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Show HN: Influence, a Go-inspired 1-minute board game
- jawslouis 5y agoAt the end of every turn, each tile influences its neighbors and imparts some of its color. Tiles with a dark border can no longer be selected. The rules are simple but it takes awhile to master. What is your best score against the Hard AI? I got 27 (me on green) – 23 (AI). Would you want to see some sort of match-making to play against others online? See demo gameplay or view the source code at https://github.com/jawslouis/Influence-Game https://github.com/jawslouis/Influence-Game
- SimonDorfman 5y agoInteresting. Instead of just using shades or green and blue, would you consider displaying numerical values too? I was confused about how close the tiles were to flipping to my color. Side note: I’m working on a game that has some similarities that might interest you: https://simondorfman.com/volcanoes1 https://simondorfman.com/volcanoes1
- jawslouis 5y agoLooks like one of the consistent pieces of feedback is for numeric values :) Will think about how to implement that. Checked out your site too. Looks interesting!
- martyvis 5y agoOr a tug-of-war like indicator showing the threshold. (Although not a sufferer, blue-green is a common colour blindness)
- isaacremuant 5y agoI tried it on Firefox mobile and when I lose in the second difficulty level I can't really see anything but the "game over restart" message. I'd like to be able to see the score and the layout to analyze the game. Really nice job, though! Fun concept.
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks! Will adjust the layout to make post-game analysis easier
- 3np 5y agoFun and addictive game - I’m also at 27-23 now :) Uncertainty regarding piece state is also my number one feedback. Maybe rather than numeric, make that states visibly discrete in some other way?
- 3np 5y ago37-13! Thinking about it a bit, I realize the main uncertainty is which parts are "in danger" - which will switch color or "hardness" next turn with no influence?
- jawslouis 5y agoUpdate - I've updated the UI to have a clearer visual indicator of how close the tiles were to flipping, using the size of the colored area.
- neogodless 5y agoI got 29 vs 21 on Easy Blue AI on my first attempt.
- jawslouis 5y agoBetter than my wife's first attempt :)
- bookofsand 5y ago38-12. Edit: 41-9. Nice game.
- ALittleLight 5y ago29 (me on gree) - 21 (hard AI). Took me many tries! I think I'm starting to understand though. Might be fun to have a "replay" system like on hateris - https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html
- moconnor 5y ago29-21 hard AI playing as green Fun and interesting game - this has a lot of potential! Great mechanic, I would pay for an iOS app in the future.
- moconnor 5y agoSuggestions: * Visually show which tiles will lock or unlock next turn * Show a total influence growth per player as a running score - useful to help beginners learn strategies
- moconnor 5y ago30-20. My strategy tips: * first stone is weak, it’s ok to play it near a corner so their response is not in a strong place * Y-shape to kill and gain territory is much stronger than playing opposite to pincer * Always be growing passively * If you are growing passively faster than the opponent, start a fight. If you are not, don’t.
- moconnor 5y ago37-13 :-D And 29-21 as blue. Fun game!
- zokier 5y agoNeat. While it would draw away from the visual elegance, the game would be bit more playable if it had numeric indicators, both for current level of influence and the change for next turn.
- lainga 5y agoMaybe press-hold TAB view them, like the production markers on tiles in Civ 4
- jawslouis 5y agoThat's a good idea! For those on mobile though, perhaps a button to toggle the view?
- Datagenerator 5y agoOr something time based, pulsating perhaps every few seconds as very faint overlay text?
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks! I did think about numeric indicators but didn't want to introduce too much complexity. Would also take away from the fun if players had to check the numbers for many cells each turn. Still trying to figure out the best way to show that information.
- chris_st 5y agoMaybe some kind of vertical line through the hex, say green on left, blue on the right, and as the line moves away from the middle it's obvious which side is gaining influence there? When it hits one side or the other, it's locked.
- dddw 5y agoYeah I agree, but maybe have also non-numbers as an extra option. very nice game, will pass it around to fellow-go players
- cdubzzz 5y agoThe animations are a bit sluggish. I kept missing clicks on tiles that were finishing animations from a previous turn. Maybe I was playing faster than I should have been but it made things somewhat confusing.
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks for the feedback. What device are you on - mobile, tablet, desktop? I am wondering if the animation is taking longer on devices with less processing power. I could also add an option in the settings to disable animations, for those who like to play fast.
- cowvin 5y agoYep, same here. The animations are way too slow. For whatever reason it seems to wait like a second after you move to pulse influence. There's no reason it should wait.
- jawslouis 5y agoNow that you mention it, there does seem to be a bit of a lag before that animation starts. Will look into it.
- chewmieser 5y agoFun game! It wasn't always immediately obvious where exactly I could play, but I imagine the more you play the more it clicks too. I also agree with your decision to not use numerical indicators. It would definitely make things too complex and the graphical representation you have is pretty elegant as-is. Optional if at all.
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks! Yea I was trying to make the game's visuals as simple as possible. Especially for mobile players, where screen real estate is quite small. But looks like there's demand for more indicators for the game's state. Will need to think more about how to have indicators without cluttering the visuals.
- sundaypancakes 5y agoWild, I made something extremely similar a couple years ago (also inspired by Go) called Quagen (https://quagen.io https://quagen.io). I like your use of hex and the UX better than mine. Nice job!
- jawslouis 5y agoWow our ideas were really similar. I read your blog post - even how we came up with the idea was similar! I too played a lot of Hearthstone, and thought of adding a new digital element to a board game. Seems like Go was a natural fit :)
- sundaypancakes 5y agoReally neat to see how ideas propagate. My code is also up on Github. Feel free to directly take anything you like should you keep working on it! And if you ever want to brainstorm, you know how to find me.
- CGamesPlay 5y agoThe small board size and easy AI combo was too easy as a starting point. But I started to lose against the Medium AI. The animations are a bit lengthy. I think the ideal numeric indicator would show the number of turns (stone placements) before the space "locks" itself to a particular color.
- jawslouis 5y agoAppreciate the feedback! The number of turns before lock is an interesting indicator. There are some corner cases that I'd have to think more about though - e.g. when a tile is almost at the threshold but at a deadlock (both colors are evenly surrounding it)
- minxomat 5y agoThe countdown approach is a really good idea (if it can be implemented).
- alttab 5y agoWell done.
- mdoms 5y agoThis is very cool and fun. My only issue is it's hard to know if a move is going to make a tile reach threshold, or even if a tile is already at threshold.
- KMuncie 5y agoThis is very good. Any way I can play 2 player against my wife?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- qsort 5y agoHi, a couple of comments. First, I understand you were trying to make an approachable presentation, but the rules as you presented them are incomplete (how does influence work? what is a "threshold"?), and I think for a board game that's a big mistake. What makes games like those cool is that rules work deterministically, even for games that involve randomness. Having to guess the rules is something I actively dislike. Second, have you considered a square board instead of an hexagonal one? Using Go terminology, it feels like the groups have too many liberties. Other than that, the game is pretty good. I feel it captures the attack/defense territory-based gameplay of Go perfectly. Have you tried to measure the first move advantage? edit: Wow this thing is a drug. Hard AI is deceptively good, I managed to tie a game 25-25 after several attempts, but you definitely can't afford to be sloppy if you want to stay afloat!
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks for the comments! I appreciate the thought put into it. 1. My original thinking was to keep the game simple for casual players. But now I see that there are many who want to get into more depth :) Will work on it to make the rules of the game clearer and give an option for more visual indicators. For now, here are some explanations (which might beg more questions): influence - at the end of each turn, the average color of a tile's neighbors is calculated, and the tile gets 30% of that color (retaining 70% of its original color) threshold - once a tile gets 50% of the way to max-blue or max-green, it gets a dark border and is not selectable. 0% is white. 2. I originally thought about square tiles, but then it would be more complicated to figure out the 'influence' on diagonally adjacent tiles. Hex tiles eliminates that issue. 3. There is a strong 1st mover advantage in this game. To compensate, the 1st green tile is actually at 55% color. I tried to balance the game so that hard AIs on both colors would roughly capture equal number of tiles. Glad you're enjoying the game!
- starmftronajoll 5y agoI appreciated the rules as you wrote them. The important thing is to get started and see how it works. Thank you for keeping it simple.
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- scrooched_moose 5y agoIt seems like there's a bug if you drag your mouse from the board area, off the board, then back on; it will automatically select the first unclaimed tile the cursor hits. I just progressed the game to a 14-36 loss by just waving my mouse randomly without a single click. It seems to require some fairly fast movement, but I did accidentally trigger it a few times when I was trying to play for real. I've tested on Firefox 89 and Chrome 91.
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks for reporting the bug! I've managed to replicate it on my system too. Will look into a fix.
- scrooched_moose 5y agoNo problem. It's a fun game that I'm looking forward to playing more, I'll just have to be a bit more deliberate with my mouse movements in the future. Thanks for posting it!
- jawslouis 5y agoUpdate: bug has been fixed!
- dddw 5y agoThis is fun. a bigger field maybe even more!
- falcor84 5y agoNice! Gave me that old school Hexxagōn vibe
- grimgrin 5y agoI did win the first game but noticed you mentioned difficulties, clicked hoping it wasn't on Easy. It was! ha For people in this thread, if you're into abstract game design in the hex/table space, Nick Bentley creates some games I find very interesting, though haven't played. Bought some generic tiles once, hoping to eventually try out Circle of Life: https://www.nickbentley.games/circle-of-life-an-ecosystem-simulation-with-rules-that-fit-on-a-napkin/ https://www.nickbentley.games/circle-of-life-an-ecosystem-si... His "best" list: https://www.nickbentley.games/category/my-best-games/ https://www.nickbentley.games/category/my-best-games/
- Buttons840 5y agoWorks well on Firefox on my phone. Good job. I, too, would like to understand the game mechanics better.
- ianthehenry 5y agoI really like the idea of this. Some thoughts: 1. It's difficult for me to tell which spaces are open for play and which aren't -- the border is hard to parse. (Is that this cell's border, or the adjacent cell?) This isn't really an issue during placement, but it is an issue for signalling that a cell has been "captured," which is hard for me to tell. 2. Hexagon grid is absolutely the right call. :) 3. The influence mechanic is very opaque: it's very hard for me to predict what will happen next, which makes me feel like I'm playing a little "intuitively," instead of planning out my moves with intention. Some way to see "this is the current state and this will be the next state" would help with that, but I think as long as influence is a continuous quantity it's going to be difficult to visualize and predict. 4. Making the board itself hexagonal (ala Hexxagon) will give you an odd number of cells, preventing ties. Might also be nice to smooth out cell-strength discontinuities around the top and bottom edges. 5. Balancing the first-player advantage by making the first move a "weak stone" was very confusing to me, because an adjacent move by player two will "capture" my initial stone with a single stone of theirs. I didn't understand this until I saw your comment about it here. I think the pie rule would work well in this game, but it's hard for me to reason about since edge moves are offensively weaker but defensively stronger... I'm not sure how well it would shake out, if you haven't tried it already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_rule
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks for the feedback :) I appreciate it! 1. I can try experimenting with the border thickness. Selectable tiles would have a light gray border, instead of the dark green/blue border. 3. I'm planning to add a way to view the 'next state' in the next version of the game. But still trying to figure out a good way to visualize the 'influence' of each tile, besides the color. 4. Yes, also will try out the hexagonal board shape. And give players more options for the board size too. I think it's the right size for smaller screens like a mobile phone, but desktop users might want to play with more tiles. 5. Thanks for suggesting the pie rule. I looked into it, but think it'll be too confusing, especially for 1st time players. The 'weak stone' would be easier to understand for new players - perhaps except for those with a Go background :)
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- minxomat 5y agoObservations: 1) Somehow I can actually play and enjoy it. I'm usually really bad at these sorts of games (Go, Viking Chess, etc.). But I find I win a good portion of medium games while not getting frustrated. 2) All animations need to be decoupled from the gameplay entirely. Don't remove them, but they have no place in the order of move execution. I can't actually play how fast I want to play because I still have to wait _a while_ for a previous animation to "finish". 3) If I quickly move my mouse cursor around and happen to move off the board (moving my mouse while thinking), it will actually select a random piece near the border without any click event ever happening. All in all nice, but seeing how fast paced this game is (for me at least), it needs some major work to make it play snappy and predictable.
- tonymet 5y agoFun game. CPU is off the charts maybe check the animation fired event
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- qwerty456127 5y agoHow do you represent a field of this geometry?
- OiNG 5y agogo player here. on first play throughs (on easy then medium AI), i thought that a lot of concepts transferred over and that i just had to consider that influence increases over time even if nothing else is played there later. the game seemed pretty easy. then i tried hard and got stuck for a few games. i could be wrong about this, but i think the game might be easier as the second player? ive been able to win as blue on hard, but not green yet. i suspect theres something im not understanding about how the influence works, since this seems counter intuitive to me otherwise. in any case, cool game :)
- kortex 5y agoLove it! Got through easy AI pretty quickly, still working on medium, only a few rounds in. Echoing/jumping off of a few comments: - I love the hex grid. Hexagons are bestagons and I bemoan the fact we went decimal and dozenal. - I actually don't mind the intuitive play style that much. It's kinda fun and mitigates overthinking - however, more obvious visual indication when a cell is locked would be nice - It might be interesting to see a more quantitative indicator of the influence of a cell. The shade alone is hard to parse. However I disagree with numbers (or maybe make it a setting toggle). I'd personally prefer a purely visual/geometric. - One way to possibly indicate would be coloring sub-shapes inside the hexagon. Not sure if that would look too busy. - This game is super addicting. Nice work all around!
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks for the comments! I was going for a more intuitive play style, glad you like it. I also recognize the need to better see the 'influence' level of a cell, especially for players who want to get better at the game. Maybe scaling the size of the colored hexagon in each tile would work. So the colored hex would grow with 'influence', and once it reaches the border it would become locked
- aqfamnzc 5y agoOr maybe even just a small dot in the center of locked tiles. Great game idea! :)
- jawslouis 5y agoUpdate - I implemented your idea about a sub-shape inside the hexagon. So the colored area now grows/shrinks with the tile's 'influence'
- baby 5y agoAs other commenters said, it is not clear what the rules exactly are. I don’t understand when I can capture, or when I have an eye (in Go’s parlance). It’d be cool if you could sort of similarly visualize your influence on a real goban.
- who23 5y agoSuper fun! Is there a public repo for the code?
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks! The repo is at https://github.com/jawslouis/Influence-Game https://github.com/jawslouis/Influence-Game
- skyfaller 5y agoHave you considered adding an open source license? https://docs.github.com/en/communities/setting-up-your-project-for-healthy-contributions/adding-a-license-to-a-repository https://docs.github.com/en/communities/setting-up-your-proje... I personally like the AGPLv3 for web-based projects, but any explicit license so people know where they stand would be beneficial.
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks, have added a license! Decided to go with MIT for its simplicity.
- qzio 5y agoThis was fun, I would really like a online-multiplayer version to play quick games against friends. Create a "private" board, send the link to a friend and the game is on.
- fendy3002 5y agoA good concept, though I think the game name need to be more unique. Additional idea, make some variety of maps for fun.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- animal531 5y agoI would classify this as a variant of the Virus game (where you change all neighbouring enemy colours into your own). If I remember right the first version I played of that would have been in The 7th Guest.
- armanboyaci 5y agoDid you mean the game "Hexxagon"?
- animal531 5y agoI played that as well, although I think it only came out after The 7th Guest.
- donmatito 5y agoAddictive, fun, quick, yet interesting and subtle if you're into strategy games. I think you have a potential winner on your hands. Some polish and tweak may be needed based on feedback here, but a mobile app could make a killing
- Draken93 5y agoGreat game! Thats something to bypass waiting times :D. I like the presentation and loading times are great. The AI is hard enough, took a few games until I managed to beat it.
- GranularRecipe 5y agoCool idea! Observation: Undo (twice) seems to break the game. After blue places color, green does not get the turn.
- jawslouis 5y agoThanks for letting me know! I've fixed the bug now.
- lemoncurd 5y agoreminds me of the 4chan color wars made out of hexagons
- mjbrusso 5y agoA game with this UI and Voronoi diagram rules would be fun. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram
- tyrex2017 5y agogenius, great animations. would love the current score somewhere prominently. couldnt see it on a phone
- im3w1l 5y agoWhether a group will be captured or not often depends on whose turn a given space becomes playable or not, and if there are enough moves in the game left for the group to weaken sufficiently. Both of these are very hard to predict, which gives the game a somewhat random feel.
- student2k 5y agoNice, please make a random map generator, (good generation, not just 50% on off), then fog of war, and make an android app please, good job.
- throwaway58670 5y agoSo basically https://hexxagon.com/ https://hexxagon.com/.
- beardyw 5y agoI like this game because it is a bit mysterious, but I seemed to quickly hit on a strategy - start towards the centre, make 3x3x3 triangles, ignore blue - which wins more or less every time. Blue could counter that but doesn't.
- todd8 5y agoSee also the game of Hex. I was introduced to it by Martin Gardner's 1957 column in Scientific American[1]. As far as I know, these columns are not available free online from Scientific American. However, there is an excellent description of the game and its properties by Thomas Maarup available[2], his Thesis on it is at [3]. Like the cited game Influence, the rules of Hex are very simple and although it is easily proven that in Hex the first player has a winning strategy available, this strategy is unknown. The game was first invented by Piet Hein in 1942 and was independently reinvented in 1949 by John Nash while a graduate student at Princeton University. There is a recent book on Hex by Ryan B. Hayward and Bjarne Toft, published by CRC Press [4]. Before someone asks, I didn't read Martin Gardner's column in 1957, but I was old enough to read it in 1963 as a child. I became fascinated with Mathematical Recreations monthly columns that year, and at the library I eventually read every one of the Mathematical Recreations columns he wrote for the magazine (over 300). [1] Martin Gardner. Mathematical Games—Concerning the game of Hex, which may be played on the tiles of the bathroom floor. Scientific American, 197:145–150, 1957 [2] https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/ https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/ [3] Thomas Maarup (2005 Thesis) https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/hex3.pdf https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/hex3.pdf [4] https://www.routledge.com/Hex-The-Full-Story/Hayward-Toft/p/book/9780367144227 https://www.routledge.com/Hex-The-Full-Story/Hayward-Toft/p/...
- SebastianKG 5y agoSuper fun, and it's quite challenging at first to beat the blue hard AI. I've found my personal "joseki" that wins every time by a large margin: one of the two center points, then press blue's response on the other center point by playing one of the two points that attaches to both of your stones. When blue pincers this latest stone, pincer his original stone. Blue will pincer your latest stone again, and you then respond by pincering blue's second stone. From this position it seems like you can do almost anything and win--probably because blue is over-eager on pincering. I usually win with 30+ points this way. Seems like blue is at a big disadvantage even with green's first stone being weak. I've only found one path to victory: play adjacent-towards-the-edge to green's first stone in the middle, and green will do what seems to be a bad move (a diagonal pincer even further into the edge). From there just capture green's first stone and things start to be more do-able.
- ammar_x 5y agoSeems fun but makes my fans spin, on Chrome.