Hourglass

In Hourglass each second a player takes is added to his opponent time. A player loses after the difference between his clock and his opponents exceeds the differential time. Kaya.gs has a slight modification: if you play, you will have at least have 10 seconds to think your next move.

Definitely a cool idea. It might be too complicated to catch on, and people might stick with the defaults, but I still like it. I'm wondering if it might be awkward, since if you choose a short differential, then your opponent can force a very short game by playing fast, while if you choose a differential near your desired game length, you're agreeing to a game 50% longer than the one you want. (If you say 30 minutes, your opponent can play for 60 minutes).

Only once though. After that, unless both players are doing it, that guy will be on a few seconds sudden death each time

What does this mean? I play for thirty minutes, my opponent plays for sixty. That's the game. I don't mean he can take thirty minutes for one move, but just thirty minutes longer over the course of the game.

My point isn't that my opponent can gain an advantage, but just that I'm either forced to accept the possibility of a quite short game or a quite long one. My opponent can always play all his moves in five minutes, limiting me to the main time plus five.

So it's only ok for when you really do want to be quite flexible about how long a game lasts. I guess that's just obvious, but it does seem like a downside.

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but it sounds like if each player starts with 6 min., then if my time drops below 3 min., I lose, because that means that my opponent has more than 9 min., and the differential is greater than 6 min. That's equivalent to a system where we do not care about the differential, we just want our time to stay above 0, and each player gets 3 min. Since that is simpler and equivalent, that is how I think that it really works, no?

I have played a number of hourglass games IRL, using a chronos game clock. I think the max time we ever used was 90 seconds each. Since you are tracking and restricting the difference in time used between the two players, it is not immediately obvious to me why long-period hourglass would provide a more enjoyable gaming experience than more common timing systems.

The 10-second delay is a good idea since it is quite common for one player to catch the other in a time squeeze without it. Hopefully the delay would be a modifiable option, however, rather than a fixed attribute.

Definitely a cool idea. It might be too complicated to catch on, and people might stick with the defaults, but I still like it. I'm wondering if it might be awkward, since if you choose a short differential, then your opponent can force a very short game by playing fast, while if you choose a differential near your desired game length, you're agreeing to a game 50% longer than the one you want. (If you say 30 minutes, your opponent can play for 60 minutes).

No, you lose when your clock drops to 0. Your click increases its time only when your opponent is thinking. So if you have 20 seconds, you can only get it to 30 seconds if your opponent thinks 10 seconds more than you.

In Hourglass each second a player takes is added to his opponent time. A player loses after the difference between his clock and his opponents exceeds the differential time.

Notice that there is nothing about losing when your clock drops to zero. You lose when the difference between your clock and your opponent's clock exceeds some value.

My suggestions:

Blitz: 30 seconds each (1 minute hourglass)
Quickplay: 90 seconds each (3 minute hourglass)
Short: 3 minutes each (6 minute hourglass)
Long: 5 to 10 minutes each (10 to 20 minute hourglass)
Serious: more than 10 minutes each

You have a weird definition of 'Short'. If each player uses 3 minutes for each move to move 200, that is 10 hours.

A 10 minute each game can easily last more than a day. This time system is not really suited for tournaments.

Its the same thing.

Let me give you an example.

Hourglass 10 min

Player A Player B
05:00 05:00
04:50 05:10
05:02 04:58
02:00 08:00
00:10 09:50
00:00 10:00 Player B + Time

That's what I said in post #11. So why keep track of the difference in clocks?

That's what I said in post #11. So why keep track of the difference in clocks?

Ah , merely to use the same interface as any other clock. We thought of making an actual hourglass animation , but it takes some effort and it has limited value. I guess we will do it some time in the future.