Talk:Penultima

Example
Would be nice to have a sample game here. From just game rules it is not yet clear what kind of rules Spectators can think of and how Players can deduce them. Are any other websites which describe the game? Andreas Kaufmann 14:54, 17 July 2005 (UTC)


 * It's the (unintended) interaction between the pieces that makes the game interesting. I haven't played the for 5 years, so can't comment with up-to-date examples.  However, one (fairly complex) rule might be that the "Knight" is known as the "Waltzer".  It has two ways of moving - it either moves in the direction it is pointing (in which case the entire 3x3 square centred on the piece moves), or it can rotate 90 degrees (in which case the 3x3 square also rotates).  When moving forward it captures any pieces that are "squashed" by pieces in the 3x3 square (though not by empty portions of the 3x3 square).  Pieces that are pushed off the edge of the board are removed from play (unless contradicted by other rules). Bluap 09:11, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Invention
I believe I invented this game (at the PGR at Barbican Cottage). I think it was in a conversation with Adam Chalcraft. &mdash;Ashley Y 03:56, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Etymology
I have removed the following etymology, as being irrelevant in an encyclopedia

The word penultima is derived from the Latin words paene (meaning "almost") and ultima (meaning "last"). The adjective penultimate is usually employed in reference to items that are next to the last in sequence, such as is the case with scansion of syllables in Latin poetry, where the second to the last syllable of a word often receives greater stress and duration than the other syllables do. Compare antepenultimate.


 * What a remarkably and strangely pointless removal. If poetic stress isn't an encyclopedic topic, then poetry itself must not be either; you should go nominate poetry for deletion at AfD. -Silence 19:57, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Reminds me...
I learned this game from Michael Greene when he was doing his PhD at Warwick. For my final year CS project I designed a programming language in which rules could be expressed. It was a little limited, but still quite fun. It didn't support "invoke" commands because I'd never heard of them until I read the article, and can only support pieces that work on the squares of the existing board without requiring additional counters, etc.

I'll see if I can dust it off and put a link up to it. It might help people who don't understand to get an idea of what the article's talking about. JulesH 08:01, 21 May 2007 (UTC)