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by roydivision 566 days ago
I've been wondering for some time if it would be possible to create a formal way of describing board game rules. Although there is much variety in board gaming, mostly they consist of some sort of state machine, with events that change that state, and usually a clear end game state.

Does anyone know if this has been researched?
2 comments
devjab 566 days ago
I don’t think you will be capable of pushing it as a sort of board game protocol. I think the best way to do rules is to have a rulebook where it’s very easy to look up rules as a reference later. Setup, turns and actions are relatively easy to learn, but you’ll often have to look up consequences of actions or specific events over the years. Rulebook which mix in everything in a big mess designed to describe “how to play for new players”, tend to make it hard to look up things. Which is what you’re going to want to do after a few play throughs. Especially if you play a lot of different board games.

I think the biggest challenges you’ll face is that most rulebooks are simply poorly written and that many games aren’t well designed. Add to this that many modern board games are sold on FOMO models, where you get a lot of additional crowdfunding exclusive rule addons, and it’s just a mess.

The best way to get good rules would probably be to get them digitally and have a LLM refine them for you though. Not only could you fix some of the bad writing, you could also ask for things like reference sheets or whatever you want.

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Jensson 566 days ago
> I've been wondering for some time if it would be possible to create a formal way of describing board game rules

There is, it is called computer code. Board game rules aren't written that way for a reason.

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ben_w 565 days ago
> Board game rules aren't written that way for a reason.

Most board games.

Star Fleet Battles is basically a computer game written on paper 10 years before home computers had enough RAM for the rule set.

The result is what you may expect, each "turn" takes 60-90 minutes and the game lasts 3-4 turns, and every box on this ship diagram actually does something: https://cf.geekdo-images.com/camo/45ff4f9cf11f36cafd7768931a...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battles

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