory condition to it it has a victory condition" which is, unfortunately, not a very good argument. There are universities that have programs that award degrees including modules on basic logic; perhaps you could consider one.
There are whole classes of games that thrive on not having victory conditions. What good would an MMORPG be that had victory conditions that allowed you to reach a state where you'd 'won' the game? At that point there's a real option of stopping playing. So you don't provide victory conditions; the game remains open ended and unending.
You say that the Wikipedia page lists loss avoidance as a victory condition, but unfortunately you haven't read it properly; it refers to that specifically in a competitive game such as your Tetris example. The victory condition isn't avoiding loss, it's avoiding loss while the other players fail to do so. The victory condition is being the last player standing, which is a perfectly valid victory condition. At this point you have won the game. The game is over. You are victorious. The same does not apply to single-player Tetris. Avoiding loss there does not make you the victor. You have never won the game, because the moment your attention is distracted you promptly lose. It's still a perfect example of a game that neither has nor needs victory conditions.
You seem to have failed to understand what that section of the Wikipedia article is actually describing. Let me quote it for you.
Their emphasis, not mine, though if they hadn't done it, I'd have had to. When we're talking about video games, not all games have the concept of winning. Ironically, since you grouped the two together as necessary features of games, it's quite often score-focused games that don't have such a concept; a perfect player could continue playing forever in theory, but in the real world a player will always lose.
Let's look at another quote from this article that you put so much faith in:
Worth mentioning because you still wrongly insist that games must have predefined goals. Any sandbox game will tend not to, allowing the player to set their own goals should they wish to. Stepping out of the realm of video games, any well-run RPG (to my mind) is unlikely to have hard and fast goals; it's also unlikely to have victory conditions.
Is this a good time to point out that in the past I've written and received payment for a number of games, both pen-and-paper RPGs and computer games? Some of those had victory conditions. Some of them had scoring. Not all of them had either, though. So yes, I have experience on the subject, in a more practical way than a theoretical university course. I've also played plenty of games, and I can recognise a victory condition when I see one. Unfortunately, it appears, you can't.
We're taking Wikipedia as the only definition of what a game is now?
I guess my response ought to be that dictionary.reference.com defines a game as "1. an amusement or pastime", and that therefore your definition is invalid.
I could list games that lack some or all of those elements, and you'd probably just define them as non-games, so what's the point? I disagree with the definition of loss avoidance as a victory condition as well - because you never reach a state where you have attained the victory condition. The one feature that I'd personally say is [b]absolutely[/b] mandatory for a game from your list of four elements is interaction. But then, since we've decided that Wikipedia is the arbiter of all things game-related, I'd have to see the entry on zero-player games and query whether, for example, Progress Quest can be counted as a game. Probably also rules, although there are plenty of games where the rules are emergent from a very small initial set (Nomic and its derivatives, which [b]also[/b] typically start with no goals, and may continue without them pretty much through to the end in some cases).
You've certainly moved the goalposts, of course. Victory conditions are not the only type of goals, and score systems are not the only type of challenge. As a result you're not even actually disagreeing with my original point - you don't need victory conditions or score systems even to fulfill your definition of a game as including goals, rules, challenge and interaction.
Why on earth does a game need victory conditions? There are a vast number of games (including, of course, Tetris) that don't have them. There are a huge number that don't have score either. And there are plenty of games that don't really have either.
But he did say "What's a network?"
I'd prefer them to fight to the death on the quality of their products, not shitty overstretched patents that don't do the end user any good.
Apple, however, have clearly decided they're not capable of doing that any more.
No, it isn't. A lack of belief in God(s) is weak atheism. A belief in the lack of God(s) is strong atheism. Agnosticism isn't a lack of belief - it's a belief that the existence of God(s) is unknown and/or unknowable.
I've always been amazed that anyone could default to anything other than agnosticism and weak atheism...
'Mindreading' isn't really the right word for the discovery that what the device does is what you wanted it to do - and if it isn't what you [b]thought[/b] you wanted to do, then you were wrong.
In what way is this different to any other form of extorting money with menaces?
"Nice mobile phone business you've got here. Would be a shame if anything were to... happen to it."
That's kind of Sony's fault, though, isn't it? I was a big fan of theirs back in the day, but since they've been so anti-consumer and... well, straight out evil, that they give Microsoft and Apple a run for their money.
</troll>
But that's kind of the point. Samsung's devices are ripoffs of Apple's to that same extent.
We're hardcore Doctor Who fans. We have no life to get on with.
Loads of people here care about the Android sources being available. Personally I work with the Android source, and need it available to me where possible. But for people who don't, many of them still want to be able to use Cyanogenmod or other ROMs developed from the source. Even if they don't see it personally, they can get benefit from it.
I wrote a touch-typing tutor on those, and that was about 25 years ago too. :(
Seems like it's still available to download online. Not that I'd recommend learning to type on an emulated BBC Micro program written by a GCSE student, but it's nice to know it's still out there...
The lack of BBC Micros - or something similar - has been a kick in the teeth for learning to program for many many years, IMO. When I was at primary school I taught myself to code on a ZX80, then progressed to the BBC Micro. By the time I was in my last couple of years there I was writing educational games in a combination of BASIC and Assembler for the kids in the lower classes to play. These days there isn't that ability to jump right in and start simple coding on most platforms. :(
Enter the music business under a different brand name, so that you're not stepping on someone else's trademark? Come to an agreement with the holder of that trademark?
Certain types of application don't give you the choice to 'do things the Android way', of course, Games being one as you point out.
When you've got a pre-agreed range of devices to work on, 'not supporting that device' isn't an option either. For hobbyists, sure you can go that way. For professionals, not always.
Sure, in a lot of cases people don't need to have the full range of devices. But to claim that they're never required before checking up on what the actual dev work is is just a little irrational in my opinion. But then, I'm speaking as someone who does work under these constraints and does find it vitally important to be able to test across a large range of devices.
So you're a commercial Android developer, then?
Didn't think so.
There are all manner of bugs that can show up in an application that are dependent on the exact configuration of the Android device you're working on. Test an app on the stock Android emulator and it just works across the board, right? Wrong. An obscure quirk of the way the input method works for the custom keyboard on Samsung devices makes it crash in an embarassing way. The UI's thrown out of kilter by a different size status bar. All sorts of things can happen that you won't track down unless you test on those devices.
Sure, if you're just throwing out simple apps on the marketplace that's not too bad, but if you're delivering something that has very specific requirements to run across a certain range of device, you've got to test on those devices. It's the same old story that it's *always* been with Java - Write Once, Test Everywhere.
Nor, of course, were/are most of the countries we describe as 'Communist'.
If you don't understand the difference between perceived performance and actual raw performance, and how the former can frequently be more important than the latter, then I'm guessing you haven't had to deliver a complex user interface based product before.
They've also taken the whole 'screwing with consumer rights' thing to astronomical levels. You can sue the crap out of Sony, but they might turn out to be allowed to take your immortal soul, first-born child, and Linux running functionality.
You seem to be confused. It's generally the Apple fanboys who feel the need to tell everyone else that their personal preference in phones is objectively wrong, and that Apple provide a phone that does everything anyone could possibly want to do (anything it doesn't do, of course, you shouldn't want to...)
No, the illiterate people who aren't capable of thinking about driving rationally - such as yourself - cause the problems.
The question was how to get through an average speed limit camera zone without getting ticketed. It's undeniable that the best way to do this for all concerned is to go through it at the speed limit - slightly under if you're paranoid about getting a ticket.
But just the mention of driving at the speed limit causes people like you who are obsessed with your entitlement to drive at high speeds to blow a blood vessel and go off on a rant about how the man's trying to keep you down and the law's only there as a personal insult to you, while completely ignoring the context of the discussion. If driving causes that level of emotion and irrationality in you, then fuck it, you shouldn't be on the road.
The people doing 'the legal speed limit' around a blind bend who can't cope with coming across a vehicle going at 30mph the other side of it are dangerous drivers. What if someone had broken down round the bend? What if there was a turning the other side of the bend that they didn't know about and someone had just pulled out of it and hadn't accelerated to 60mph yet?