From rspeer@MIT.EDU Mon Jun 16 12:16:04 2003 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:16:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pacific-carrier-annex.mit.edu ([18.7.21.83]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.12) id 19RzSN-0006qU-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 16 Jun 2003 12:15:55 -0700 Received: from central-city-carrier-station.mit.edu (CENTRAL-CITY-CARRIER-STATION.MIT.EDU [18.7.7.72]) by pacific-carrier-annex.mit.edu (8.12.4/8.9.2) with ESMTP id h5GJFoGK019022 for ; Mon, 16 Jun 2003 15:15:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from melbourne-city-street.mit.edu (MELBOURNE-CITY-STREET.MIT.EDU [18.7.21.86]) by central-city-carrier-station.mit.edu (8.12.4/8.9.2) with ESMTP id h5GJFmYJ026127 for ; Mon, 16 Jun 2003 15:15:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from torg.mit.edu (TORG.MIT.EDU [18.243.1.228]) ) by melbourne-city-street.mit.edu (8.12.4/8.12.4) with ESMTP id h5GJFmU8024100 for ; Mon, 16 Jun 2003 15:15:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from rob by torg.mit.edu with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 19RzSB-0005ol-00 for ; Mon, 16 Jun 2003 15:15:43 -0400 Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 15:15:43 -0400 From: Rob Speer To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Scrabble, word games in Lojban Message-ID: <20030616191543.GB22083@mit.edu> Mail-Followup-To: lojban-list@lojban.org References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.3i X-archive-position: 5671 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: rspeer@MIT.EDU Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Mon, Jun 16, 2003 at 08:08:02PM +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote: > There are two proposals for doing this. > > http://www.lojban.org/files/papers/scrabble.unf > http://www.lojban.org/wiki/index.php/Lojban%20Scrabble Right. That second one is mine, and let me point out that I've never gotten to play-test it, given the weird assortment of two-letter tiles it requires. I messed with the data files of Networdz (a popular Windows Scrabble program that supports other languages, though its documentation on how to do so sucks) to play the first version of Lojban Scrabble against the computer (and also having the computer play itself). The game turns into forming diagonal lines of two-letter cmavo, since that's an extremely easy way to put down a rare letter like Z, X, or F. Taking cmavo out of the dictionary solved that problem, except that it made the game _very_ difficult. The computer playing against itself made fascinating arrangements of criss-crossing gismu, most of which I had no idea what they meant. It also exchanged tiles a lot. Also, words could no longer be adjacent to other words. A Y or apostrophe on your rack was the kiss of death, since you'd have to use it to make not just any lujvo, but one that was in the lujvo list. If any valid lujvo were an allowable play (not possible with Networdz' static dictionary), that would not be so much of a problem. You couldn't even get rid of them with the word Y'Y, which turned out in the original Lojban Scrabble to be more popular than QAT is in English. Perhaps Scrabble is just not cut out for Lojban. A Lojbanic word game might have to take a different form. What about Lojban Boggle? Finding gismu and the occasional lujvo on a 5x5 Boggle board may not be too difficult - and I know I've spotted some accidentally when playing Boggle in English. -- mu'o mi'e rab.spir