Sometimes this magazine comes together really easily, with the articles fitting together like the pieces of
a jigsaw puzzle and errors being smoothed out of it effortlessly. Sometimes it is more difficult, and the
last issue was one of those. Our fabulous copy editor was mortified. We have done our best to ensure that
this issue will be better.
Many readers liked the articles we have
run about "forgotten classics" or "modern classics," so we have decided to do more of them. This issue
contains a large spread about Entropy and a short piece about Phalanx. The next issue should see articles
on Domain, Pagoda, and Steppe. The latter, another in the short series of abstract games published by TSR
in the 1980's, has become my favorite "new" game of the last several months. It is a gem.
Checkers variant material continues to roll in.
This issue includes Lasca. The next issue will contain an article by the same writer about his fascinating Sleeping
Beauty Draughts. And then we have two solid articles on Bashne that I have been waiting for the right moment
to put in the magazine. We could not include any Go variants this time, but I expect to have an article on
Rosette soon, and also we will be covering Orbit in some detail, a Go-like game by Steve Meyers, inventor of Anchor.
There are two types of "serious" game players.
The first type studies and plays one game exclusively, in order to get good at it. In Western countries, the
quintessential game for serious study is, of course, Chess, although there are many devotees of one or another
of the checkers variants. In the East, Go, Shogi, and Xiangqi are preeminent.
The second type of game player samples many
different games, and is frequently flitting around from one game to another—there is never the time to get
really good at any one game. I belong firmly in the second category, although I have had periods where I have
focused exclusively on Go or on Shogi or on Lines of Action. Recently, my game playing has become even more
eclectic, as there is rarely the opportunity to devote more than a couple of sessions to any one game before
it gets pushed out by one of the new games coming in.
Sometimes I miss the thrill of investigating
games in more depth, and reading about and applying strategies (or devising and testing new strategies if the
game has no literature). Maybe I should pick three or four games to concentrate on over an extended period of
time. One of these would be Onyx, which stretches before me like an ocean. Perhaps Dvonn, of recent games,
would be another, although I have not played it enough to know certainly whether it really has the same quality
of depth beyond depth. I thought Renju would be such a game for me, and I have tried and tried, but I cannot
break into the region where it begins to make sense to me. I am sure this is a fault of mine rather than of
the game, and perhaps alignment games as a whole are not for me. One of these days I will return to Lines of
Action, but a few years ago I overdid it and became a little too obsessed with analysis. I haven't been able
to play it much since.
Mentalis I've always loved, and it would
definitely be one of those three or four special games. But it is not really suitable for distance play, and
unfortunately most of my "serious" game playing has to be via e-mail these days. Maybe Realm is another, or
Steppe, or Dameo, or Entropy. Perhaps my flitting from game to game is really a quest for the ultimate game
that will deliver the perfect playing experience time after time. It's a journey, like life.
