This is gorgeous. That moment-to-moment “huh!” you describe is exactly it—like the game is tickling a part of your brain that usually stays dormant, or busy doing more “useful” things. I’ve always loved SET, but never thought to frame it as a game of perception rather than strategy. It’s more like a tuning fork for awareness, especially the way you describe playing it in sync with your partner. That feeling—two people quietly attuning to a shared rhythm without over-verbalizing it—is its own kind of intimacy. Thanks for naming it so beautifully.
Thanks for introducing me to this wonderful brain tickler. SET reminds me a lot of trying (unsuccessfully) to learn mahjong. In that way I think SET feels like a pure distillation of the pattern matching mechanics of other classic set making games: poker, mahjong, rummy etc. Many of those games have simpler patterns but build complexity with additional mechanics. It makes me wonder whether there is an optimal comfortable complexity for set making which allows for additional mechanics or if it's all a matter of training and familiarity
The bit about the holy gestalt really does resonate with my experience speedsolving crosswords.
If I strategically and deliberately use ideal solving methods - do the first three across entries and then switch to down entries because they're shorter and more "generic," think about likely combinations along the edges of the grid, etc - I solve it in maybe 2 and a half minutes, 2:15 if I'm lucky.
If I put absolutely no thought into strategy and instead listen to loud-ish, fast-ish music that shuts down my capacity for conscious thought, to the point where I barely even register that I'm reading clues - under 2 minutes. Not every time. But a lot of the time! Which is very funny, because who thinks of crosswords as a game of pure action??
My wife and I have been exploring games that we can just sit and play together like this. We’ve enjoyed doing several of the NYT games for similar (but not yet articulated) reasons, but that’s about a 20m daily experience. I just dusted off my old SET deck, but I hadn’t thought to play it like this. And an app on iPad is clever for its support of collaborative flow in this context.
This is gorgeous. That moment-to-moment “huh!” you describe is exactly it—like the game is tickling a part of your brain that usually stays dormant, or busy doing more “useful” things. I’ve always loved SET, but never thought to frame it as a game of perception rather than strategy. It’s more like a tuning fork for awareness, especially the way you describe playing it in sync with your partner. That feeling—two people quietly attuning to a shared rhythm without over-verbalizing it—is its own kind of intimacy. Thanks for naming it so beautifully.
It's called SET Pro HD. I just went to look in the app store and can't find it, so I wonder if it's not available anymore. That would be typical of the craptastic mobile game ecosystem.
While i havent yet read very far (seems interesting, i will), you have somewhat lost me already with the idea of a game without decisions, just actions being novel. Isnt this what solitare is? You the player are just there to spot the next action in the sequence and continue till it concludes.
Yes, I'm saying that the existence of games like Solitaire (and SET, and Speed, and the Long Jump) are somewhat surprising *from the perspective of Sid Meier's definition*. They are all counterexamples to his claim. In my view SET is an especially good counterexample, because of how simple it is, but I agree with you that there are plenty of other counterexamples (Anomia is another good recent one.)
Actually an even better example is the card game speed (standard deck of cards) which was a personal favorite growing up. So maybe im just jaded to the novelty 😁
This is gorgeous. That moment-to-moment “huh!” you describe is exactly it—like the game is tickling a part of your brain that usually stays dormant, or busy doing more “useful” things. I’ve always loved SET, but never thought to frame it as a game of perception rather than strategy. It’s more like a tuning fork for awareness, especially the way you describe playing it in sync with your partner. That feeling—two people quietly attuning to a shared rhythm without over-verbalizing it—is its own kind of intimacy. Thanks for naming it so beautifully.
Thanks for introducing me to this wonderful brain tickler. SET reminds me a lot of trying (unsuccessfully) to learn mahjong. In that way I think SET feels like a pure distillation of the pattern matching mechanics of other classic set making games: poker, mahjong, rummy etc. Many of those games have simpler patterns but build complexity with additional mechanics. It makes me wonder whether there is an optimal comfortable complexity for set making which allows for additional mechanics or if it's all a matter of training and familiarity
The bit about the holy gestalt really does resonate with my experience speedsolving crosswords.
If I strategically and deliberately use ideal solving methods - do the first three across entries and then switch to down entries because they're shorter and more "generic," think about likely combinations along the edges of the grid, etc - I solve it in maybe 2 and a half minutes, 2:15 if I'm lucky.
If I put absolutely no thought into strategy and instead listen to loud-ish, fast-ish music that shuts down my capacity for conscious thought, to the point where I barely even register that I'm reading clues - under 2 minutes. Not every time. But a lot of the time! Which is very funny, because who thinks of crosswords as a game of pure action??
I love this.
Wonderfully written, Frank, thank you.
My wife and I have been exploring games that we can just sit and play together like this. We’ve enjoyed doing several of the NYT games for similar (but not yet articulated) reasons, but that’s about a 20m daily experience. I just dusted off my old SET deck, but I hadn’t thought to play it like this. And an app on iPad is clever for its support of collaborative flow in this context.
The mode we play is called arcade mode, have fun!
Why just staying with Sid Meier's more narrowed definition of (some) games and not going for e.g. Raph Koster's Theory of fun? :-)
Meaningful interaction is king.
Also I love Set!
To be clear, I'm debunking Meier's claim, not just staying with it.
I got that right from the start and just wanted to more details to that. :-)
This is gorgeous. That moment-to-moment “huh!” you describe is exactly it—like the game is tickling a part of your brain that usually stays dormant, or busy doing more “useful” things. I’ve always loved SET, but never thought to frame it as a game of perception rather than strategy. It’s more like a tuning fork for awareness, especially the way you describe playing it in sync with your partner. That feeling—two people quietly attuning to a shared rhythm without over-verbalizing it—is its own kind of intimacy. Thanks for naming it so beautifully.
Which iPad app do you use? I want to do this with my wife and I'm noticing quite a few options in the app store...
It's called SET Pro HD. I just went to look in the app store and can't find it, so I wonder if it's not available anymore. That would be typical of the craptastic mobile game ecosystem.
While i havent yet read very far (seems interesting, i will), you have somewhat lost me already with the idea of a game without decisions, just actions being novel. Isnt this what solitare is? You the player are just there to spot the next action in the sequence and continue till it concludes.
Yes, I'm saying that the existence of games like Solitaire (and SET, and Speed, and the Long Jump) are somewhat surprising *from the perspective of Sid Meier's definition*. They are all counterexamples to his claim. In my view SET is an especially good counterexample, because of how simple it is, but I agree with you that there are plenty of other counterexamples (Anomia is another good recent one.)
Actually an even better example is the card game speed (standard deck of cards) which was a personal favorite growing up. So maybe im just jaded to the novelty 😁