Wikichase Design Log

20220731

• It seems easier for beginners to have a rule where the goal is to keep running for n minutes.
  • For now, let’s implement that as the main rule, and it would be fun to eventually implement a mode where the goal is specified as an option.

20220709 First test play with (rickshinmi)(fuka)(kaya) using the following rules:

Rules

• Real-time game of tag (Not turn-based like Scotland Yard)
• Play tag by jumping through links on Wikipedia pages
• The game ends when the police catch up to the evader’s page
• Positions:
  • The chaser’s position is always revealed
  • The evader’s position is revealed every other time
• To balance the game, the evader has two constraints:
  1. Can only move once every 8 seconds
     • There is an 8-second cooldown time after each move
  2. Can only use links in the first paragraph of a page

• It was quite fun (blu3mo)
• Thoughts/Findings
  • Setting a goal gives the evader a purpose and is good
    • It’s also good to have “evader wins” as an outcome
    • It’s better if the chaser doesn’t know the goal
      • If the chaser knows the goal, they can wait and ambush at the goal, making it almost impossible for the evader to reach it
    • How should the goal be determined?
      • Choosing the goal randomly seems problematic
        • Since the evader can only use the first paragraph, it’s quite difficult to reach the desired page
          • Especially if the goal is a proper noun, it’s often not mentioned in the first paragraph, making it challenging
        • So, it’s necessary to choose a word for the goal that is appropriately difficult, rather than random
      • During the test play, a third party decided the goal manually
      • It might be possible to prepare a “set of appropriate words for the goal” and choose randomly from there?
        • However, if that’s the case, it would be difficult to have multilingual versions, so if possible, I would like to find a way to determine the goal mechanically (blu3mo)
      • Alternatively, we could prepare multiple goals and randomly select around 5 pages?
        • If we select 5 pages, we should be able to reach at least one, or something like that
        • No, it seems impossible with 5 pages, haha (blu3mo)
          • I tried randomly selecting 5 pages, but they all seemed hopeless
  • I thought it would be fun if we added a hop limit, like catching within 30 hops, but then the evader would just be continuously clicked (rickshinmi)
    • It might be fun to have a different game mode called “evader moves freely, and the pursuer wins if they catch within a limited number of moves” as a separate mode (blu3mo)