The back of the book states that this book is a search for a better board game, and this search culminates in the game of Tines and Barbs. This book has a supporting website
www.tinesandbarbs.yolasite.com for players to use. A free one year membership to this site comes with the book as well as your first five submissions to the site to add to the lore of the
game.Tines and Barbs is a board game superior to chess. It has the additional abilities of the pieces to rotate, fire shots, and shield squares from other shots or movement of pieces past them.
Injured pieces can heal, and shields can be broken restoring pieces and squares to full use. The rotating action allows pieces to access other directions in which to perform their necessary
deeds.In order to accomplish these many functions, a turn scale is implemented. Each operation is assigned a certain number of points, and a turn is spent by performing operations on one or
more pieces or squares until the turn allotment is used up. Thus, a great variety of turn types is possible. This great variety is the gateway to a new age of supercomplex games.Is it possible
for people to beat supercomputers at board games? The author believes that a game designed to use the natural heuristic thought processes that people have while having a gigantic tree of
possibilities is the key. The gigantic tree of possiblities for Tines and Barbs is too large for even the fastest supercomputers to search through to find decent moves. The game is based on the
easy to understand concepts of rotating pieces, firing shots, and shielding squares. Humans will find decent moves just by seeing what needs to happen, and a logical turn choice will come
forth. The computer will get bogged down searching through the nearly endless branches of possibility. Hence, it should perform poorly against people.A goal of the book is to instill
discernment in a player on what constitutes a good board game. Thus, the player is shown what to look for in a game.A goal of the game of Tines and Barbs is that it should have a very balanced
outcome statistic for the two colors. In other words, it shouldn't make any difference if a player gets White or Black in a tie break game because either color offers the same chances of
winning. This is not the case with chess. However, shogi's (the Japanese form of chess) outcome statistics are very close to being balanced.To discuss the website in a bit more detail, the
author/inventor of Tines and Barbs has a website to support his book and game. It is www.tinesandbarbs.yolasite.com. Tines and Barbs players can register themselves, their clubs, and their
games for other players to find and utilize. Craftsman and artisans can make quality Tines and Barbs sets for players to use and list their services on the site. I have provided the
instructions to make a functional game prototype in the book (page 198). However, people who want a more refined game set can obtain one through one of the craftsman on the website. The "fee"
for a craftsman or artisan to get listed on my site is to make me a Tines and Barbs set exactly as they would make it for a customer. I will describe the functionality and materials used in
this set on the site for players to determine if that is the kind of Tines and Barbs set that they would want. The book also discusses some non-standard ways to play the game, which gives some
nice variety.
