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Alligator Eggs!

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In 2007, I met Philip Wadler at a conference, who mentioned to me that he wanted to teach lambda calculus to his eight-year-old children. I was getting into game design theory at the time, and was familiar with the school of thought that games are systems of formal rules with a layer of aesthetics. If any game can be abstracted as a formal system, I wondered if any formal system could be turned into a game. I wrote up this alligator game the next morning, basically just to amuse Phil and his kids. His daughter reportedly enjoyed drawing the alligators. Step 1: Print out this PDF onto six or so different colored sheets of paper. (Even better, photocopy it onto cardstock.) Step 2: Print out this PDF onto a couple white sheets of paper. Step 3: Cut out the pieces! These are hungry alligators: Hungry alligators are hungry. They'll eat anything that's in front of them! But they are also responsible alligators, so they guard their families. These are old alligators: Old alligators are not hu

Alligator Eggs! In 2007, I met Philip Wadler at a conference, who mentioned to me that he wanted to teach lambda calculus to his eight-year-old children. I was getting into game design theory at the time, and was familiar with the school of thought that games are systems of formal rules with a layer of aesthetics. If any game can be abstracted as a formal system, I wondered if any formal system could be turned into a game. I wrote up this alligator game the next morning, basically just to amuse Phil and his kids. His daughter reportedly enjoyed drawing the alligators . Alligator Eggs! A puzzle

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