Handicaps in multiplayer

[SimonN]

Lix 0.9.29

Add a handicapping option to Lix multiplayer. Before each game, a player may handicap themselves. Ideas:

• The player's hatches spawn fewer lix.
• The player's skillset has fewer skills.
• On a deliberately unbalanced map, the player gets on the disadvantageous position.

Idea. Players pick from a set of ratios, such as 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%, 70%, and 100%. Their initial number of lix is multiplied with the handicap ratio, rounding up any fraction. Each of their skill counts is multiplied with the handicap ratio, rounding up any fractions.

Reasoning. Two-player Lix is a game of skill: The better player will win more often. An experienced player will win practically every game against a new player, even if the new player is good at single-player Lemmings-like games.

A handicap option for the strong player should make the game more interesting for both sides: The strong player must now manage their few resources even better than in even games. The new player has a chance to win. Handicap games are common in Go or Shogi, and occasionally in Chess.

See also on Lemmings Forums: 2017 posts about handicap. 2022 topic about handicap

[SimonN]

geoo suggests: We can handicap strong players by having their lix spawn later.

Spawn-later handicap is orthogonal to the lix-skill-percentage handicap. We can have both, or either. If we have both, we can have a new dialog to set handicap, accessible from the game room before we click ready.

[SimonN]

I've released Lix 0.10.0, which offers handicap in multiplayer:

• Fewer lix at start,
• lower numbers per skill in the panel,
• spawn delay,
• fewer points per lix (of any color) in your exits.

You can combine one or more of these four types.