Re: [game-lang] a survey of previous work

[Marc Lanctot <lanctot@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/24/2010 06:07 AM, Simon McGregor wrote:

> I'd like to suggest that we adopt different terms for (at least) two
> meanings of "game":
> 1) the abstract structure of the game as it would be defined in
> mathematical game theory
> 2) the overall structure of the game as it presents itself
> experientially, including its component organisation and appearance
>
> I suppose it boils down to what we want the language to represent. We
> can represent the rules in a purely formal way, and separate that
> more-or-less completely from the GUI. My preference would be for a
> language which includes both the rules (in a "gameplay description
> language"?) and the elements relevant to the GUI and appearance (in a
> "game presentation description language"?).
> The reason I put question marks over the separation is that (board)
> games are usually made from standard components (e.g. cards, spaces,
> dice, counters) which affect both the cognitive ergonomics (including
> appearance) of the game and the logical relations which the components
> can have to one another.
>
> It would seem a bit perverse to me to have a language which spells out
> that the game logic involves a randomly permutable list of (hidden
> side, public side) pairs, and independently specifies how this list in
> the GUI can be represented by a deck of cards.
>
> Does that make sense?

I think so. If you're saying that you want the language to include some 
high-level notions that are standard in gaming (a hand of cards, a 
board, what it means to be adjacent on that board, what a "suit" is, 
what a "color" is, etc.) then I agree 100% -- that's exactly what GDL is 
missing.. and they're opposed to adding these because they want the 
general game programs to figure this out from their low-level descriptions.

What I prefer to keep separate from the language are specifications for 
how these GUI elements are presented to the user. IMHO, anybody 
implementing a program to interpret the game rules should have complete 
freedom over how they graphically represent the game.

I think we do want to define "game" closer to the 1) from above.. at 
least that's the impression I got. Except we want succinct and 
expressive representation.

Marc

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