Bastard Othello
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 4:16 pm
For a couple of weeks, a nagging thought has grown in the back of my brain: what would it be like to play Othello with the rule variation that you can only flip opponent's markers whenever you have fewer markers than him/her?
I don't follow the world of Othello/Reversi (is there any difference?) players so I don't know if this kind of game has any name. I know in the world of Chess there are dozens of variations, one more bizarre than the other.
Anyway, today I decided to spend five minutes with the problem. Since I already have a mostly playable version of Othello made for the MiniGame Compo 2002, I decided to hack in a conditional which will flip markers only if you have fewer on board than the opponent, not counting the marker you're just about to place. The exact rule set can be discussed, whether this marker should be counted or not and whether the cutoff should be less than or equal number of markers.
If anyone wants to play this slightly odd Othello game, you can download a Zip file which contains a PRG plus the source code. It is a bit beyond 1024 bytes now but in theory I could reallocate a lot of workspace to lower 1K. Anyway, I'd probably expand this into a bigger Othello game with joystick control and the option to choose game variation.
http://www.cbm.sfks.se/files/bothello.zip
The screenshot is from the former (original) release but it looks the same.
I'm not sure if this should be called a release, so I'll not post in that thread for now. Call it a test of concept or work in progress, although I find it unlikely I will work a lot on it within soon. I have a few more urgent VIC-20 game projects to take up, this was more for the sake of it.
I don't follow the world of Othello/Reversi (is there any difference?) players so I don't know if this kind of game has any name. I know in the world of Chess there are dozens of variations, one more bizarre than the other.
Anyway, today I decided to spend five minutes with the problem. Since I already have a mostly playable version of Othello made for the MiniGame Compo 2002, I decided to hack in a conditional which will flip markers only if you have fewer on board than the opponent, not counting the marker you're just about to place. The exact rule set can be discussed, whether this marker should be counted or not and whether the cutoff should be less than or equal number of markers.
If anyone wants to play this slightly odd Othello game, you can download a Zip file which contains a PRG plus the source code. It is a bit beyond 1024 bytes now but in theory I could reallocate a lot of workspace to lower 1K. Anyway, I'd probably expand this into a bigger Othello game with joystick control and the option to choose game variation.
http://www.cbm.sfks.se/files/bothello.zip
The screenshot is from the former (original) release but it looks the same.
I'm not sure if this should be called a release, so I'll not post in that thread for now. Call it a test of concept or work in progress, although I find it unlikely I will work a lot on it within soon. I have a few more urgent VIC-20 game projects to take up, this was more for the sake of it.