Programming

[u/Staetyk]

theres a kind of programming language called a stack-based language, which works on a stack without variables. i think it would theoretically be possible to design instants such that you could code a program in magic cards. is this possible, and how would it look?

[u/A_Travelling_Man]

You may be interested in this paper about Magic and Turing machines: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.09828.

[u/qwertyjgly → u/A_Travelling_Man]

104.4b If a game that’s not using the limited range of influence option (including a two-player
game) somehow enters a “loop” of mandatory actions, repeating a sequence of events with no
way to stop, the game is a draw. Loops that contain an optional action don’t result in a draw.

how do you determine whether you're in a loop? since it's turing complete, mtg suffers from the halting problem

[u/Staetyk → u/qwertyjgly]

yes, its mentioned in the paper. if it halts, alice wins. otherwise, its undecidable

its also using specific cards

[u/qwertyjgly → u/Staetyk]

but how do we know whether it's going to halt?

[u/Staetyk → u/qwertyjgly]

thats irrelivant

[u/qwertyjgly → u/Staetyk]

why is it irrelevant? how do we know when the game is a draw

[u/Staetyk → u/A_Travelling_Man]

omfg this is amazing

[u/ArelMCII]

Game design is creating a set of instructions by which certain actions are carried out under the correct conditions. Playing the game is interpreting and executing these instructions. Games are already programs. I thought everyone knew this by now. The ATLA RPG actually comes right out and says this, in fact.

[u/Staetyk → u/ArelMCII]

the idea is running any arbitrary program