Searching for the Perfect Plays

by Paracompact

Opening Moves

Fifty-two South Royal Lane.

Meteorite repeated the address over and over in her head.

Fifty-two South Royal Lane. Fifty-two South Royal Lane. Fifty-two South Royal Lane.

It’s not so much that she was afraid of forgetting it—at this rate, she’d probably committed it to lifelong memory. No, she just needed to confirm to herself, again and again, that there was nothing but a few Canterlot street numbers that now separated her from her idol.

She broke into a small gallop as she counted up to house number fifty-two in the distance. Her thoughts, too, began to race: How ever would her first game against her idol go? Would she succeed in at least putting up a fight? In forcing her to think hard about at least one move during the game? Would she survive until the middlegame, or even the endgame? Or would she get trounced in the very opening? Even that would be amazing, she thought. Her withers tingled with anticipation.

Meteorite only realized how out of breath she was by the time she reached the fifty-second house. After pausing a moment—just a moment—to catch her breath, she straightened up, composed herself, and rang the doorbell. A prolonged shuffle approached from inside the house, before finally the door opened and a gray unicorn mare stood to face her.

“Oh, hello,” Leo greeted the adolescent blue unicorn, in a neutral tone. She squinted against the harsh Canterlotian daylight. “They didn’t, um, tell me the time you’d be arriving. Do come in, make yourself at home.”

Leopoldine “Encyclopedia” Sage, professional Arcelot player competitively ranked #19 in Equestria, was championed in her biographies as a role model to fillies and colts everywhere who sought to become pro, despite humble origins. Over the years, Meteorite had read just about every book and article about the mare: The daughter of two apothecaries in a rural town, Leo at a young age was the victim of a terrible stammer. Suffering arrested development as well as teasing throughout grade school, she found solace only in the strategy board game of Arcelot. She spent countless inspired nights studying every treatise on the game that she could get her hooves on. When the time came that she could no longer find a fair match against anypony in person, she set out to prove herself in correspondence games by mail with mentors from the royal kingdom. As a result of her prowess, she secured an official sponsorship from the Manehattan Arcelot Society, who paid for her board and tuition at their prestigious teaching institution. Her style had been described as “frighteningly encyclopedic,” able to grasp the fundamental dynamics of even the most convoluted positions.

Slowly but surely, Leo climbed the rankings over the years, and broke into the coveted Top 20. At her age now, she had only a couple years left before her most competitive days were behind her (professional Arcelot players retired about as early as sports stars, for similar reasons). Yet to this day, her intense stare and unassailable calm never failed to strike fear into her opponents over the board.

Today was the first day of a full week that Leo would spend with one of her lucky fans, who had won the expenses-paid opportunity in a mail-in newspaper contest.

“Your house is exactly like the pictures in the magazines,” Rite said, with tremulous awe.

Rite wanted to treat her idol’s study materials like fragile works of art, but there was so much of it scattered throughout the house’s small rooms that she could hardly avoid stepping on it: game records and annotated analyses spilled over the tables; charts of patterns and hoofwritten notes plastered the walls; and multiple Arcelot boards of varying size and ornateness captured historical matches mid-game. Eager to pore over her idol’s personal notes at some point during her stay, Rite felt more than a little like a filly in a candy store.

“Sorry about the mess,” Leo said. “I would’ve, well, liked to clean up more before you came.”

Leo trotted over to the wooden dining table, and began clearing some scrolls off. She reached over at random to one of the Arcelot boards and began resetting the pieces to their starting positions with her telekinesis.

“Your expression tells me that the first thing you’d like to do is play a game.” Leo smiled. “May I first ask, what is your name?”

“It would be an honor, Master Leo. My name is Meteorite. But you can call me Rite.”

“And I suppose you can, well, drop the honorifics,” Leo said, still smiling.

“Can do.”

Rite sat down at the board and thought carefully about her first move, even though she’d planned ahead of time exactly which openings she wanted to play first.

“I can’t believe I’m really playing her—I mean you! You’ve been my idol since I was a little filly. Your style is just so perfect, I’ve tried as hard I could to learn it and emulate it, but I still bet you’ll absolutely demolish me this game, show me what principled play really looks like.” She levitated her first gemstone onto the board with quivering excitement.

“Perhaps,” her idol responded, lukewarm. “Let us enjoy a good game.”

---

The game of Arcelot hails from the Crystal Empire, thousands of years ago. The board it is traditionally played on—a standing cylinder of black marble with a variety of interconnected geometrical symbols etched onto the top surface, fitted with a large crystal Orb in the middle—together with the gemstone pieces it utilizes, was originally used by ancient crystal pony astrologists to divine the movement of the stars and the fates of empires.

Each player has access to three different types of pieces, with simple rules for how to manipulate each of them during one’s turn. Despite this, the “complete rules” of Arcelot are still not entirely clear, even to professionals, owing to the presence of the Orb. It has a whimsical temperament in relation to the pieces on the board, as manifested by its constantly changing colors throughout a game in progress. The goal of the game is for one player to change the Orb to bright red, or the other player to change it to dark blue, by arranging specific shapes on the board with one’s pieces. New shapes, and the precise effects of old ones, are always being discovered.

Orb and the gemstone pieces require a steady channel of magic in order to function, but this aside, Arcelot is a game entirely dependent on the intellect. But beyond mere intellect, the personality, fears, and desires of a player are all made clear through his or her moves. Understand and improve oneself, and one’s game will improve; run away from one’s shortcomings and frustrations, and one’s game will stagnate.

Such is the wisdom of the Arcelot greats.

---

Rite had been ousted in routine fashion. Her pieces lay scattered across the board in disarray, far and away from forming even the most basic shapes for influencing the Orb in her favor. Indeed, due to Leo’s strategic coercions, Rite struggled to find a single legal move that could improve her position—her forces were paralyzed. Meanwhile, Leo’s pieces were placed to exert the maximum amount of influence on the Orb, efficiently, exquisitely, and without concession.

It was as delightful of a beatdown as Rite had ever dreamed.

“It would be dishonorable to draw this game out any further,” Rite said, bowing her head. “I resign. It was very enlightening to play against you.”

Leo, who by this time had poured out tea for the both of them, levitated her cup to her lips for a sip. “Thank you. I can tell you are quite a strong player for you age.”

“Thanks, but I honestly think I’ve hit a plateau in my game lately…”

Rite put her hoof to her chin, trying to translate her nigh spiritual admiration of her idol’s technique into words.

“Your moves, they just made so much sense. You didn’t even have to use rare, fancy shapes against me, just the right tools for the job. Like the truncated triangle here, when I was trying to surround you, or the crescent-square there to effectively cordon off that whole area of the board.” Rite’s eyes were alight. “And yet, you were still so patient and cautious with me. Most ponies I play are so aggressive and blood-thirsty, and it makes the game so… ugly, in my opinion. I would much rather master the broader principles, like you.”

The master politely stifled a chuckle. “You remind me a little of myself, when I was your age. You’ll do well to master the principles, as you say, but, hm, just remember, ah…”

“Yes?”

“Well, you’ll be staying for a while, won’t you? I’m sure there will be plenty of time to explain it.” Leo levitated all the gemstones back to their starting positions with impressive speed, and then stood up. “Would you like some hay-fried rice? I went to the market just this morning.”

Rite nodded, just now aware of her rumbling stomach. As she collected the tea set and headed into the kitchen, Leo mentioned: “As you may have heard, my semifinal match for the Canterlot Summer Cup is this week, and I’m up against an opponent with a, well, rather unique style.”

Rite was very well apprised of the names and events in the pro circuit. “You mean Turbulent Gust?”

“Yes. I would like to take the time to explain to you how I plan to play against him.”

“Of course!” Rite exclaimed. “At least, if it won’t detract from your study time.”

“Not at all. It will be a great benefit having somepony to explain it to, in simple terms.”

Rite was elated. Her idol was everything she read she was, and then some. One day, Rite hoped to become half as good of a player as she was. Only then would she really be somewhere, she mused. Somewhere ponies shared her ideals, somewhere ponies wouldn’t mock her for her interests. Somewhere that Arcelot’s unique blend of intellectualism, discipline, and justice prevailed. The greedy, the lazy, the cowardly, the hypocritical, the overly aggressive—those kinds of players would be punished in their games by their own iniquities. Somewhere only ponies of the purest and most assiduous minds would survive.

Somewhere, Rite hoped, that she might one day belong.

Comments

[EverfreePony]

Had this story bookmarked ever since the day it came out, I believe, though I only managed to get around to reading it now. I apologise for such a delay. I see that you've also published another story since then, so it's possible that some of the advice given below will be on things you already know. Still, maybe some of it will help you improve, and maybe someone else will find it helpful as well.

The long description was what caught my eye, promising an interesting SoL story that I believe many could relate to despite the story focusing on something so specific as a community of strategy board game players. However, I think that the topic of wanting to belong somewhere, only to find that we're not completely satisfied there because of others, is something that could easily resonate with many. So, to sum it up, great job on persuading the reader to give the story a try.

Now, regarding the story itself... it's sadly not as good as the description is. The thing is, the story's opening (and not just the opening) should hook the readers (since you cannot rely on everybody reading the blurbs) and convince them to read on by promising something interesting as well as giving them a taste of the story's themes and atmosphere. The issue with the opening chapter is that it doesn't really do this. The first few paragraphs show Rite's excitement about meeting Leo in a nice and natural way, which is great. It's clear that this meeting means a lot to her. However, the rest of the chapter fails to follow up on that. There's quite a lot of sections that serve as mere info dumps, completely halting the story's flow, killing the atmosphere, and detracting from the plot. Most of the information you provide this way can be saved for later or omitted altogether. The audience won't remember most of what the information-heavy section conveyed anyway, so focus just on the relevant info that you need to convey in that moment. (Note that the info dump on Arcelot that I presume was supposed to clarify the game only further muddies it. You'd definitely benefit more from showing some tidbits of the game like you do towards the part of the chapter. Attempting to summarise its history and principles in a few paragraphs to clarify the game simply backfires.)

Another issue is the very fast pacing of the rest of the chapter. You don't really let the characters interact to slow down and allow the readers to grasp what's happening. There's no time to build up much chemistry (in non-sexual meaning of the word) between the characters. The part where Leo offers Rite the game is pretty much just a slightly less bare-bones version than something like this would be:

"Hey, do you want to play a game?"
"OK, sure."

That's not really enticing, is it? Furthermore, it also doesn't feel very natural. You oftentimes relying on very long sentences (such as the one quoted below) as well as on dialogues without a lot of visuals or non-verbal communication further worsens the problem and bars you from fully setting up the scene. This is a story that's apparently supposed to focus on feelings and atmosphere, so make sure that you do your best to deliver on that.

Rite attempted to treat her idol’s study materials like fragile works of art, but there was so much of it scattered throughout the house’s small rooms that she could hardly avoid stepping on it: game records and annotated analyses spilled over the tables; charts of patterns and hoofwritten notes plastered the walls; and several Arcelot boards of varying size and ornateness captured historical matches mid-game.

Regarding some smaller, but rather noticeable errors, make sure that you don't have two speakers speaking within the same paragraph. It's extremely confusing to read, and it's one of the golden rules of writing that truly shouldn't be broken. Lastly, make sure to be consistent in the way you refer to the characters. It's fine if other characters address them in different ways, and it's also fine if you for some reason need to once mention the full name of the character, but your narrator should generally stick to using a single name. It's rather jarring if 'Rite' appears out of the blue after a while of the narrator referring to her as 'Meteorite'.

And that's pretty much all I wanted to mention. Let me know if anything was unclear or if you'd like me to elaborate on something. I'd love to see this story get some extra TLC as well as some new chapters. The premise is great.