Hi, John -

I recently came across your game Arcana while browsing through Andrew
Plotkin's web pages.  I was thoroughly delighted; *this* is the game I'd
ben wishing for years that someone would invent!  I immediately cut out
a bunch of little colored-paper playing-pieces, and have been
incessantly bugging all of my friends to play it with me ever since. 
(Alas, I've only actually played a couple games so far.  We all loved
it, though.)

In a recent email conversation with Andrew about Arcana (among other
things), he suggested that I forward some of my comments to you; he
figured you'd get a kick out of them.  Here they are:

> It really is a fun game.  For years I've been looking for a game that
> puts the quirkiness and colorfulness of tarot cards to good use (but
> without the taint of new-age silliness); Arcana *feels* like the game
> I've always been imagining.  One of the things that's always attracted
> me to games (and to other things, such as Artificial Life and computer
> simulation in general, the creation of poetry or prose using random
> elements, tarot cards and other "fortune telling" systems, etc.) is the
> fun of taking relatively simple "atomic units" which have certain
> relational properties, throwing them together in all sorts of different
> ways, and seeing what interesting behavior emerges.  The fact that even
> stupidly simple atomic elements can generate all sorts of interesting
> and unexpected behavior almost leaves me with the sense that something
> "creative" is happening, the products of which I'm not directly
> responsible for.  It's like getting creativity for free.  I think that's
> pretty cool.  I've always been interested in the idea of using
> randomness, and the juxtaposition of (seemingly) unrelated elements as a
> boost to creativity. (I wouldn't like to see this blown up into a kind
> of pretentious mysticism for the creative arts, though; I just think
> it's a neat idea.)  I also wouldn't be surprised if this is a large part
> of the power that tarot cards, etc. seem to hold over people.  Since no
> individual person at a tarot reading is directly responsible for the
> creation of this emergent, content-laden "message", there must be
> something magical and creative going on.  (The truth is, of course,
> *metamagical* in Hofstadter's sense.  It's been clear since Darwin that
> we simply *can* have creation without a Creator, common sense be
> damned.)

Also, one minor comment about the written rules: although I've assumed
all action in the game is "orthogonal" (i.e. territories have 4
neighbors and not 8, minions can't target diagonally), this isn't
explicit anywhere in the rules (unless I've missed it).  I see the word
"adjacent" in there, but that *could* include diagonals.  I'd recommend
spelling this out explicitly, just to be safe.  (And if diagonals *are*
allowed, please let me know; I've been playing it wrong! :)

Anyway, it's a great game.  Keep me posted as you invent even more cool
things. :)

Kory Heath
kheath@1connect.com