Sunday, October 9, 2011

Go Board Game with Google Docs

Go, played on Google Docs
I've been satiating my asynchronous game play needs recently by playing Go via Google Docs. I figured someone else must of thought of that already, and they did: Edward Donohue had a spread sheet template available, which I modified into my Go Board Game Template.

The cool thing is that Google Docs comes with great features already in place:

  • Version history
    • Allows you to roll back time to recall what has been happening in the game.
  • Change Notifications
    • Allows you to make a move, and your opponent will automatically get an email notification that links to page showing what has changed.
    • (Set this up by going to |Tools| |Notification Rules|)
  • Auto formatting
    • Makes the board look like a bunch of black and white pieces instead of playing in text.
  • Works anywhere, even mobile
Also, you can do odd stuff, like make this tiling (toroidal) go board. People have played on tiling boards before, the simplest way is to just duplicate any moves on the left and top edge to the right and bottom. But, in docs, .

Try out the templates by making a copy so you can edit in them. Select a square and enter a 'w' or 'b' character. Have fun!

6 comments:

  1. Nifty. If you're looking for another opponent, let me know. I enjoy Go, very much.

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  2. I've created a template for 9x9 go and atari go in Google Presentation which can be found here: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1pAj35_cdVItlAh2XYeXU-RpvgRUVj8wfOj6Ht3GLfik/edit

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  3. You should give http://www.dragongoserver.net/ a try. You can play multiple games of go over a long time (f.e. 90 days)

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  4. OMG! I just had to laugh because I’m so amazed! This is so clever! Who knew you could play Go on Google Docs? Ahahaha! This is awesome! I mean, playing on an actual Go board is still a different experience, but this is a great way to play with someone if you have Internet and have no Go boards around!

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  5. Very cool. I've adapted it for 9x9. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AljGZjCOdyNudEctQ0ZvZktNS1BId3kzNHRHWXlEN3c#gid=0

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