AbMon: S2E1

A lovely turnout. KJ's whole crew plus Taylor, Jesse, and Darlissa, Harrison, and Maddie. Ten guests! Helen was closing, so we had to wrap up early.

Taylor recorded a conversation we had about what makes a great abstract. I find the question difficult, as my rubric has been more emotional than logical. There's a specific feeling I'm going for in my curation: an expansive, snappy, graspable beauty. Last night, however, we pinpointed one describable aspect: opening variability. Taylor asked if I preferred random setups, and I said I did. However, Lines of Action is one of the only games that both has this attribute and is attractive to me, so I have shifted towards preferring a slightly different aspect with a similar effect: high move count openings. When a game has a large number of opening moves, and if many of those moves are semi-viable, the whole package of the game improves. If the core loop of the gameplay is solid, then the generation of unfamiliar positions is the only thing you need to make the game highly replayable. Ideally, each game should feel new enough that the players can avoid going to rote places.

I'm realizing this dovetails into another attribute: the impact of a move on the position. When the relationships between the pieces can shift drastically with a single move, the demands on the opening moves lower, making more states possible. What I mean is, I love when each move makes the puzzle of the next player's turn very different from their last turn. You find this in Hens and Chicks, Amazons, and certainly Lines of Action. The first two achieve this through piece power, each move being explosive and dangerous. In Lines of Action, pieces rely on each other for movement, so the relationship between the pieces and their moves change with every move. Hens does this to a lesser extent, due to jumping. Maybe it's time to give Dameo another try. I may have to look at jumping games more closely.

Anyways, I had a very tough time teaching Hens and Chicks, to a comical extent actually. I will have to practice.

Games make people laugh more than they usually do.

The most important aspect of an abstract? Perhaps its its ability to pull the player in for a second game. if it creates the desire for more, then it is worth sharing.