Monday, March 21, 2016

Two different Anti-Clobbers

In a post many years ago about Martian Chess, I mentioned trying to play a Clobber variant where each clobbering move destroys your own piece instead of the opponent's.  In the comments, Michael Albert replied that he had already studied this game a bit and was referring to it as Anti-Clobber. 

I liked that name and ran with it, and mentioned it in some talks, etc.  Then, a few months ago, I found out that there's already a different game with this name and it's implemented in CGSuite.  Clearly that's enough reason to change the name of the game I've been calling Anti-Clobber.

The actual Anti-Clobber is really like playing Clobber in reverse: each turn, instead of clobbering an adjacent opposing piece, you move a piece into an adjacent unoccupied spot and place a new opponent piece in the space you just left.  It's definitely non-trivial, interesting, and fun.  There are some sneaky moves you can make.

Good news:  This is a great game!

Bad news: It is definitely more Anti-Clobber than the game I was considering before.  It's also better for some other names I was thinking of:
  • Reverse Clobber
  • Unclobber
  • Backwards Clobber
So, I need to change the name to something different.  Here's what I've brainstormed so far:
  • Self-Clobber
  • Suicide-Clobber  (too morbid?)
Got any other good ideas?  Got any feelings towards these?  Let me know via email or in the comments.

3 comments:

  1. Definitely a nice idea! Is it too similar to Backwards Clobber?

    ReplyDelete
  2. How about "Rake"? As in: https://youtu.be/2WZLJpMOxS4

    ReplyDelete