Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
person the advantage by intentionally letting him win through an incorrect play.
Put another way, until someone
chooses
to lose, the actual choices made in the game
are irrelevant. You are playing against a rigid, predictable, rule-based machine. In a
way, it is almost an
inverse
Turing Test. To win (or draw), you simply play the same
way a computer would.
FIGURE 1.3
The decisions in Tic-Tac-Toe are usually limited based on whether
you want to win or lose. In the game above, the player (X or O) had to play the
locations dictated by the arrows or else lose the game in the next move.
Blackjack gives the appearance of playing against another entity. In the typical
casino setting, the House as represented by the Dealer. (For the sake of saking, let's
put the Dealer in dark glasses and a stupid hat.) According to the actual rules of the
game, your opponent has
no
choices whatsoever. There is no random chance in the
selections he is making like there is in Rock-Paper-Scissors. The random chance
comes from the nature of the game itself—specifically, the order of the cards in the
deck.
While there
is
a strict rule-based system in Blackjack (hit on less than 17, stand
on 17 or more), it differs from the one in Tic-Tac-Toe. (That is, “I choose to win;
therefore, I should move here.�) In this case, the rules aren't in the decision model
of the Dealer specifically; they are in the rules of the
game
as a whole. Unlike Tic-
Tac-Toe, no matter how badly the Dealer
wants
to win (or lose, for that matter),
his choices are entirely cast in stone. The Dealer isn't “selecting� anything; he is
playing the game. He's reading a script, as it were. You are playing against a rigid,
predictable opponent in the realm of a completely random environment. It is really
no different from the Craps table nearby. You aren't playing against the man with
the curvy stick and the loud banter. You are playing against precalculated payoff
odds in a completely random environment (represented, in this case, by dice
instead of cards).
