In chapter 2 of “Squeak by Example” we create our first application, a solitaire tile game called Quinto. I’ve not mentioned it yet (I think) I am also mucking about with Unity. I’ve been on some discussion forums to learn and skill up with the idea of creating some games. However, I had yet to zero in on a game idea. Enter, stage right, Quinto. I decide to recreate Quinto using C# and Unity.
With this in mind, I began walking through the code introduced in chapter 2. Unfortunately, I quickly confirmed my suspicion the authors did a little magic for us. I had hoped the code we wrote would be complete on its own. It was not. At the very least, it uses a class we did not write; one called SimpleSwitchMorph. Truth be told, this was given away by the first line of code we wrote because our SBECell class sub-classed SimpleSwithcMorph. But I walked the code to make sure, thinking maybe we didn’t use too much of the parent class and it looks like that is true, so I am still going forward with this plan. I might even try it in multiple languages for fun.
Now, had I grown up in these more recent times, I would probably have been accused of ADD and heavily dosed with Ritalin. So naturally, I felt compelled to google “Quinto” and get a little history and backstory on this game. I got more than I bargained for. I found at least three games going by the name “Quinto.” None of them the game from the book.
The first was a number based, Scrabble type game created by 3M in the 60s. Board Game Geek has a short description here. Basically, the game play involves laying numbered tiles out so the add up to multiples of five.
The second was a card game created by “Professor Hoffman” (Angelo Lewis) around 1900 and was included in an edition of “Hoyles Games” he edited. The game is a “trick” winning game again, involving sets of cards adding up to five.
And then I found a THIRD Quinto game! This one, offered by the Quinto Game Company, is a combination board/card game and claims its roots from the ancient Roman game Calculi. The web site unfortunately does not describe the rules, so I’d need to purchase it to find out.
Arguably, Calculi makes a fourth Quinto game…
And just because Google is an algorithmic smarty-pants, it dredged up another game called “Qwinto” (no, that’s not a typo…).
Still not the one I was searching for so I kept digging until I found, yet another! This one created by Sid Sackson is yet another card game and seems to have only been distributed in Germany. This is probably the best picture of the game I could find. I was unable to find rules printed, but this article, seemed to think the game fairly unremarkable and mentioned the original rules had been changed by the publisher. Should I become so dedicated, there seemed to be several German versions of the game available for sale…
Normally, this might have been the end of the trail. Thankfully, I am easily distracted and this last one had me searching for more information about Sid Sackson who is apparently considered one of the great minds in game creation AND he wrote a book, “A Gamut of Games” still in print!
So naturally, the book is on its way and should be here in 3-7 business days. Based on an article I found, I am projected some interesting times, resurrecting some forgotten, but fascinating games…
Oh, P.S. The Qunito game in “Squeak by Example” has a bug in it. I’ve not spent a lot of time tracking it down, but I did finally figure out how to replicate it. In normal play, the tile you select should never change colors, only the tiles around it. However, if you click, hold and drag a little, it will in fact change. I don’t plan to recreate this bug in my version[s]….