Mountain Man
As per the site Dwight gave, the Inglenook was a British layout created at the last minute for an exhibition. It's a very simple, very small layout with just 2 turnouts. The "game" aspect of it was developed at the show, and was a show success, with the crowd shouting out what the next switching move would be.
What I was trying to say in my previous post is that the game part of an Inglenook configuration is optional, using my layout plan as an example.
The Inglenook track configuration is quite common in the prototype world, and there are examples on the web site Dwight posted for many nations, including the US. After all, 2 spurs coming off a main line, or a 3 track yard with lead, is hardly uncommon. What is uncommon in the prototype world are tracks with that little capacity. But we all have tracks with less capacity than the prototype. Here is an example of the Inglenook configuration in a prototype LDE at Selby, SD - the Inglenook portion is marked in red.
The key to the Inglenook game is the capacities in number of cars of the 3 tracks. There are 5:3:3 Inglenooks, as well as smaller versions. The number of possible combinations for the game decreases when you decrease the capacities of the 3 tracks.
But you can have the tracks with much larger capacities, and artificially limit the track used when you decide to play the game. In the meantime, you use the layout normally.
In my specific case, a portion of my layout plan is derived and enlarged from the Gum Stump and Snowshoe.
The lower right "terminal" unintentionally has the track configuration of the Inglenook. In my case, the upper two spurs of the lower right terminal will end at a turntable, giving me a runaround track when I want one. I can make up a rule forbidding the use of the turntable as a runaround when I want to complicate the operations. The lower spur will run out on a dock. If I take care when building to ensure I have at least a 3 car capacity on the upper 2 spurs, and 5 cars on the dock spur, I can play the full Inglenook game should I get bored with other operations.
But my point remains is that just because you have an Inglenook configuration, you are not limited to what some view as a frustrating game. The Timesaver in it's original form with the very short runaround and limited spur capacities is not so forgiving - it's pretty useless for anything else except the game.
Again my thoughts and experiences, yours may differ