http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4354 Giveaway of the Day Forums » Topic: Week 12 - Free games for the weekdays - Absolute Mastermind & Gipf en-US Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:57:45 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4354#post-46822 Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:59:01 +0000 Sema_ger 46822@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>The other game from the series implemented at Brettspielwelt is Dvonn (<a href="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/Dvonn/)" rel="nofollow">http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/Dvonn/)</a>. I know both, and I personally find Yinsh easier to learn than Dvonn. Both are purely strategic, the luck element is exactly zero in all of those games. </p> <p>Many of the games implemented there have won awards and are or were sold very often. All of them are implemented there with full knowledge and licence of the publisher, who often see that as a form of advertising, leading to some games even playable there before they are sold.</p> <p>For first-time visitors to the site, I suggest to take a few moments to read the introduction, and if possible, pick a game you already know. Read the online rules first if you are unsure, and you won't have trouble. The site is more or less intuitive, as is playing most games, especially the younger games. Don't hesitate to ask once you have entered the world and are feeling lost, the users there are normally very newbee-friendly.</p> <p>Gruß,<br /> Sema </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4354#post-46820 Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:11:12 +0000 Whiterabbit-uk 46820@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Bitte Sema, I'd not heard of Settler of Catan. So will check it out as it sounds intriquing. </p> <p>Wow, what you've just told me makes the board game even more interesting. I'm certainly going to check amazon to see if I can't get the set. Here's what I found out about Yinsh:</p> <blockquote><p>Innovative game designer Kris Burm has created YINSH, released October 2003, fifth in a series of two player abstract games called Project GIPF. Each game in the Project GIPF series introduces a game element that may be added to any other Project GIPF game, making each game more fun and challenging. </p> <p>In YINSH, a player has five rings to manipulate on the board. When a ring is moved, a marker is placed on the board with the player's color face up (opponent's color face down - each marker has two sides). Rings may be moved any number of spaces in one direction. Rings may not jump over other rings, but rings may jump over markers. When a ring jumps markers, it lands in the first open space and all the jumped markers are flipped over to the opposite color. When a player creates a line of five markers in the player's color, those markers and a ring of that player's color are removed. The first player to remove three rings wins the game! </p> <p>The stones with their both sides which are turned by rings show how well the "Storm" theme and the game mechanism co-operate</p> </blockquote> <p>Reference: <a href="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/Yinsh/?nation=en" rel="nofollow">http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/Yinsh/?nation=en</a> Accessed 4th Dec 08</p> <p>I've never heard of such a series of games before, but it's a great idea having five seperate elements that can be mixed together to make a more complicated/interesting game</p> <p>regards</p> <p>Whiterabbit </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4354#post-46817 Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:02:36 +0000 Sema_ger 46817@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Thanks a lot for those, Stephen!<br /> Gipf is part of a five-game series. Two of them, Yinsh and another whose name I have forgotten, are playable for free at the Brettspielwelt (www.brettspielwelt.de). The site is originally German, but has hundreds of players from every corner of the world right now. An English introduction can be found at <a href="http://www.brettspielwelt.info" rel="nofollow">http://www.brettspielwelt.info</a><br /> By the way, Brettspielwelt means board game world in English, the aim of the site is to let you play board games at the computer with friends or other folks as close to the original board game as possible. Maybe you've heard of Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne, those are two other games which are playable there.</p> <p>Gruß,<br /> Sema </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4354#post-46738 Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:41:14 +0000 midori 46738@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Alrighty, Stephen... my brain hurts. But it "hurts so good." 8-] </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4354#post-46729 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:55:10 +0000 Whiterabbit-uk 46729@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p><strong>Absolute Mastermind</strong>: (6.67Mb)</p> <p>As promised, today’s games are puzzle games. Mastermind the game was an instant classic when it was first released in the 1970’s, and took the UK by storm; much like the Rubrik cube did a few years later. Today’s game has much more than the original game though, (apart from substantiality, lol); including the ability to play against another player. I was going to post a few word games as well, but after finding the second game below, I though that that would complement today’s game more so have decided to post the word games in a few weeks time when it’s my turn again.</p> <p><strong>Quote</strong>:</p> <blockquote><p>Absolute Mastermind v1.3 is a mind game with great feeling and fantastic 24 bit graphics, with wonderful color animations and music/sounds to make it a really enjoyable experience. The game has three difficulty levels to choose from and even a Mind Duel (2 player mode) function. The configuration window has dozens of options to alter the look/sound/feel of the game. It also supports skins, 2 skins comes with the game (metal &#38; wood).</p> </blockquote> <p>Reference: <a href="http://www.nonags.com/software.asp?id=1192" rel="nofollow">http://www.nonags.com/software.asp?id=1192</a> accessed Sept 08</p> <p>Though the author’s home page is no longer active so I don’t know about being able to get new skins for the interface. The metallic skin is really nice in my opinion and gives the game a look of professionalism, that some commercial games lack.</p> <p><strong>Images</strong>:</p> <p><a href="http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&#38;q=absolute+mastermind&#38;btnG=Search+Images&#38;gbv=2" rel="nofollow">http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&#38;q=absolute+mastermind&#38;btnG=Search+Images&#38;gbv=2</a></p> <p><strong>Download Link</strong>:</p> <p><a href="http://web.telia.com/~u43509647/amind.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.telia.com/~u43509647/amind.html</a></p> <p><strong>Absolute Mastermind Manual</strong>:</p> <p>There’s actually no downloadable document, so you’ll need to cut and paste it to a word or other document program.</p> <p><a href="http://web.telia.com/~u43509647/aminddoc.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.telia.com/~u43509647/aminddoc.html</a></p> <p>===============================================</p> <p>Initially I was only going to post the one game today, then decided to add a couple of word games, but while searching for images and reviews for mastermind, I stumbled upon the following x-in-a-row game that was originally released in 1997, which intrigued me. It’s called GF1, which is a computerized form of the board game Gipf. <em>Have you ever heard of it? …..me neither</em>, but it looks intriguing, so much so that I’m tempted to get the actual board game for the family. Check it out by following the link below. The game allows you to play against another human or the computer, but beware; the computer is very hard, but not impossible to beat. The interface is clean and neat, and to move counters you use the mouse. </p> <p>You can find detailed instructions on how to play the game within the unpacked files. There is no installer with the zip file so you’ll need to first create a folder which you can name Gipf or GF1, (or whatever you wish) then unpack the contents of the zip file you’ve downloaded from the link below, move the folder to wherever you install your games to, then create a shortcut to the desktop from the games executable. If you’re not sure how to create a shortcut, there’s a short tutorial elsewhere in the game discussion forums (at least page 8 or 9) Alternatively, for the first step you can create a new folder where you usually place your games and unpack the zip file to where you’ve placed the folder. Don’t forget to name the folder though.</p> <blockquote><p>GIPF was created as the first of a series of abstract strategy board games based on a hexagonal grid, designed by Kris Burm. The goal is to capture the opponent's pieces. The hexagonal board has 4 spaces on a side, and 2 or 3 vectors that lead to each of these edge spaces.<br /> The game begins with three pieces from each player, placed on the corner spaces. The players then alternate moves of placing one of their pieces on a vector and bringing it into play by sliding it (and pushing any pieces along its line) onto the board. If, at any time, four or more pieces belonging to the same player form a line, those pieces and any others in their line are collected by that player. A player may return pieces removed from the board to play, but keeps any of the other player's pieces (a capture). The game ends when one player has run out of pieces to bring into play. That player. </p></blockquote> <p>Reference: <a href="http://everything2.com/title/GIPF" rel="nofollow">http://everything2.com/title/GIPF</a> accessed 2nd December 08</p> <p><strong>Images</strong>:</p> <p><a href="http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&#38;q=gipf&#38;btnG=Search+Images&#38;gbv=2" rel="nofollow">http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&#38;q=gipf&#38;btnG=Search+Images&#38;gbv=2</a></p> <p><strong>Download Link</strong>:</p> <p><a href="http://www.gipf.com/gipf/webplay/webplay.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gipf.com/gipf/webplay/webplay.html</a> </p> <p>===============================================</p> <blockquote><p>While searching for videos of the games above I came across a comedy sketch by the British duo Morcambe and Wise doing a sketch of Mastermind. I don’t know whether the world will appreciate the humor, but I just couldn’t resist adding it to the end of this post. Oh yeah, for middle aged wrestling fans listen out for the last few words spoken by Ernie, the point will probably be missed by the majority, basically Ernie callsMagnus Magnusson, Mr Macmanus and makes a reference to his wrestling abilities. McManus was one of the dirty men of British wrestling in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Both are sadly missed. For the video to run properly, you may need to put it on pause to allow the streaming to complete: </p></blockquote> <p><a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HEjdJszBbY8" rel="nofollow">http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HEjdJszBbY8</a> </p>