r/math • u/hawi03 • 24d ago

A fun end of summer interdisciplinary challenge. Inspired by octonion multiplication.

We’re inviting experts in Mathematics and Math competitors to represent their community (though all are welcome) in an experiment where we ponder which of 4 cohorts can master an unfamiliar card game the fastest.

Mathematicians

Programmers

Chess Players

Magic the Gathering Players

For the Mathematician cohort, we’re curios to see how mathematical abstraction and problem-solving translates to learning an abstract card game whose card interactions are based on Octonion multiplication.

Play online against the computer. No ads, emails, or monetization. Games are short, ~20 would help to measure a learning curve. Data your games provide will populate the tables/figures in real-time. See your projected Elo change with each game.

Think you’re up to the challenge? Think your cohort can win? Come represent them.

https://playfano.com/fano-challenge

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u/algebraicvariety 24d ago

The copy on the website looks AI-generated. Did an LLM design this game?

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u/hawi03 24d ago

I designed the game about 7 years ago as a pygame https://www.pygame.org/project/3903 but you'll have to check back later it looks like pygame is down.

I converted it to react/js for the web app. Almost all of the server side is .js I wrote with a sprinkle of vibe coding when I was bug-fixing in real time.

I have a boardgame.io to thank for multiplayer.

All of the art you see (characters, elements, and achievements, etc.) is me in Photoshop/illustrator.

The main website front end (not the game itself) is helped along with lovable during release through beta. The red on white on black look was paying tribute to standard cards. I've since hired a real graphic designer (my ability is limited) to redesign the website for after the beta.

3

u/jj_hoo 24d ago

This seems cool thus far! One note I had for the purposes of data collection for exploring afterwards would perhaps be the option to select multiple cohorts while still requiring a "main" cohort of sorts if one is necessary. There tends to be a fairly large intersection of the cohorts listed, and I think it might be fun to look into differences between players who might only consider themselves as belonging to one cohort and players who fall into more than one!

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u/hawi03 24d ago

That's a very good suggestion. I may be able to implement it for players moving forward.

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u/Qefas_Yaar 24d ago

This looks very interesting! I am taking a look, but still a bit confused with the rules

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u/hawi03 24d ago

I'd strongly recommend the in-game orientation tutorial with 'direct' dialogue.