Introduction
The French name is “Face-pile” (Faspeel or “heads or tails”) the German is Münzspiel (“coin game”) and the Japanese is 表裏 (“hyô-ri” or “heads or tails”). Still working on Spanish—could be something like “cara mentirosa” (“lying face/coin face”).
I plan to make an illustrated explanation in at least English for how to play.
The game was originally conceived as the simplest possible play environment to model two memetic agents interacting using a simple set of rules and trying to model one another’s intentions. It originally started with chess and finished with boiling it down to a two-by-two “board” with only one piece per player.
Anyway, stick with me and let’s see where this goes…
The Set-Up
Each player has four coins of the same type, each player having a different type, eg, four US nickels and four pennies, or four Japanese ten yen coins and four hundred yen coins. AA sobriety coins could even work.
The point is that each of a player’s coins should be able to physically cover any of the others, and each player should have a clearly distinct coin on the board.
So, four nickels and four pennies.
1. Make a cross on a piece of paper. This is "the board."
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fig. 1. The Board |
2. Each player places a coin, face up or face down, at diagonals of the cross. The coin on the board is "the show" or what is showing.
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fig. 2. Initial Board Set-Up--diagonals |
3. Each player places their remaining three coins in front of themself, two of them stacked on top of each other. They may all be any combination of heads or tails. This is "the signal" or "the message". The coin hidden underneath is "the secret."
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fig. 3. "The Message" and "Secret" |
This will all make sense when I explain how to play.
How to Play
You score points by "bumping" into the other player's coin. This is simply being in the space next to their coin, and then if they're still there by your next turn, moving onto it. I'll explain how this works.
Each turn a player may take one of the following actions:
1. You may Move (or Bump). If you're next to the other player's coin, you may either move away to the diagonal position, or you may "bump" them. I'll explain what happens with a bump below.
2. You may Flip your showing coin on the board from heads to tails or vice-versa.
3. You may Change your "message." You can take the three coins in front of you and without letting the other player see, change whether the top two coins are heads or tails and/or whether the hidden coin is heads or tails. Place the coins back in front of you.
Bumping and Scoring
When you bump into another player's coin:
1. You place your coin at the diagonal to the other player's coin, that is, the opposite corner of the board.
2. The bumped player reveals their "secret" coin.
3.1. If your showing coin (on the board) and the other player's secret coin are the same, you each get a point (make a tally on the paper the board is drawn on, or wherever).
3.2. If your showing coin and their secret coin are different, each player flips a coin.
3.3. If both flip tails, the bumpee gets three points, otherwise the bumper gets a point.
4. The bumped player rearranges their three message and secret coins.
5. Continue play starting with the bumped player.
The End of the Game
The game ends when one player reaches ten points.
You can play cooperatively or competitively. Example scores is 3/10 or 7/10 meaning the losing player got three or seven respectively. A "good" cooperative game might be 9/10 or 10/10, for instance.
Strategy
You can use your message coins to signal the other player. Don't tell them which signals you are using--part of the fun of the game is trying to work it out. Also, you can just send random messages or you can lie.
For instance, both message coins on heads could mean "my hidden coin is heads" or it could mean "my hidden coin is the same as my showing coin" or it could be just random. You could even try to signal things like "please flip your showing coin."
Things might be able to get sophisticated, for example, signaling the other player that your message means one thing, both coins heads or tails, coin on top of the hidden coin one thing and the other one something else, whatever, and then switching in the middle of the game in order to trick them.
It should also be easy to "run away" from the other player if you need to change your message or flip your showing coin if you want to cooperate but are not set up right, in preparation for a successful cooperative bump a turn or two later.
Notes
There may be some tweaking on what happens when a "conflict bump" happens. I've tried to set it up to be on average even with the 3 to one coin flip thing.
