It's the Summer of New Games on Pocket-Monkey! And we have a lot to do, so let's get right to it:
First off, we've added two new games to the site today:
LongGammon - Backgammon, but where all of your pieces start out on your opponent's 1-point; other than that, the rules are identical. You'll be surprised how much just that one aspect changes the strategy of the game! Many thanks to SanLorenzo for suggesting this varaint.
HyperGammon - Backgammon, but where you only have three pieces in play and they start on your opponent's 1-, 2-, and 3-points. Again, other than the starting point the rules are identical, and again you'll be surprised at how different it is to play. Many thanks to BrightonEarly for suggesting this varaint.
Now that's all very well and good for the Backgammon addicts (like me), but what about the people who like other games?! Don't worry, we have new games coming for you, too! Here's a list of the games we hope to put on the site during the course of the summer (not in any particular order); there's more about our post-summer plans after the list.
Halma, which is the progenitor of the game Americans will know as "Chinese checkers". We'll start with a two-player version, probably on a 10x10 board although we may have 16x16 as an option. (Down the line, we'll have a four-player version, but I doubt we'll get there this year.)
Pente, a Gomoku-like game but where pieces can be captured. (That should be interesting!)
Connect6, a Gomoku variant invented specifically to deal with the "first player advantage" of Gomoku. (No, despite the name, it's not a variant of four-in-a-row...)
Angled Mill, a variant of Mill where there are diagonal lines you can make mills on as well as the usual horizontal and vertical ones.
Strategy variants where you can move more than one piece at a time, or possibly have a fund of points you can use in your turn where pieces each cost a certain amount to move. This is inspired by this forum thread.
Our own Backgammon Match variant with different scoring; details will be revealed closer to the time it's ready. ;-)
Suicide Checkers, the "anti" version of Checkers where you try to be the first person who can't move or loses all of their pieces. (I should be pretty good at it, since as far as I can tell that's how I've always played...)
Other "anti" variants of games -- suggestions welcome! (For instance, does an "anti" Four-in-a-Row make sense, where you want to force your opponent to put four in a row? I figure that could take a while unless we make the board smaller, but what do you four-in-a-rowers think?)
That's probably all we'll get to this summer, but you never know, we may even have a little something for the RadarWar fans...
Looking beyond this summer, eventually we also want to add:
Scrabble and some other word-oriented games
Cribbage and some other card-oriented games
MasterMind
Others I won't mention yet...
Your suggestions are very welcome! Most of the games listed above are from suggestions! Usually by more than one person. The best way to suggest a game is to send us a note via the Contact Us at the bottom of the page. If you can point to a site on the web describing the game you're suggesting, that's really helpful.
Enjoy your (new) games! -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
Re: The Summer of New Games
Message #2910 Replies: 0
posted by robin (Happy Johns other half x) on 07/05 at 09:27
Excellent, new games to get my teeth into!! Wicked, Keep them coming. Im going to go start one right now. :O)
Thank You, Thank You, T.J. Love the new long gammon. thats the only gammon I can say I like the best,others are so,so. LOL Your a man of your word, you said things would start moving right along after the big up date. Thank you again. looking forward to many of happy days of playing here.The more games the better we have long cold winters here in the NE, so looking forward to a fun winter on Pocket-Monkey.(may have to after my post this AM on other site, about new games here.) LOL
Yes I am a backgammon fanatic as well and I just tried the hyper...it is fun!! I do also enjoy so many of the games here too! Pente and Halma will be great to have along as well.. Love my Halma too. Just playing the Pente now and getting into that as well. Thanks so much T. J. for constantly keeping this site up and running and bringing in the new games! Loved this site right off the bat when I started here!! :-))
Wow, I thought new games would be a while away - thanks for all the hard work you been doing to get these new games done.
The new games sound great, especially the Halma and Suicide Checkers and the "Backgammon Match variant with different scoring"
T.J. (T.J. Crowder) wrote:
(For instance, does an "anti" Four-in-a-Row make sense, where you want to force your opponent to put four in a row? I figure that could take a while unless we make the board smaller, but what do you four-in-a-rowers think?)
Anti-four-in-a-row sounds good, but keep the board size the same or there would not be enough space to really get going and a lot of games would end in draws.
They have an anti-4iar game at goldtoken.com, and I've played it a few times, but never did quite get the hang of it and eventually gave up. Many people do enjoy that game though.
A couple of other 4iar variants that are very popular are quicksand 4iar (called Connectris at IYT) and Zero-G 4iar (called 4x4 4iar at IYT). In quicksand, the bottom row drops off the board when it gets filled up. That really changes the complexion of the game because diagonal threats near the bottom of the board are no longer threats when the bottom drops out. Zero-G is different from standard 4iar because games pieces can be placed along any edge of the board, not just the bottom row, making the game much more complicated and requiring more thought.
I know you said to suggest new games by using the 'contact us', but I mentioned them here thinking that other 4iar players might want to add their ideas.
Thank you for all the hard work you put into the site to make it a great place to play games.
Here are some other games you could think of adding
Breakthrough - Easy game to understand though its simplicity belies its abstract strategy. I also am aware that the inventor (Dan Troyka) is not averse to having sites offer this game though one would think it best to get his permission out of courtesy.
Mancala and its variants.
Chebache - great Game.
Games from the GIPF project > DVONN, and others.
Lines Of Action
I will think of others but there are quite a few interesting games that one can read about at >
...and there are already 87 HyperGammon games going (20 completed), and 62 LongGammon games (2 completed -- it takes a while). There have been 845 HyperGammon moves made, 888 LongGammon moves.
Too bad no one's interested in the new games... ;-) -- T.J. Crowder First Primate Pocket-Monkey.com
Yahtzee YES YES , I can only fine it on one other site to play. that would draw a lot of players here. the other site is not set up for webTv,they can play it but its real slow for them, so they give up. If you can make it so webtv can play. I think it would be a good calling card.. I hope to see a lot of other games here. you got 7 gammon games now. that should make them players happy, but we are not all gammon players.( I play just for games to play,I lose more then I win.)LOL
YAHTZEEEEE!!!! YIIPPPEEEE!!! as a web tv user, it's fun to play on yourturn/myturn, but it takes almost 5 mins to make your 2 shakes and move on each game. That gets frustrating, and some times I only have a few mins. at a time to play
another game I love
Message #3112 Replies: 1
posted by Butterfly79 (Sutik forever in my heart) on 07/21 at 22:01
I love playing Outbreak at Goldtoken. I have not found it on any other site and I love it. I would never go back to goldtoken if you had outbreak here at pocket-monkey. You are doing a great job with this site.
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