“Getting” Framed!
I finally thought of a “plot” or analogy for my game to help clarify the rules and make it easier to know what to do your first time playing. So, here it is:
Imagine you’re the owner of an exclusive new art gallery: “Framed!” with the latest technology: A wall that can automatically revolve Artwork from the show floor to the back storage room. You currently have an art gallery on display in specially brown painted frames. A painter is scheduled to come soon to paint all the frames in the gallery White.
Currently, you’re in the back room preparing the next showing, looking at the back of your gallery wall. You have placed all the new artwork in shiny White frames and hung them in the special revolving slots of your wall, but you still need to replace the old “Rogue” artwork still hanging in the gallery.
You know your showcase will be a disaster if any of the “Rogue” artwork is stilling hanging in the gallery, or if you’re missing one of your new pieces of art. You have to first replace all the “Rogue” frames’ artwork from the gallery in the back and then ensure that every frame is facing the gallery for the showcase.
The only problem you find with your new technology; however, is that you need to rotate two frames around at once. If they’re the same size, they’ll both stay on the gallery side of the wall displaying their new artwork prominently. If they’re of different sizes, a “Rogue” frame that was once in the gallery will flip to you in the back. And if they were both once “Rogue” frames in the gallery, any frame that is currently in the gallery is flipped back to you.
Your goal of course, is to have flipped all the frames on your back side of the wall so they are on display in your gallery (behind the wall) and ensuring that all the current gallery pieces in the “Rogue” brown frames have been replaced. Of course, if you fail to replace the artwork in a “Rogue” frame, or if you get stuck with one frame in the back with you (unable to flip it to the gallery) then your showcase will be a disaster.
And that’s Framed! Of course, why doesn’t he just doesn’t go around the wall to replace the “Rogue” frames? Maybe he forgot the key to his gallery that day, but had the store-room key, maybe it’s just another case of insisting on using the expensive new technology you just bought, maybe he was just bored… You pick. Enjoy!
There has GOT to be a simpler explanation then that!!
I mean the rules are pretty simple, but it’s hard to explain. I just came up with the above plot to kind of ease in the concept of what you’re trying to accomplish.
The hardest part about the game is indeed the planning ahead, but you can always narrow it down to a more manageable amount and just rely on a little luck.