In for a pound

• 30 November 2008
• Category: Not One More

Structures to toy with:

• Tichu-style, the hand starts with a round of passing:
  • Two cards to each player
  • Review the passed cards
  • Two more cards to your partner
  • It is possible that’s too much passing
• Played cards are arranged in a 2D grid. Each row and column of contiguous cards must either form a meld or a legal subset of a meld
  • Cards may only be played in positions in which they extend (potential) melds both directions
  • Cards may not be played in positions in which they conflict with potential melds in any direction
  • Are full houses legal melds?
  • Stairs?
• One their turn a player may play a single card or pass
• If they play a single card they may then do one of:
  • Play a second card adjacent to the first (any direction)
  • Play a PASS card
    • Each player has N PASS cards
    • PASS cards immediately pass control to the partner and are lost when played
  • Place or recover their BLOCK
    • Each player has one BLOCK
    • BLOCKs mark positions that may not be played in
    • Should a trick end while blocks are still in play they are lost
  • Pass
• Suits should probably wrap, 10-11-12-1-2 style

Divination of intent and thence coordination seems the core problem of a partnership game. More standard partnership card games communicate richly by what is/is_not played when and how that pattern relates to the goals of the partnership. Not One More also supports extensive signalling in the card grid, but it is both extraordinarily rich and extraordinarily diffuse, making divination and coordination hard. The primary idea of the above structures is to add more discrete signalling methods between partners.

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