Pippinzip

[thorsilver]

Here is an implementation of Pippinzip, an asymmetrical connection game by Craig Duncan, João Pedro Neto and Bill Taylor.

Pippinzip is a square-board connection game for two players.  This is the 'Pipline' variant, the standard version of the game.  The game starts with a chicken ballot phase similar to Unlur, in which players both place 1-3 Black stones per turn until one decides to pass their turn and take Black.  Subsequently, the players place one stone per turn of their colour on any empty point.  The Black player ('Pip') wins if they connect any two sides of the board with a single orthogonally-connected group of stones.  The White player ('Zip') wins if they connect all four sides of the board with a single group connected both orthogonally and diagonally.

Like Unlur, the asymmetric goals and unusual chicken auction phase give this game a unique flavour.  Highly recommended for fans of connection games.

I will try to implement the other variant (Zipline) as well.  There is a three-player variant too, but I think the game shines more as a two-player contest, although the three-player rules are very clever.

[thorsilver]

OK, I have now implemented the Zipline variant of Pippinzip as well.  In Zipline, the chicken ballot uses White stones instead of Black.  The two sides' victory conditions are the same.  However, after the ballot phase, Black places two stones per turn, while White places only one.  This completely changes the balance between the two sides, so it's a fun variant to try.

This implementation of Zipline uses 'Freestyle' rules, which means Black may place their two stones anywhere; in the other version, Black may not place their two stones orthogonally adjacent.  I prefer this variant, as it is generally nicer to have total freedom of placement in these sorts of games.  Just bear in mind during the ballot phase that Black is stronger here than in the restricted-placement variant.

Also, I discovered that the rules for both Pipline and Zipline explicitly state that the game can be won in the ballot phase, which shouldn't happen with competent play of course, but nevertheless I fixed the .lud for Pipline to follow that rule.  Zipline follows that rule as well.  So, please use the .lud for Pippinzip attached to this post.

Enjoy!

[Eric Piette]

Hi,

Thanks for that submission.
I am contacting the authors to ask the permission to add it to Ludii, if that's ok, the game (and its variant) will be added to Ludii.

Regards,
Eric

[Eric Piette]

Hi,

We got the permission, so I will add that game and his variant to our library for the next release.

Regards,
Eric

[thorsilver]

Hi,

We got the permission, so I will add that game and his variant to our library for the next release.

Regards,
Eric

That's great news!  Thank you Eric :)

[thorsilver]

Hi Eric, I'm sorry to say I made some small mistakes in the .lud files for Pippinzip and Zipline:

1. In Pippinzip, players could win in the chicken ballot phase by arranging White stones in either the Black or White winning configurations -- this has now been fixed.
   
2. In Zipline, the version I uploaded gave the win to the opposite player in the general playing phase!  This has been fixed, as well as the same issue mentioned above.
   

Sorry for the inconvenience.  The scripts attached to this post should now function correctly.

[Eric Piette]

Hi,

Ok no problem, I have updated them.

Regards,
Eric