New variant: Kingo

[Luis Bolaños Mures]

Kingo is an attempt to make the game of Go even more intense and unforgiving. It differs from Go in the following aspects:

* There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.

* On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color.
* If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.

Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which results in quite a different game: false eyes are true unless they arise from captures, and the ko and superko rules aren't needed.

[Luis Bolaños Mures]

Slight clarification:

When comparing positions as per the ko and superko rules, pawns and kings of the same color are considered the same.

This means you can take a ko with a king if you're sure to win it right away.

A Kingo game is being played now by two decent Go players on the LifeIn19x19 forum:

https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14552&p=223017#p223017

It's a Malkovich game, which means that the players will be reporting on their thought process to viewers after each move.

[Terrybenson]

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures
* There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.
* On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color.
* If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.
Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which results in quite a different game: false eyes are true unless they arise from captures, and the ko and superko rules aren't needed.

I'm not so fond of the idea. Here's why.

I know of the variant with a single king of each color. Not very interesting since it's easy to protect one king. Putting a value on playing certain kinds of stones or having stones with different characteristics (like chess) is fundamentally a different game whereas almost all the Crazy Go variants are still "go" and scored the same.

Even 4 color go (with involves diplomacy and cunning) is still "go".

The closest variant is a new variant "Treasure Go" with 4 "treasure stones" placed at start on four star points (usually of a 13x13 board), the capture of any treasure stone wins the game immediately. If none of the treasure stones are captured (which is common) the game is scored by area.

Your "Move Go" with a placement and a move is a fundamental change and we shall see whether players like it.

There has been a suggestion of adding a "magic stone" or stones with different powers (can't be captured, makes all connected stones safe, and other ideas). But none seems very attractive.

I used some 20 variants at the Go Congress. About 1/3rd on a standard board, 1/3rd on smaller boards (13x13 or 11x11) and 1/3 on special boards e.g. spiral, hex, "3,4,6,5 tessalation", 3D, others. All the scoring is "normal" (area is the most consistent because of the move structure) except Treasure Go with its alternate end.

Maybe think of the 4 treasures as 4 kings which have to be defended to get closer to your idea.

[Luis Bolaños Mures]

Terry, I don't think the fact that it's fundamentally different from Go is a bad thing.

Also, Go knowledge is still useful in Kingo, and I think Go players will enjoy figuring out when kings should be placed. Good reading skills are essential, as you need to be sure that your group is safe before adding kings to it.

[Terrybenson]

Indeed Go knowledge is useful but in all other crazy Go variants (treasure Go being a new game, an exception, and I'm waiting for players to tell me they like it ) the object of the game is the same: control more of the board. KinGo 😉 is about placing the most kings.

Unless I am misunderstanding your rules...

The end game is going to be pretty clear. Every dame gets a king. And what about territory spaces? Why not fill every space except two eyes with a king if that's what wins? Won't this devolve into the stone counting ancient game with the group tax?

If you limit the number of kings, you will get conservative play early (with kings) and extravagant play late when groups are safe.

No?

[Luis Bolaños Mures]

Post by Terrybenson
Indeed Go knowledge is useful but in all other crazy Go variants (treasure Go being a new game, an exception, and I'm waiting for players to tell me they like it ) the object of the game is the same: control more of the board. KinGo 😉 is about placing the most kings.
Unless I am misunderstanding your rules...

The goal of a game of Kingo is to either capture an enemy king or have more kings on the board than your opponent when both players pass in succession.

Post by Terrybenson
The end game is going to be pretty clear. Every dame gets a king. And what about territory spaces? Why not fill every space except two eyes with a king if that's what wins? Won't this devolve into the stone counting ancient game with the group tax?

Not really. Players will indeed fill territories with kings at the end of the game (except two eyes per group), but they can also place kings before that. The idea is that the player with better reading skills will know sooner which of their groups are safe from capture and will start adding kings to them earlier, thus maximizing their score.

Post by Terrybenson
If you limit the number of kings, you will get conservative play early (with kings) and extravagant play late when groups are safe.
No?

No. Players have access to an unlimited number of kings and pawns, just as they have access to an unlimited number of stones in Go.

[alex]

First of all, make sure to catalog your version at https://senseis.xmp.net/?Variants

Next: IMO many (not all) variants come from people that have relatively few experience with Go, and immediately want to extend the game (eg who hasn;'t thought of toroidal go) (I did that too - I also proposed a few variants). But once one discovers that the game is so rich, there is no need to make it even deeper.

But I agree, searching for variants can result in interesting ... variants.

rgds,

-alex-

[Terrybenson]

Post by alex
First of all, make sure to catalog your version at https://senseis.xmp.net/?Variants
Next: IMO many (not all) variants come from people that have relatively few experience with Go, and immediately want to extend the game (eg who hasn;'t thought of toroidal go) (I did that too - I also proposed a few variants). But once one discovers that the game is so rich, there is no need to make it even deeper.
But I agree, searching for variants can result in interesting ... variants.
rgds,
-alex-

Toroid Go is one of the variants we play at the Go Congress. 13x13 board. Corners and edges are adjacent. Requires some mental gymnastics.

Someday someone will build a torus with velcro and lines and velcro stones. Not sure it will be easier to "see" but it will be fun.

We also have 3D go - a hanging diamond lattice.

One evening of Go "fun" seems to be welcome.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures
* There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.
* On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color.
* If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.
Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which results in quite a different game: false eyes are true unless they arise from captures, and the ko and superko rules aren't needed.

It is time to create a very funny variant og Go "Johnny Go"

I have an idea to make Go players fan of Chuck Berry

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures
* There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.
* On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color.
* If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.
Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which results in quite a different game: false eyes are true unless they arise from captures, and the ko and superko rules aren't needed.

So there is no flaw in the game if we follow your rules.
Are you sure?
Which player can force a win?
Did you test it? I mean not with your boyfriend or girlfriend but someone who is evil.

Why naming the add piece king and not queen or diamond or anything else.

[Luis Bolaños Mures]

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures
* There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.
* On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color.
* If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.
Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which results in quite a different game: false eyes are true unless they arise from captures, and the ko and superko rules aren't needed.

So there is no flaw in the game if we follow your rules.
Are you sure?

Yes. Worst case scenario: very conservative players might decide to use kings only when filling territories, but that just brings the game closer to Go.

Post by m***@gmail.com
Which player can force a win?

With no komi, presumably black, as in Go. But solving the 19x19 game is impossible with today's technology (or maybe any technology).

Post by m***@gmail.com
Did you test it? I mean not with your boyfriend or girlfriend but someone who is evil.

https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14552&start=40

Post by m***@gmail.com
Why naming the add piece king and not queen or diamond or anything else.

What's in a name?

[Terrybenson]

Games don't really have "flaws". There are consequences to rules which take the game in a direction and which players like or don't like.

With reasonably strong players (dan and upper kyu), in my opinion, the consequences of KinGo would be

1) No captured kings. It too dangerous to risk losing a king.
2) Kings would be held until later in the game and added to safe groups.
3) When either player played a king, the other will as well to keep pace - again with safe moves so there would likely be the same number of kings unless one player had more places to play kings. Thus...
4) The end game would be the ancient stone counting game with kings used for all of the filling and end game moves. Since you need to leave two eyes for every group, there is a "group tax". If one player has more groups they lose places to play kings.

As a re-creation of the ancient game, this is perhaps interesting. But probably not particularly exciting for stronger players.

Treasure go (4 treasure stones on the star points of 13x13) has some of the same characteristics. The treasure stones are well defended (by stronger players) and the game proceeds around them like structural elements of the board.

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures
* There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.
* On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color.
* If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.
Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which results in quite a different game: false eyes are true unless they arise from captures, and the ko and superko rules aren't needed.

So there is no flaw in the game if we follow your rules.
Are you sure?

Yes. Worst case scenario: very conservative players might decide to use kings only when filling territories, but that just brings the game closer to Go.

Post by m***@gmail.com
Which player can force a win?

With no komi, presumably black, as in Go. But solving the 19x19 game is impossible with today's technology (or maybe any technology).

Post by m***@gmail.com
Did you test it? I mean not with your boyfriend or girlfriend but someone who is evil.

https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14552&start=40

Post by m***@gmail.com
Why naming the add piece king and not queen or diamond or anything else.

What's in a name?

[Luis Bolaños Mures]

Post by Terrybenson
3) When either player played a king, the other will as well to keep pace - again with safe moves so there would likely be the same number of kings unless one player had more places to play kings.

It's not clear to me why this would happen. As you said, playing a king is very risky. The fact that one player feels that playing a king at a certain point is safe enough shouldn't necessarilly mean the other player will have equally safe points to follow suit.

[Terrybenson]

But if you get behind in playing kings you might not be able to recover.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Terrybenson
Games don't really have "flaws". There are consequences to rules which take the game in a direction and which players like or don't like.
With reasonably strong players (dan and upper kyu), in my opinion, the consequences of KinGo would be
1) No captured kings. It too dangerous to risk losing a king.
2) Kings would be held until later in the game and added to safe groups.
3) When either player played a king, the other will as well to keep pace - again with safe moves so there would likely be the same number of kings unless one player had more places to play kings. Thus...
4) The end game would be the ancient stone counting game with kings used for all of the filling and end game moves. Since you need to leave two eyes for every group, there is a "group tax". If one player has more groups they lose places to play kings.
As a re-creation of the ancient game, this is perhaps interesting. But probably not particularly exciting for stronger players.
Treasure go (4 treasure stones on the star points of 13x13) has some of the same characteristics. The treasure stones are well defended (by stronger players) and the game proceeds around them like structural elements of the board.

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Luis Bolaños Mures
* There are two types of pieces: pawns and kings. Both come in two colors: black and white.
* On their turn, a player must pass or place a pawn or king of their color on an empty point. Pawns and kings behave like Go stones and can be part of the same group if they are the same color.
* If a player captures an enemy king, they win. Otherwise, the game ends after two successive passes, at which point the player with more kings of their color on the board wins.
Optionally, it can be required that captures be made with kings, which results in quite a different game: false eyes are true unless they arise from captures, and the ko and superko rules aren't needed.

So there is no flaw in the game if we follow your rules.
Are you sure?

Yes. Worst case scenario: very conservative players might decide to use kings only when filling territories, but that just brings the game closer to Go.

Post by m***@gmail.com
Which player can force a win?

With no komi, presumably black, as in Go. But solving the 19x19 game is impossible with today's technology (or maybe any technology).

Post by m***@gmail.com
Did you test it? I mean not with your boyfriend or girlfriend but someone who is evil.

https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14552&start=40

Post by m***@gmail.com
Why naming the add piece king and not queen or diamond or anything else.

What's in a name?

The big flaw of this "variant" is that the game play will be boring at death.
You do not need to be an expert to smell it.

[m***@gmail.com]

This kind of variant add nothing worse than that it make a wonderful game a crappy one.
I want just to ask Luis : what do you expect from your variant in terms of game play?
I`m not a go player even if I have seen many pros playing in YouTube but I have enough experience in abstract games to say that Luis is on the wrong path.
His variant will soon be like a fart in the water. You see the bubbles but you will never know who did the bubbles.
Anyway I prefer to stop posting before I get angry as usual.

[Terrybenson]

There's no reason for any emotion. Some people distain all of the crazy Go variants. Something offends their sense of the Go. Others love the variants. If you like a game, play it. If you don't, lassie faire, someone else might. I'm agnostic but enthusiastic on games.

Thanks for the comments.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Terrybenson
There's no reason for any emotion. Some people distain all of the crazy Go variants. Something offends their sense of the Go. Others love the variants. If you like a game, play it. If you don't, lassie faire, someone else might. I'm agnostic but enthusiastic on games.
Thanks for the comments.

I dislike only absurd variants.
If a variant did not have some effect on game play (speed, fun, and so on) then how would react? Otherwise you could create 1000000 variants and I could create 50 per day.
I know how Luis works. Look at his many variants of connection games.
He created more than 30 during that last 2 years and maybe more. He is deeply living in what we call in french "dans un cercle vicieux".

[m***@gmail.com]

Luis is designing for a bunch of crappy game designers like him.
Each one is applauding the other and that`s it.
He think then that he is improving his technical views which is totally wrong.
The worst thing it could happen to any designer is to be slave of his group.

[Terrybenson]

If people enjoy designing games, where's the problem?

As a promoter and rules expert of Go, I like anything which draws people to the game and I pay attention to rules (including those of Crazy Go variants) because they change the experience of the game and the enjoyment of the players. It's fun to think about the effect of rules.

But what that enjoyment is or isn't is entirely up to the players, not me. A game is a "game". One can be serious about a game or just play for fun. Whatever!! It's something humans like to do. Play on!

Post by m***@gmail.com
Luis is designing for a bunch of crappy game designers like him.
Each one is applauding the other and that`s it.
He think then that he is improving his technical views which is totally wrong.
The worst thing it could happen to any designer is to be slave of his group.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Terrybenson
If people enjoy designing games, where's the problem?
As a promoter and rules expert of Go, I like anything which draws people to the game and I pay attention to rules (including those of Crazy Go variants) because they change the experience of the game and the enjoyment of the players. It's fun to think about the effect of rules.
But what that enjoyment is or isn't is entirely up to the players, not me. A game is a "game". One can be serious about a game or just play for fun. Whatever!! It's something humans like to do. Play on!

Post by m***@gmail.com
Luis is designing for a bunch of crappy game designers like him.
Each one is applauding the other and that`s it.
He think then that he is improving his technical views which is totally wrong.
The worst thing it could happen to any designer is to be slave of his group.

There is misunderstanding here.
Enjoying singing is good but claiming to be Frank Sinatra or singer-like because your friends are applauding your songs make me angry.
You have to go the boardgamegeek abstract forum to see how people claiming to be dame designers behave.
I have nothing about designing any game either for fun either for serious reason. But Luis and others please stop congratulating yourself. Until you invented nothing!!! Plagiarizing and recycling games that is all what I saw coming from you and others.

[m***@gmail.com]

I was banished many times from bgg abstract games forum.
Not because I`m vulgar. I recognize that I`m very vulgar and insulting with people lying, using treachery, hypocrites, dishonest and so on.
How would you react to someone presenting an obvious crappy games full of flaws and receiving thumbs up and congratulations?
I have no friends at bgg and I will not have any.
People are congratulating others not because they designed an interesting game but because he is a part of the community. Kowtow to those who are squatting the forum and you will be welcomed.
Come to bgg forum with the best game of the world (that is just an hypothesis) and no one will comment or thumb up your game.
Mister Terrybenson, just try it and you will have an idea of what I`m talking about. Create a new variant of Go or a new game and post it to bgg.
Use some nickname and try.
I always fought the mafia-like behavior.
Even if my brother come with a crappy game I will tell him that the game worth nothing. I will do with arguments.

[Rainer Rosenthal]

I have no friends >

But you love the game of Go. That's good.

Cheers,
Rainer

[Bill]

Post by m***@gmail.com
I was banished many times from bgg abstract games forum.
Not because I`m vulgar. I recognize that I`m very vulgar and insulting with people lying, using treachery, hypocrites, dishonest and so on.
How would you react to someone presenting an obvious crappy games full of flaws and receiving thumbs up and congratulations?

I've seen similar behavior in other forums. 100 positive comments on a
woodworking project, and not one them asking: "Well, are you going to
paint it?", "Don't you know circles are supposed to be round?" (slight
exaggeration). Due to the lack of much "thoughtful (constructive)
criticism", I mostly lost interest in those sorts of discussions.
Nothing but "atta-boys", gets boring. On the other hand, vulgarity turns
me off in just a few seconds. I prefer honesty. So as to not offend, I
might inquire, "Are those supposed to be circles?" ; )

Post by m***@gmail.com
I have no friends at bgg and I will not have any.
People are congratulating others not because they designed an interesting game but because he is a part of the community. Kowtow to those who are squatting the forum and you will be welcomed.
Come to bgg forum with the best game of the world (that is just an hypothesis) and no one will comment or thumb up your game.
Mister Terrybenson, just try it and you will have an idea of what I`m talking about. Create a new variant of Go or a new game and post it to bgg.
Use some nickname and try.
I always fought the mafia-like behavior.
Even if my brother come with a crappy game I will tell him that the game worth nothing. I will do with arguments.