72 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
72 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
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# Simulators — profiles of systems adjacent to clay-borg
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Persisted research, not a link dump. Each profile answers the same
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questions in the same order so the systems can be compared, and each
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carries **what we actually checked**.
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Written for [`../specs/Positioning.md`](../specs/Positioning.md) §1 and
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§4 — the field we sit in, and the three tracks. Track A (a second game)
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and Track B (game theory as the lens on dynamics) both depend on knowing
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what already exists.
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---
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## The confidence rule
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> **Every claim in a profile carries its source, and a claim from
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> background knowledge is marked `unverified`.**
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This directory was written immediately after three adversarial review
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rounds whose entire yield was claims that outran what had been checked
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([`../reviews/`](../reviews)). A profile that quietly mixes a fetched fact
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with a half-remembered one is the same failure in a new place — and here
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it would be worse, because these profiles are meant to inform whether we
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build something or adopt it.
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| marker | means |
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|---|---|
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| **`checked`** | read from a source this session, cited at the foot of the profile |
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| **`unverified`** | from background knowledge; plausible, **not** confirmed, and must be before it decides anything |
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| **`open`** | a question we want answered and did not answer |
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## The schema
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```
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# <name>
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owner · first release · licence · language (checked/unverified)
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## What it optimises for
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## How a game is defined
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## What it can analyse
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## What it does not do
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## Relevance to clay-borg — which track, and how
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## What to steal
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## What to avoid
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## Open questions
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## Sources
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```
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## Index
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| profile | in one line | track |
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|---|---|---|
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| [`ludii.md`](ludii.md) | the closest relative: ludemes, breadth, speed | A |
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| [`gdl-ggp.md`](gdl-ggp.md) | the academic ancestor; agent generality over designer support | A |
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| [`rbg.md`](rbg.md) | regular boardgames — a speed-focused rival description language | A |
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| [`ai-ai.md`](ai-ai.md) | **the closest relative for what we want to become**: GGP with designer-facing metrics | A, C |
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| [`openspiel.md`](openspiel.md) | the game-theory workbench: CFR, exploitability, social dilemmas | B |
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| [`browne-criteria.md`](browne-criteria.md) | not a simulator — the canonical attempt to measure whether a game is *good* | C |
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| [`machinations.md`](machinations.md) | economy and feedback loops, diagrammatic | — |
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| [`play-substrates.md`](play-substrates.md) | Tabletop Simulator, boardgame.io — play without analysis | — |
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## What this survey has already changed
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**Ai Ai and Browne's criteria are the finding.** Track C was written in
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`Positioning.md` as though "assimilate knowledge about why games work"
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were open ground. It is not: **Browne published 57 criteria for game
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quality**, and Ai Ai already computes designer-facing measures — drama,
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lead changes, branching factor, completion, duration — from played games.
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That does not close Track C. It moves it from *invent* to *adopt, credit,
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and find the gap*, which is a much better position and a much smaller
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claim than the one we were about to make.
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