Nomic: "...a game in which changing the rules is a move."

Ah, I remember playing Nomic obsessively online back when I was in high-school. I was the webmaster (or "Secretary of Truth") who inflicted the painful red color scheme on MacroNomic: <a href="http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/macronomic/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nomic.net/deadgames/macronomic/</a>

When I taught high school, nomic was the day-before-vacation time waster in my CS classes. I think we actually had a winner once in the couple of dozen times we played, but the kids had fun. They sat around arguing about logic, which was a very easy sell to my administration.

For those with a shorter attention span, there's an addictive card game in which changing the rules is a move: <a href="http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/</a>

This sounds a lot like the semi-popular college game 1000 Blank White Cards (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Blank_White_Cards" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1000_Blank_White_Cards</a>)

This brought back fond memories of calvinball <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball</a>

Haven't read about it before but sounds interesting.

Hofstadter wrote about this in a column for Scientific American. The article appears in his collection, "Metamagical Themas," and Google Books has most of it here: <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=o8jzWF7rD6oC&#38;dq=metamagical+themas&#38;printsec=frontcover&#38;source=bn&#38;hl=en&#38;ei=TQ7TS5ryBoKC8gaRx625Dw&#38;sa=X&#38;oi=book_result&#38;ct=result&#38;resnum=5&#38;ved=0CBsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&#38;q=nomic&#38;f=false" rel="nofollow">http://books.google.com/books?id=o8jzWF7rD6oC&#38;dq=metamag...</a>.

Nomic is a fascinating game.<p>For those about to try it in school: You should probably add a fixed rule about not ending class prematurely and going outside to play (my students needed a rather long time to come up with this loop hole). But it was an interesting hour which served as an introduction to the 10 commandments.

Fluxx. highly recommend for hackers. same spirit as Nomic but MUCH simpler and easier to learn and play. And fast.

Sounds really cool. I wish I could find a group to play this with. Any takers in NYC?<p>In other news, all these numbered rules made me think of Rule #34. I lost.