Ask HN: How can I improve this game? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I improve this game?

http://www.teampinch.com

This is a simple game of Tic/Tac/Toe played between 2 groups over the period of a week.

In this case its between Hacker News and Reddit.

Teams make one move every day.

At midnight Central Standard Time (CST) the most popular move for the day, voted by the this group, will be taken as the group's move and the game progresses to the opponent.

Here is the feedback/criticism so far:

1. the game is too simple. it should be more complex like chess (i feel i will put it out of reach of most users if I do this)

2. it takes too long

3. we don't want to login through facebook

I feel there is a lot of scope for this and would like to pursue this. What direction should I take?

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I like the concept of "the most popular move for the day, voted by the group, will be taken as the group's move".

It would be interesting to use this concept in a game where the set of possible moves could be ranked in order of best move for that turn such that the users could see a distribution of number of votes versus this set. In this way you could see the quality of the groups choice and compare it to the best choice and your choice (if they were different). This would also lend itself to user scores. Not sure which game would lend itself to this.

Also you might consider number of votes as an alternative or additional progress trigger. For HN vs Reddit set it at 100 votes per side. If you don't hit the limit it switches on a per day basis, but if you do hit the limit it switches immediately. Not only would this potentially speed the game but it also could create a sense of urgency to get your vote in to have it count.

Tic Tac Toe is a good example of the concept, but you're right about it being too simple (I hacked TTT using brute force in the shower as a kid and haven't lost a game since).

Don't assume chess will put it out of reach, though that depends on your audience. It may be a great way for eager novies or middling players (like myself) to learn about the game more by playing alongside others. Of course, if you're plan is to create something and roll it out to thousands of different communities, then chess may be hard - if for no other reason that a game at one move a day will take months.

Perhaps Checkers? Just remember to make automatic jumps when the player has no option, rather than giving the group a day to decide to do something they have no choice in.

got it. I don't play checkers but perhaps I should learn it. and yes it has to scale and chess will take months at move a day. I now plan to develop it alongside instead of it being an either/or. Thank you for your suggestion

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