News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete. Parent comment

Re:Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete by Benjamin_Dobell on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @07:01AM (#19848268)
Combat resolution/targeting can get a wee bit out of hand:

https://i.redd.it/wyn3d22evs011.jpg

This is not the worst I've seen, simply what I was able to turn-up on short notice.

EDIT: To clarify (the UI isn't great), what you see above is a selection of the "cards" (creatures/tokens) in play, more are off screen.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete by Al-Khwarizmi on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @07:26AM (#19848410)
Maybe the UI isn't great in an absolute sense (that situation would be really tedious to play), but I don't see how it could be made substantially better. It wouldn't be better if that situation arose in a physical Magic game either... the problem there is the game state, not the UI.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete by Benjamin_Dobell on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @07:38AM (#19848473)
My point was that for people that have never seen MtG Arena before, it's non-obvious that there's more going on off-screen. A more intuitive UI would make that situation more explicit and not require explanation.

As you've rightly pointed out, a better UI isn't going to solve the UX issue of ridiculous game state; but it could better depict the state itself.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete by justinmchase on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @02:30PM (#19852140)
Do you know if there is a video showing a full turing complete game? I can't quite visualize what is going on.
[ Parent | on HN ]