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John Lawson wrote on Fri, Apr 26, 2002 12:10 AM UTC:

Peter Aronson wrote:
'(Zillions is hardly the only tool suitable for this sort of thing, of
course, but it is the one that usually comes to hand for me. Occasionally I
worry about the effect this has on my game designing, since if the only
tool you have is a hammer, everthing starts to look like a nail. However,
the essay Zillions of Games: threat or menace, will have to wait for
another day.)'

I had never thought of this effect, perhaps because I neither design games
nor write ZRFs (I entirely lack creativity).  I take this to mean that
ZoG-wise game designers will avoid designing games using concepts that
cannot be effectively implemented in Zillions-of-Games, thereby limiting
their own creativity.

At the same time, ZoG has been considered a tremendous boon to board game
variantists of all stripes, allowing them to play and test their
more-or-less obscure discoveries and creations without the need to actually
find and interact with other people.

So, the starter questions are, 'Does ZoG limit creativity?', 'If it does,
does it matter?'  What do you think?

gnohmon wrote on Fri, Apr 26, 2002 03:22 AM UTC:

The only tool I usually use is the chessboard in my head, which usually
limits my games to things that I can playtest blindfold.

Given a chessboard and a few coins and a pencil and paper, one can do a
wider range of games than can be done using just the mental board; but then
I wonder if that distracts one from the 'pure thought' which proves so
productive.

I would have to say that whatever works well for you is best.

Peter Aronson wrote on Fri, Apr 26, 2002 04:43 AM UTC:

Well, I do worry about limiting my designs to what works well for Zillions. Of the 17 or so games I've published since I've learned Zillions programming, only one -- Transactional Chess -- has not been implemented with Zillions. This leads me to wonder what games am I 'self-censoring' in favor the ones that are easily implementable with Zillions. The games I designed before were often difficult to completely implement for Zillions; some would merely say that Zillions was simplify causing me to simply the games, which is all to the good. But there can be simple ideas that are not simple to implement with Zillions. Chatter Chess would be a great deal of work to implement in Zillions, for example.

John Lawson wrote on Sat, Apr 27, 2002 03:54 AM UTC:

So we allow ourselves to be limited by the tools we are comfortable with. 
Peter tailors his inventions with an eye to Zillions implementation. 
Gnohmon, having a 8x8 board in his head, concentrates on ideas that play on
an 8x8 board that feel like chess.

Is this a bad thing, because it limits creativity?

Is it a good thing, because it concentrates the mind?

Both of you produce one interesting idea after another.  So do other
inventors.  Do the limitations of the universes of discourse you have
chosen confine or focus your creative efforts?

I have also perceived an attitude among some CVPhiles that a creation is
not complete without a ZRF.  Certainly, this is a wrong-headed attitude,
although a good ZRF is pleasing.  Is the implicit requirement for a ZRF a
bad thing?  I would say yes, because it discourages people with ideas whose
skills or inclinations are just not up to producing ZRFs routinely.  As a
result, there may be ideas that are interesting or intriguing that do not
see the light of day.  Do you agree?

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Apr 29, 2002 04:23 AM UTC:

I usually think of the game first and then try the Zillions implementation.
The result is, sometimes, that the Zillions implementation is unwieldy. It
is true, though, that some I have not even tried to implement. 

There is a great alternative, and that is our very own (thanks to Fergus)
play-by-e-mail system which is available to any square or hex board design,
requiring enforcement of the rules by the players--like a table-top chess
set. 

As far as 'mentally' creating games. Yes, when the game idea is very
interesting, I find myself mulling over it and the game design works itself
out conceptually--to a large degree, however, not completely. There are
some details of playability that only work themselves out in playtesting.


Zillions is a great way to work out the playability of a game, at least as
a first step. One pitfall that Zillions has is that the farther a game is
from orthochess the poorer the Zillions engine plays the game. Some games,
it plays very poorly, some in a skewed way, some extremely well.
Ultimately, play against a person is best for testing. 

If one is interested in play by e-mail, a Zillions implementation can be as
basic as a board and pieces that can move on it, without full rules
enforcement--this liberates many of the programming restrictions--since it
does not matter how well Zillions itself plays the game.

Back to the orginal question: I have found that in some practical ways,
Zillions does 'suggest' the development of a game because of the
programming practicalities. But I would not say that it inhibits ideas
altogether. There is one game I would like to try but have not found a way
to play by e-mail: Star Trek 3-D Chess (the 'real' one with the shifting
boards!) Any ideas?

Derek Nalls wrote on Sat, Mar 5, 2005 11:53 PM UTC:

Generally, I take the positive-to-the-extreme viewpoint about Zillions Of
Games and Game Courier since there was little more than desolation (for
universal AI programs and internet CV play, respectively) before their
existence.

Although what is easy-to-difficult to implement using Zillions indeed may
or can subconsciously influence what we create, it has made a great many
game features, previously trapped within our abstract imaginations,
materialize as reality to experiment with, learn from and feed the next
cycle of the imaginative process.  Overall, this positive feedback
stimulates our imaginations far more than it limits them.

Ultimately, we can only blame ourselves for any frustrating limits to our
imaginations since we moderns have been given a powerful tool to work with
(which was unavailable to the ancients).  In my experience, what often
remains out-of-reach for us are only those Zillions implementations
excessively complex which usually turn-out to be undesirable in some
important way(s) when-if their ramifications are carefully explored
theoretically and understood.

By thinking of games in a purely theoretical frame of mind, the ease or
difficulty of a desirable game feature is realized only secondarily after
the idea is already firmly in mind.  So, the supremacy of freedom of
imagination need not be corrupted.

Notwithstanding, everyone has contrasting creative tendencies and only
limited conscious control over the process.