Virtual Ludography: Exclusive-- CAN'T STOP inworld

Can't Stop, the Sid Sackson Classic, Soon to be Available in World

Ask any Joe or Jane on the street who Sid Sackson was, and you'll receive a blank look. Perhaps a thin trickle of drool.

Ask any RL boardgaming nut who Sid Sackson was, and you'll get an earful. Sid Sackson was the one man game designing machine that gave the world such classic games as ACQUIRE (on of YHN's favorites, played on his palm pilot as Ackwire, constantly). SLEUTH (the granddaddy of parlor game deduction/logic games and closely related to Cluedo), BAZAAR, DOMINATION (aka FOCUS), METROPOLIS and many many others. Sid was also keenly interested in both the history and theory of game design, and wrote some classics of the genre, A GAMUT OF GAMES and the "Beyond Games" series from Pantheon book. Personally, Sid was a warm and wonderful fellow, generous with his time and helpful with his advice. Sadly, Sid passed away in 2002 after a long illness.

One of Sid's best designs, a risk-taking dice rolling game called CAN'T STOP, is soon to be available in world. The talented and prolific Rifkin Hapsburg (of En Garde fame) recently fielded a prototype for playtest, and invited YHN and others to playtest it last night. This was my first opportunity to see the game played inworld with a four player game.

How to play:

The game is played on a board that's shaped like a stop sign, with square indentations making columns under the numbers from 2 to 12. There are 3 indentations in the 2 column, 5 indentations in the 3 column, on up to 13 indentations in the 7 column, and back down to 3 indentations in the 12 column. To win the game, a player must capture three columns.

There are four dice. On each roll, the player chooses how he wants to pair off the dice, making two numbers from two dice each. He's got three temporary place markers. At the start of the game, let's say he rolls a 1, 2, 4, and 6. He can call that a 3 and a 10, or a 5 and an 8, but he chooses to call it a 6 and a 7. He places two of the place markers at the bottom of the 6 and 7 columns. He rolls again. This time, he gets three 1's and a 6. The only possible combination is 2 and 7. So, he moves the marker that's already in the 7 column up one notch, and places the last marker in the 2 column. From here on in, he can keep rolling and advancing the markers as long as it's possible to make either a 2, a 6, or a 7. After every roll, he can pass the dice and call his turn over, replacing the temporary markers with markers in his color. This progress up the columns is permanent, and he'll continue from there on subsequent turns. However, if he rolls a 4, a 5, and two 6's, he craps out as he can't make any of his numbers, the temporary markers come off the board, and he's made no progress on this turn. Once he gets to the top of a column, he has captured it, and three columns wins the game.

The inworld varient, by Procyon Games (Mr. Hapsburg's game company), plays surprisingly like the original stop sign shaped game from 1980 (which YHN owns in RL, and was ecstatic to pick up for 3 dollars at a garage sale!).

The Game Board (YHN in orange chair)

The game is packaged like a game table, and the seats are integral to game play as they communicate your seated status to your game HUD. The game is started by some external trigger (which I didn't see last night) and the first player ends up with the board rotated facing him or her. He rolls the dice with the HUD used to play the game (see below, HUD is on top left), and selects appropriate pairs or singles of dice rolls.

What the player sees (HUD, top left), game turn is currently with the player on YHN's left (yell0w)

The game is realized very well inworld, with little touches such as the gameboard rotating to give you the proper perspective, and little sound effects (you "crapped out!" waa waa waaaaaa) adding much to the game playing experience.

I'm happy to report I handily won the first round, but "crapped out" repeatedly in the second game. CAN'T STOP is all about how a player handles risk and makes decisions (with some math thrown in to boot). I played far too risky in the second game, as I perceived I was behind and was seeking to recapture lost ground. Bad idea! Our playtesting revealed a small bug which was easily fixed by Mr. Hapsburg. Otherwise, I'd say this game is rapidly nearing completion, based on last night's play.

I applaud Mr. Rifkin Hapsburg on what appears to be a wonderful product, and I can't wait to see it in world. I'm soooo buying this.

Postscript: Can't Stop was mentioned in Virtual Ludography 4, as an upcoming product by Rubble of Burnt Oaks. The game described in this article is NOT the game I saw in that shop, and features a very different visual approach to the same subject. I refer you back to the earlier article to compare.