Three Musketeers

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Three Musketeers
GDC 2004
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Rules for Three Musketeers

• Players take turns moving one of their pieces.
  No diagonal moves.
• Musketeers move by capturing a nearby enemy.
• Cardinals men move to a nearby empty space.
• Cardinal wins if the Musketeers are in the same
  row or column.
• Musketeers win if they cannot move.

Starting Board
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Observations?
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Discussion Questions

• Whats a good strategy for the Musketeers? For
  the Cardinal?

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Discussion Questions

• What interesting rule variants or modifications
  can we come up with?

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Aesthetic Breakdown

• What are the aesthetics of Three Musketeers?
• Can we come up with aesthetic models?

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Discussion Questions

• 1. What is the maximum number of choices the
  musketeer player can have on his turn?

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Discussion Questions

• 1. What is the maximum number of choices the
  musketeer player can have on his turn?
• 2. How many first moves are there?

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Discussion Questions

• 1. What is the maximum number of choices the
  musketeer player can have on his turn?
• 2. How many first moves are there?

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Discussion Questions

• 1. What is the maximum number of choices the
  musketeer player can have on his turn?
• 2. How many first moves are there?
• 3. How many last moves are there?

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Discussion Questions

• What does this graph look like?

Choices
Time
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Exercise

• While remaining faithful to the aesthetic
  qualities we identified in the breakdown

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Exercise

• While remaining faithful to the aesthetic
  qualities we identified in the breakdown
• Adapt the rules to accommodate 3 players.

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Exercise

• While remaining faithful to the aesthetic
  qualities we identified in the breakdown
• Adapt the rules to accommodate 3 players.
• Adapt the rules to accommodate 4 players.

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Exercise

• While remaining faithful to the aesthetic
  qualities we identified in the breakdown
• Adapt the rules to accommodate 3 players.
• Adapt the rules to accommodate 4 players.
• Can you come up with a single rules set that
  accommodates 2-4 players?

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• Return to this room tomorrow morning to continue
  this exercise.
• If you want to work on the exercise tonight, feel
  free to take supplies with you. But PLEASE
  return them. We need them!

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Elective Classrooms

• C1 Creativity Exercises
• C3 Putting the Cart before the Horse
• C4 Real-Time Tuning

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Welcome Back!

• If you werent here yesterday, please come to the
  front of room C1 and check in.
• Everyone else
• Go to your Three Musketeers classroom.
• Continue working on your Three Musketeers
  changes.
• Try to have something playable by the 11AM coffee
  break.

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Time for Coffee!

• Take a break, then come back and playtest your
  designs.
• If time permits, give your design to another
  group to try.

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Discussion

• Lets compare solutions. What different
  approaches did we take?

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Discussion Questions

• How many possible board positions does your game
  have?
• How does it compare to the original game?

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Discussion Questions

• Consider the problem of adding multiplayer
  capability to a single-player digital game.
• How is this exercise similar?
• How is it different?
• What about converting a multiplayer game into a
  massively multiplayer game?

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Any Final Observations?
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Please Come to C1 for the intro to Exercise III.