Talk:Dodger

I found the terrain movement rules to be confusing. "Move one of the top-most terrain pyramids not occupied by the Dodger by hopping over a number of pyramids equal to the number of pips on that pyramid." It confused me that movement was defined by jumping over pyramids, not by counting board squares. Can the terrain piece move less than it's pip count? What about intervening empty spaces? "The terrain piece being moved must land between hops and may not hop over empty spaces." What does "must land between hops" mean? "The jumps can be orthogonal or diagonal in any direction, but the landing spot must be orthogonally adjacent to at least one other pyramid in the Field." Does this mean the terrain piece can change movement direction mid-movement? - Cerulean 15:37, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Best of 2009 evaluation

I had some questions about the rules (see above comments), and assumed the designer's intent.

Dodger passed the "let's play again" test, once. There is no randomness in the game beyond setup, so it had quite a bit of decision making involved, which always helps. However, being a perfect information game, it also put off some of the non-gamers I tested this with. I did appreciate the indeterminate board size and the interesting movement rules for both dodger and terrain.

However, Dodger is guilty of making what I call "the Timberland mistake". In a shared pieces game, the Timberland mistake (one of my earlier Icehouse game designs), any move that would improve your chances of winning on future turns will be exploited by your opponent first! What's good for you is good for your opponent, and what is bad for your opponent is worse for you! I felt this was a fatal flaw. Perhaps with some major modifications this could be mitigated, and Dodger could be salvaged into a passable design. In its current state, dodger is unworthy of finalist contention. (Good luck with that. I've been trying to save Timberland itself for years. This is why there aren't many worthwhile shared pieces games, Volcano being the notable exception.) - Cerulean 16:17, 31 May 2010 (UTC)