Basically there was a consensus at L19 of "You're not even a Go
player, so why are you here complaining about Kaya?" I found that to
be infantile and snotty, and I'm surprised Joaz bought into it. Some
Kaya members felt that I had been "abrasive" at L19. I suppose it's
relative. If you go to an ass kissing convention ("We should be
thankful to the Kaya developers for the privilege of participating,
and we should avoid offending them, yada, yada, yada") and you're the
only one not kissing ass, you might appear abrasive in contrast.
It's true that I'm not a Go player. I'm not a serious player of any
games except one of my own, Oust. I think very highly of (hex board)
Oust, which is not as natural as you might expect. I don't regularly
play any of my other games, including the popular ones such as
Cephalopod and Atoll, which have been played tens of thousands of
times at various game sites. Ego, bias, etc. won't motivate you to
play your own five year old game hundreds of times. You have to
really enjoy it.
http://www.marksteeregames.com/Oust_rules.pdf
I feel a kinship with Go, even though I'm not a player. Together with
Reversi, Go was my inspiration for getting into design twenty years
ago. Since then I've invented several games for the goban.
http://www.marksteeregames.com/MSG_abstract_games.html
http://www.marksteeregames.com/MSG_connection_games.html
A Kaya member told me "You could be a player." My response was "You
could be a designer." How many hats must I wear?
I have played Go a few times, always ending in frustration, but I
haven't given up. I will take another look at the tutorials at some
point, which I've started into several times but haven't completed.
I've heard a criticism of Go (not from Go lifers of course) that it's
no deeper than many modern games - something I wholeheartedly
believe. But in Go's favor, it's a survivor. Not every ancient game
has spanned the centuries. Many have fallen by the wayside. Go is
also organic. It's based on a simple, fairly obvious mechanism. If
Go had not been invented before now, it would certainly be invented by
me or one of my fellow designers. Go has to exist on any intelligent
planet (as must Oust), and odds are in favor of Go's (and Oust's)
indefinite survival in the universe.
Admittedly I'm a Go outsider. Even in abstract games I'm somewhat of
an outsider. I designed most of my games in a vacuum, so to speak,
having no knowledge of existing abstract games. Gradually I've come
to learn a thing or two about the world of abstract games, but I'm
still pretty naive (though it hasn't stopped me from creating superior
games).
At L19 I was constantly vilified by the members. Shit like "So you're
a designer, huh?" And "What if nobody plays your games?"
Yes, I'm a designer. My games are played at 16 games sites, far more
than any other designer.
http://www.marksteeregames.com/MSG_game_sites.html
The notion that nobody plays my games is fucking absurd. My games
have been played many tens of thousands of times (verifiably), perhaps
even going into the hundreds of thousands (no stats available at
megasites Ludoteka and ItsYourTurn).
-Mark
Mark Steere Games
http://www.marksteeregames.com/index.html