Finding the Perfect Family Game

kowalski1971 writes "Some poor soul with far too much time on his hands has decided - in an attempt to increase sales at his toyshop - to calculate the formula for the perfect family game. Apparently it is, 0.22a + 0.17f + 0.153n + (0.12c - 0.1g) + 0.1s + 0.09e + 0.06d + 0.054l + 0.05m + 0.011c = pfg ...and which game came out top? Cards. So much for the increased sales then."

Re:Aces!

[SkArcher]

If you want a game where the variations are endless, try Nomic [google.com], where the aim of the game is to alter the rules. From one of the FAQ's:

Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed. (Peter Suber, The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Appendix 3, p. 362)

The game was developed from political science theory as an example - but it turned out to be a lot of fun!

Cards? Not at my house!!

[tloh]

While I was growing up, my parents thought playing cards were poisonous. We were forbidden to play (or even learn) any card games because they thought it was the first step towards becoming a gambling addict. This was extremely embarassing for me later on in school because in math class, concepts in probability and combinatorics were very often taught using ordinary playing cards. Of course, I had no idea what was going on at first, which bewildered my classmates who had gotten the idea that I was pretty sharp in math. Not a big deal, but it is a minor iritation I hold my parents responsible for.

Play cards, play sci-fi

[jdifool]

Hi,

with all my respect to the grandpa picture on the right column of the article, what kind of crap is this ?

Two questions :

• No explanation of the mathematical formula : I assume that the 0.22 coefficient for the age accessibility comes from the fact that the average life expectancy multiplied by 0.22 results in a relevant Human Development Indicator, explained somewhere else on the net.
• I'd like the scientific staff out there to explain me how they link the Monopoly Simpson Edition to their *elusive* mathematical formula. Really I'd like to know, in other words than the political scheme "family like to have some fun", what ties Homer with decimal multiplicators.

Is this really 'News for nerds' ? I'm not a nerd, but this doesn't sound even like news....

Regards,
Jdif

Why linear?

[skeptikos]

It is funny how people always try to use a linear formula to objectively quantify the quality of things. In a way it is understandable: linear systems are very simple to understand and manipulate mathematically. Unfortunately, sometimes no amount of added terms or tweaking of the coefficients will make it work. Many things are essentially nonlinear and typically, quality is one of them. I remember that in the first engineering lecture I listened to, the professor said:

"Quality means user satisfaction, and in a multicomponent system it is not the average of the quality of the individual components. The overall quality is pretty much associated with the quality of the worst component."

Linear formulas tend not to capture that. A geometric mean could, and it is also simple.

Re:Simpler formula

[Anonymous Coward]

What would probably surprise you even more is that there are in fact, statistical formulas out there that can determine the "fun factor" of a game- which are used by many large marketing and research companies out there.

Cards is a massive category

[TapestryDude]

Even after ruling out collectible games (such as Magic), the number of card games out there using specialized or modified card decks is virtually endless. Reference: Board Game Geek [boardgamegeek.com].

Although I love Whist and Hearts, one of my favoriate card games is Mu [boardgamegeek.com], a trick-taking game (like Whist or Bridge) which uses a modified deck:

• 5 suites
• Numbered 0 - 9
• Cards are worth 0 - 2 points
• Two trumps per round, decided by bidding
• Variable (each round) teams
• Plays best with five

It looks like a kitchen sink game, but in reality every aspect of it is wonderfully balanced and there's room for devious bidding and strategy.

Re:a very good boardgame

[pruneau]

Actually, we bought Carcassonne [gamenight.com] around April this year, and this is a great board game.

It is challenging enough for adults, but a 7-year old can play and have fun.

Give it a try, and you'll understand.

Re:Cards? Not at my house!!

[Otter]

FWIW, my wife teaches college math and uses playing card explanations for a number of concepts. I was surprised and she was astonished (her family is obsessed with games) at how many students were unfamiliar with playing cards. It's a heavily international group of students, but still...

Err without some serious

[Archfeld]

governmental bailout Lloyd's of London, the LARGEST insurer on the planet would have indeed gone BANKRUPT following the NY tradecenter disaster. They insured indirectly all but 1 of the planes, and the one tower that was insured.

Re:UNO!

[vericgar]

I disagree.

Stott-family Ballistic Uno is the best game ever.

There are 11 siblings in the Stott family, the 2 parents, and most of the 11 siblings have children old enough to play as well. So we usually end up with around 20-25 people playing at once in a very tight circle. Because there are so many players we use 2, sometimes even 3 decks.

And as I suspect any regular player of Uno does, we have custom rules. Like for instance if a 0 is played, you pass your hand to the left. You can "match" at any time... i.e. if you play a red 8 anyone in the circle can match the red 0 and instantly the turn moves to that person. But it has to be matched before the next card is played. This makes the game go VERY quickly. Oh yea, you can match reverses, draw fours, draw twos, whatever. If the person before you plays a draw card (i.e. you have to draw cards) if you have a draw card in your hand that matches (wild or just color) then you can play it, and the next person has to draw the total amount of the draws, unless of course they have a draw card as well.

The game goes moves VERY quickly, but rounds are actually longer then what a round under normal rules would be.

Enjoy my suggestions ;)

Re:Err without some serious

[InfoVore]

Ah yes the Lloyd's bailout, good catch. Other major insurance companies usually get bailout moneys from the government when natural disasters occur. Its a big part of most "emergency relief" funds. Most people don't realize that its happening, since news organizations are usually more interested in covering the disasters themselves.

That said, insurance companies still make very good money using what appear to be basic cliological-style tools: mass behavior studies, death statistics, etc.

Government bailouts of insurance companies seem to me to be (optimistically) more about trying to assure the continuity of insurance coverage so that people who need it are paid what they are owed when disaster occurs. Of course the cynical (me included) also note that the insurance companies are heavy lobbyists and supporters of those in power, so bailouts are really just a way of paying off the insurance companies for previous "favors". No matter which bailout reason you believe, its just the government making sure the "house" (insurance companies) never loses so bad that the "game" is shut down.

Advertisers similarly make money by predicting who will buy what kind of products/services and what will increase those sales using statistics about image exposure, target group demographics, sub-group buying habits, and so on.

Ultimately it is possible to predict and manipulate mass behavior sufficiently well to achieve your goals. Businesses and political parties rely more and more on predictive modeling and manipulation to achieve changes in mass behavior. Its working too. Basically, "they" have succeeded (whether by accident or design) in using these tools to turn the U.S. into a FUD driven mass of techno-peasant consumers.

Now where did I put that remote...

I.V.

Re:Aces!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is a bit different from any of the games you mention.

Fluxx - Fluxx is limited to the rules existing on the cards, whereas in Nomic you can create ANY rule.

Zendo - Although it has more freedom that fluxx, it is also limited to the pyramids arrangements.

MUSHes - By their own nature, since they are computer programs that implement a finite set of algorithms, are limited to follow a set of immutable rules even if they might give the illusion of freedom within the boundaries of gameplay.

CalvinBall - This is perhaps the closest game to Nomic, except that it is a totalitarian version of it and it has at least one immutable rule ("Calvinball games may never be played the same way twice"). Nomic also has an initial set of "immutable" rules, but you can change their status during play, provided your rule change gets accepted (perhaps you can do the same with CalvinBall, but the various existing rules on the web are inconsistent).

The fun part of Nomic is proposing "tricky" rules which can seem beneficial to others but are really good to you. That, and finding holes in existing rules...