A Virtual Ludography, Part 1

Games and Gaming in Second Life, a Virtual Ludography

The Start of an Ongoing, Occasional Commentary by Hotspur O'Toole

As is somewhat obvious to those that know me, I do rather like a good board or card game in preference to many social activities, and am generally fairly tickled to find a decent board or card game ported into Second Life. As I gazed about Upstairs the other night, it occurred to me that I am starting to get quite a collection together, and maybe I should start cataloguing them.. at the very least, it may be of some value to the casual reader who has an interest in the same activities.

So, to proceed, I present a Virtual Ludography of the board and card games I have discovered in Second Life, with the codicil that I cannot cover all of them in a single piece, and that the field is ever changing. I have found many brilliant games in SL dotted here and there on the landscape, only to find that the designer has moved on and is no longer around to support the game inside of Second Life.

I will start with the most accessible games, the ones that are rezzed out on Polymath Upstairs right now.

1) CRIBBAGE: designed by "Friendly Little Games"s (aka Kisiri Mfume), I found this for 700L on the SL Exchange. It is a very, very recent purchase. A two player card game of some complexity with a great visual component-- the scoring board. Cribbage boards come in a couple of variations, depending on whom you ask. Socially, the game would appeal to a couple of players, but isn't exactly a "crowd pleaser" unless you enjoy playing with a lot of onlookers or have several stations set up for a tournament or league play. At a mere 700 lindens, one could almost do something like that in SL, if one had a mind. Cribbage does have a three, four and six hand variant, but it would not appear as if this SL version supports anything other than two players. I have only played with the mechanics of this implementation yet, myself (it is rather new to me), but it seems like everything works as advertised and the game can be played using this set. Definitely a good purchase!

Rules of Cribbage Online at the American Cribbage Congress. Newbies might want to try a game online HERE at Pogo, an online games website (it's commercial, but they allow free play of Cribbage as a marketing ploy). I admit to being an indifferent player, but hope to get better at it.

2) ZENDO: Zendo is a logic game of guessing and counter guessing using visual objects set up in a secret pattern by the Zen Master (or referee, or GM, or whatever). The Master's acolytes attempt to achieve the "Buddha nature" by guessing aspects of the secret pattern with visual clues. A pattern can have the "Buddha nature" if it is all green, or all large pieces, or pointed in a certain way, for instance. Zendo makes use of a series of generic pyramidic "Icehouse" pieces produced by Looney Labs. I had created a set of these to tinker with, myself, but found a much nicer set of four colors inworld when Rivkin Habsburg, creator of the En Garde system, took me to a Zendo set up inworld (alas, I did not bookmark it, and I'm kicking myself). Since they are freebies, I don't mind handing them out, either. The Zendo Set you see here is one of my own design using those pieces. I added bowls for guessing stones (green, white, black) and a quadrant for facilitating koans or logic problems (e.g, a piece can only have the Buddha nature if it is in the fourth quadrant...). At this stage the set I created is incomplete. I require an object that will randomly assign koans (logic problems written on a series of texture cards) to the master, say, by touching it. One of the drawbacks of Zendo (as I envision it in world) is that it is very much a game that requires you to make some manual processes in world using EDIT tools (players must own their OWN set of pieces to play this, that much is clear). The game absolutely requires players skillful enough to manipulate objects in physical game space, and adjust and tinker with them to formulate complex problems (or koans in gamespeak). I need not mention that this is a LOGIC game, and that in itself has a certain appeal that might limit it to a certain kind of player or group of players. I, myself (in RL) have played Zendo more than a few times with the same group of people, and we great enjoy hamming up the "Master" and "Acolyte" roles, speaking in bad casting call Oriental accents that would be hard to replicate without voice. So it's not for everyone. On the plus side, all this stuff is free.. and I'm providing pointers here so you can make a set yourself, or use mine (rezzed out on Upstairs; I believe I left it open copy). There is a freebie dispenser with Treehosue (see below) that will give you all the Icehouse pieces.

The Zendo Home page, with many a useful variation and addition, is located HERE. Karl Von Lauderman created a Java app that creates random koans HERE. You can download a desktop app that (sorta, kinda) plays Zendo in the role of the MASTER, HERE. I found the following site that rated (and presented) dozens and dozens of existing Zendo koans to be of great use. Oddly enough, Looney Laboratories, the publisher of Zendo, no longer has it in print, but you can created it easily enough with a few generic parts that they sell and are available for free in Second Life.

3) PERUDO, aka LIAR'S DICE: is a game that involves betting, bluffing and dice rolling. Pavig Lok has created a scripted object (in the shape of a dice cup and not a fez, as some have suggested). To play with a crowd, which is frankly the best way of playing this game, you will need to give one of these objects to each player. The cup will handle the dice rolling and presentation part (and not just with numbers), and quite elegantly at that. You will have to keep track of bets yourself (of course, we all know betting is illegal in Second Life, right?). I am not sure of Pav's plans for this object (I helped playtest, and haven't seen it for sale). I know that it works easily enough, and is a great multiplayer game for a partying crowd. EDIT: Pavig left a comment expressing her ultimate plans for the Perudo set in the comments section of this post, as well as a location to get your own copy. I strongly recommend picking up your own Perudo cup, the game is a blast.

The Latin American variant of Liar's Dice, Perudo, has a website dedicated to online play, Perudo.com. A rather comprehensive strategy page is HERE. A commercial version is HERE.

4) Backgammon: I am not sure who the creator of this particular set was, but it wasn't cheap, no matter what. I went to his/her shop in world to pick it up and dallied about it for a while before committing the Lindens. Would I really, really play this one that much to justify the sale? I guess I'm a gambler, because I ended up purchasing it. As I write this the world is down and I can't log in to check the creator.

The set is designed for two player play (obviously) but it is not so all encompassing as to prevent it from being a social game. I can attest that this set plays a real, honest-to-goodness game of backgammon from start to finish (although, I can't (right now) verify if it handles doubling or not, which is a crucial element to the RL game). EDIT: the designer is Blue Brock, and this backgammon set is available on SLeX for 4499 Lindens HERE, or you can visit his store in Bunyip HERE. I will be visiting that store in a follow up posting on this subject, as Mr. Brock has made more than a backgammon set.

Mr. Brock's description of the set:

Wow! There is finally a backgammon game in SL! This game is for 2 players and plays just like real backgammon. Bar off all your pieces before your opponent and you win!Backgammon 2.0 is here! Smaller table, less prims and more stable.Has all the same rules as real backgammon including getting sent to the bar.This game is fully animated and runs on the table itself, not in a HUD...This game has full sounds and animation, including dice and avatar animations.Pay into a pot or just play for fun.With your purchase you are entitled to upgrades to Gammon until the end of time

So there are the first four or so of JUST the Polymath collection, of which there are more. I will publish more in this series in the near future.

SERIES KEY:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Special TMP ed.