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Feb. 12th, 2009|11:28 pm |
Today I received an email to the effect of "Hi! We're starting your Photography course two months late! Have fun..."
...Right... (Oh well, at least it may reduce the courseload pressure, I guess...)
In other news, the other day I received a large box of Looney Labs gear that I'd ordered.
So, Dad and I settled in to play Volcano. This is the default layout:14555
21445
32145
32214
33321 The '1's here are the ones that have the 'caps' that form the core of the game. Ideally, they should be red.
The problem with this layout is that you wind up with red strewn all over the board, blocking your way to the rest of the colours. While this may be the intent, it made it mighty irritating to play.
So today, when I was playing with Fabian, I decided to use a variant of a Latin Square, adding an additional constraint; since the caps can be moved not only horizontally and vertically, but also diagonally, the same number (colour) should also not be on the same diagonal. I wound up with this:14253
25314
31425
42531
53142 ...Leaving the '1's with the caps.
It worked much better than the default layout (Fabian had great fun bouncing his caps off the 'walls' to wander around the board).
However, I still felt it could do with a final modification. When I played against Chris, I made it so that the caps were again placed on the diagonal, so there was one cap on each colour.
It seems more balanced this way. It also feels like it allows you to 'get at' more of the pyramids.
And now, it's way past bedtime, and I have to go to work tomorrow. (Five day work week?!? Heresy!)
-Mmaster |
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