Talk:WreckTangle

David Artman on Edits

A couple of quick editorial points, if I may:

1. I'd swap the order of these two sentences: "Movement varies for each piece in WreckTangle. A player may move one piece per turn with his normal movement." (Most of my comments will be related to how your presentation of rules, to me, seems out of order or doesn't answer corner cases or isn't explicit.)
2. Call pyramids by consistent names: you alternate between "triple-, double-, and single-pip" to "Queen, Drone, and Pawn." IMHO, I would not use Q, D, P--they are becoming sort of ubiquitous terms, true, but I reserve them for "Martian" themed stuff. Your game is about wreck (traffic?) so why not riff on that? Coupe, Sedan, Van?
3. On that note, I am on a new crusade to call pyramids "pyramids," not "pieces" or anything else. The idea is that we don't even want to suggest that once could replace these pyramids with Legos or chess pieces (another reason I eschew "Pawn"--I'd rather see "Worker").
4. Piece art: take a moment to put pips on the pieces, the better to designate them. In particular, the 2-pip and 3-pip pieces are close in size, from above, and need the distinction in places. See Chicken Run or Icehouse games at SDG for a simple way to do it.
5. "And may move any piece on the board in accordance with the result.": Go ahead and be explicit; add ", [comma] including opponents' pieces."
6. "As you may have guessed by now captures are made by forming rectangles.": Hmmm, well I never expected that sentence, and I figure I'm a fairly clever lad. I'd just drop the preamble and get straight to the rules. You can always pepper the text with "flavor" or "stylistic strokes" or "voice" once you actually have every rule locked down and clear (at least, that's how I do it, for my more flavorful games).
7. "When you form a rectangle with for of your pieces you capture other pieces and flip the coin over to its other side. If the coin was on heads, you capture all pieces inside the rectangle (not on the edges). If the coin was tails you capture all the pieces along the edges of the rectangle." - OK, I'd replace that with something like this, for a more logical order vis a vis actual play sequence: "Once you form a rectangle with four of your pieces, you will then capture other pieces. If the coin is showing heads, you capture all of the pieces inside of the rectangle, excluding the edges. If the coin is showing tails, you capture all of the the pieces along the edges of the rectangle, but none inside of it. After you capture pieces, flip the coin over to its other side."
8. Now, on that note, do you capture every single piece, including your own, or only opponents' pieces?
9. Finally, you need to "unpack" this statement further, being explicit: "Once you create a rectangle and make a capture you must make another, different rectangle before going back to the first."

I think this statement is clearer than what is in the rules right now. - Cerulean 20:26, 11 February 2008 (EST)

Rule Q & A

• Can pyramids co-exist on a square when moving, either with their own or an opponent's? (Jeff Wood)Pyramids cannot occupy the same space at the end of a movement(or at the end of a turn).

• If multiple rectangles are formed at the same time (with 6 pyramids), how is the capture resolved? (Jeff Wood) I don't think that is possible with six pyramids. I think it wouls take a minimum of seven. IF you were to make it like below one rectangle would have to be in place before the other, They could both be made on the same turn but not at the same time.

X . . X . X
. . . . . .
X . . X . X

• Do pyramids block the movement paths of other pyramids? Can I pass through an occupied square? - Cerulean 20:24, 11 February 2008 (EST) No and Yes respectively.

• Is is allowed to move less than 2 squares by using the board edge to stop early? - Cerulean 20:24, 11 February 2008 (EST) Yes although your piece would then be in someones homerow and not in a position to be part of a capture.

• After forming a rectangle, if there are no pyramids to capture, can I still flip the coin? Can I volunteer not to capture pyramids and still flip the coin? - Cerulean 20:24, 11 February 2008 (EST) Yes and No Respectively

Comments from Cerulean

Carlton, this was my pick of the Winter 2008 IGDC. Your design has potential, and it passed the "let's play again" test from all three persons who tried it. The more I played it, the more I appreciated the features of the design whose purpose was not clear at first.

I played this twice in 2-player, and once with 3 players.

I have already posted my rules questions, and I see you've answered them. Thanks for the prompt reply. I hope those clarification are incorporated into the rules. I had guessed on the interpretation at the time, and guessed counter to your wishes on two accounts. I will try the game again with those clarifications and see how it impacts the game.

That said, I did notice one strategic flaw in the design. Because the first capture is a "heads" capture within the interior of a rectangle, and since the capturing pyramids must not be in any home rows, the only capturable spots on the board are in the central 4x4 region. If no pyramids enter this region, it is impossible to make a capture and change the coin to "tails". In the 3-player game, we all realized this, and were able to constrain our pyramids to two outermost rows/columns of the board, indefinitely avoiding the no-man's-land in the center. After a half-hour of trying, we determined that no captures were possible and aborted the game.

The simple remedy to this may be to have the coin start on the "tails" side rather than "heads". By starting with a perimeter capture, the capturable region expands to the entire board sans the home rows. This will encourage the pyramids to fill out the whole board, diffusing to all parts as they try to capture and avoid capture.

But once the coin is at "heads" again, the previous problem can possibly occur again. The better fix may be to change the nature of what is currently the "interior capture".

A minor suggestion... please reverse the directions for TIP and AIM. I kept thinking "TIP TOWARD" and "AIM AWAY", and got confused with the scheme you present, which felt counterintuitive in comparison. (Cinnibar - This was also a problem for me, the wording of the die didn't seem to correlate to the action intuitively)

During the game, I got the desire to sketch out player aids with a "treehouse die compass rose" on it to help remember Treehouse movement directions. I highly recommend you add such a diagram to your rules page. I also tried replacing the Treehouse Die with a standard d6, and it worked just as good if not slightly better.

Balance issue: SWAP is the single most powerful move in the game. Because of it, it's impossible to use the home rows for capturing. SWAP should be handicapped by preventing the swapping of a pyramid that is in a home row. If you did this, I think you could lift the home-row capture restriction.

Keep up the good work, and I hope you are able to develop WreckTangle to it's full potential. - Cerulean 11:57, 20 February 2008 (EST)

Other Than Four Players

I see that Cerulean enjoyed this game in 2-player and 3-player variants, but the rules don't offer any instructions in that regard. Should a 2-player game play from opposite sides of the board? (I.e. Just the yellow vs. red in the diagram provided?) Does a 3-player game give some advantage or disadvantage to the player who is at right angles to the other two? --Carthoris 14:42, 27 December 2011 (UTC)