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Comment by flymasterv | Hacker News Reader

This is a fantastic essay and project, but the chances of getting anyone to play an actual game with it are basically zero.

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I have read novels written by engineers. More often than not, they are unreadable. They fail to understand why people read (or write). They are an engineer's idea of what a novel should look like.

In the most loving way possible and as a software engineer myself, this is an engineer's idea of what a deck of cards should look like.

A configurable deck of cards. It's not like you see these in every store.

That being said, I love the page. The layout, use of colors and the content.

Right, but a card game with specific cards already chosen and designed for me that let the cognitive burden be on the game strategy itself is much more useful for the majority of people, and typically cost $5-10. This multi deck would be a nightmare with children too.

Parent referred to this as if it were a novel written by an engineer, that it then, as usual, wouldn't be a good one. The off-the-shelf card games are a standard novel. These cards are not your average novel; you'd expect people to be into this unusual or for some even unpleasant genre and style.

They aren't that uncommon outside of physical stores, where board game nerds gather - off the top of my head I can think of at least three similar multi-game decks: Everdeck [0], Badger Deck [1], and Singularity Deck [2], while a cursory search nets me another dozen or so [3].

There's also the Decktet [4], of course, even if it takes a very different approach than the rest (for one thing, it does away with traditional suits - it is a very interesting deck, and one I really like).

[0] https://www.drivethrucards.com/product/291492/The-Everdeck [1] https://www.drivethrucards.com/product/130446/The-Badger-Dec... [2] https://www.drivethrucards.com/product/189681/The-Singularit... [3] https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-... [4] https://www.decktet.com/

Just bought the decket and the book based on your recommendation. It looks neat. I've recently gotten into card games with my kid and it's a lot of fun. I'm hoping these games are half decent as well. Have you played many?

On another note, I've really enjoyed finding one-player games that use a standard 52-card deck as well. There's a ton of interesting games out there.

All it needs is some artsy marketingy touch to sneak it past normies' defenses, and it'll shine :).

What, like There Is No Antimemetics Division?

I think you read novels by bad writers, who happened to be engineers.

I have never heard of that book, but a quick Google search reveals that the author is in the process of "releasing version 2". Refer to the previous comment for my opinion on that matter.

Well, it's a fantastic book.

It's being rewritten for content licensing reasons.

In addition to the content licensing, it was released as serial web fiction presented in a wiki. Serial fiction usually benefits from significant editing to fit the structure of a novel.

Having followed qntm's work since Fine Structure (2006), he's really improved since then. He got a lot better at character writing with Ra (2011).

I think it's largely a matter of intentional practice. I think that some sci-fi writers don't prioritize honing that skill, since they just want to build a cool world and the story is a way to demonstrate that.

> I have read novels written by engineers. More often than not, they are unreadable. They fail to understand why people read (or write). They are an engineer's idea of what a novel should look like.

On the other hand: Greg Egan ([1], [2]) is a mathematician and novelist. His novels are sometimes considered to be barely readable (if you are not part of his audience). On the other hand: he does seem to understand why people read his novels - he knows his audience. :-D Readers praise his novels for the worldbuilding (though commonly the story is considered to the weaker side of many of his novels).

So I do imagine that such engineers who write novels perfectly know why people read - they just write for a different audience. :-)

[1] https://www.gregegan.net/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan

It seems though like these are kind of a tool for a “game engineer” to prototype a game though. Not just a deck to keep around the house for general play.

Nevil Shute was an engineer and he wrote some well respected novels like the nuclear war story On the Beach (made into a movie twice), A Town like Alice (made into a film and TV series), and No Highway (sometimes called No Highway in the Sky after the title of the film based on it), which actually deals with aircraft engineering and the problems involved in designing early jet airliners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute

It baffles me that this isn't mentioned in the page, but a deck like this is extremely useful for testing while designing a new boardgame. They are very versatile and can likely emulate whatever wacky system you come up with for your game, which means you can iterate without having to print a new deck new each time.

> It baffles me that this isn't mentioned in the page,

The first paragraph says: "The DIY multideck is ideal for traveling, prototyping new games, and trying games before buying." (emphasis mine)

I mean so’s a bunch of index cards and some pens.

Can't beat zettelkasten!

It is clearly aimed at enthusiasts and game designers.

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