discussion about the flavours WYPS

Hi all,

I would like to start off a short discussion about this nice game. We already saw quite different variants here.

1. Winning condition (connecting all three edges)

(a) first player to connect

(b) when the board is full

I prefer (b) here, just because you can try to fight and to turn around the game. Variant (a) was somehow disappointing to me, because I was beaten almost instantly.

2. Changing the colour of one tile

(a) only once (then its color is frozen)

(b) infinitely often

Variant (a) is a nice idea. Unfortunately, I could not get used to it. It always seemed to be a bad idea to play into a certain field, because your opponent could steal this field from you. It was something like "nobody moves, nobody get's hurt". In my eyes variant (b) is better.

3. Changing the colour of multiple tiles

(a) only one tile per move

(b) some tiles used

(c) all tiles used

I prefer variant (c) over variant (a). It enables you to turn an almost lost game around. Somewhere in between could be variant (b): for every second file played you can conquer one field of your opponent's colour, i.e. playing a 2n- or (2n+1)-letter word allows you to take over n fields.

4. arranging tiles into valid "words"

(a) a straight line

(b) a line with a "kink"

(c) neighboring fields

Variant (b) is new to WYPS, I stole the idea from an article posted here some time ago. It is a compromise between (a) and (c). I think that (c) gives too big an advantage to computer aided players. This reminds me of GWG (which I like very much, by the way). In variant (a) you can block your opponent quite easily, which is an important element of this flavour game. Maybe variant (b) could be more challenging and interesting than variant (a).

5. Elements used for gameplay (letters, numbers)

(a) numbers: ascending order

(b) letters: words from different languages

(c) letters: ascending order

These are not only different variants, but truly different games. Variant (a) is the fairest one, because everyone knows the entire (very small) dictionary. Variant (b) is cool, but sometimes you will get crushed by some obscure non-word. Variant (c) is just a version of variant (a) with a differently sized alphabet. Maybe 26 letters are too much. For example, one could use A,...,P for a hexadecimal alphabet.

Ok. Here my preference in short:

1b, 2b, 3c (or b?), 4a (or b?), that is:

The line variant of WYPS, where you change the colour of all tiles used, where no stop-signs appear on the board and the winner has to connect on a full board.

The variants (5a) and (5b) are essentially the same, but the very small dictonary of (5a) turns it into a completely different game.

I would like to try the modifications (3b) and (4b), where recolouring tiles is harder than in (3a) but arranging words is easier than in (4a).

Thank you for reading through this

Thomas

Nice overview, thanks for making it.

I have basically started playing on LG with intensely playing the 'classic' WYPS (1a 2b 3a 4c 5b), and spend an inordinate amount of time to perfect my play (with corresponding results). With the new versions, that in the beginning completely replaced the classic, I was doing really bad, and got very frustrated. I think it is indeed a very different (and great!) game, but it should have it's own place and ranking.

I have now stopped playing WYPS completely because it was too frustrating to start all over from scratch because of a rule change, which could happen every other day again. How do you think Kasparov would feel if they significantly change the rules of chess on him? And even better, in the middle of a tournament? ' This is the WYPS monthly championship, but if you win this round, next round we play a very different game?'

WYPS line and WYPS classic are for me like Poker and Bridge. They both use the same material, but they are quite different.

Going back to the original topic: I think building more and more versions has its risk. They all might be nice and playable, but each further version will spread the number of players further, so we might end up having ten variants with 5 players each that love it. Pretty boring, I think; sometimes less is more.

What would I do (if it were my call)?

I would have three versions, each with its own ranking and championship:

- Classic WYPS (abacb), in various languages

- Ascending WYPS with numbers (baaca), also kind of classic

- Line WYPS with (bbcab), in various languages

I agree the other combinations might be interesting, but I don't think they would be better, just different. So for the reasons explained above, variety should be limited to three max.

After one year of playing WYPS there were some real problems with design of game:

1. Every size of game has different number of letters in POOL.

2. There was a strong simple double line strategy.

3. Special rule for first move was necessary

4. Playing on small board was very very short

5. Game was often suddenly finished with some unexpectedly move

6. FullBoard variant has no strategy

7. During game bad letters (Q, J, X) cumulate in pool

New version is far better mainly for beginners:

1. The same rules for all sizes of board and rules are simple.

2. No special rule for first move.

3. Game on small board is really interesting.

4. Game has better strategy (create computer AI is harder)

5. Cumulation bad letters in pool is not problem now.

While I understand the reasons for the rules changes, they took a lot of the excitement out of the game. Two players fighting for control of a single letter, back and forth with increasingly more elaborate plays is what made WYPS really interesting to me. The line version reduces that factor too much for my taste.

BTW I receive next suggestion for change rule for moving letters from rack to pool. Prioritize to have at least two vowels and two consonants in pool (if it is possible).