Possible Game Projects
Here are some possible games to choose among for your
project proposals.
They all fit the criteria of having simple rules but complicated play,
no chance or hidden information, and a reasonably small number of
choices at each step.
- Amazons.
- Checkers.
- Connect-4.
This is a tic-tac-toe like game in which players drop pieces
onto columns and try to get four in a row.
See also
Keith Pomakis' Connect-4 page.
- Go-Moku, a game like tic-tac-toe involving
forming lines of pieces, but played on a much larger board.
- Fanorona looked like such a good
game that I programmed it myself!
- Hex,
a game played on a diamond-shaped board of hexagonal cells,
in which each player tries to form a path of cells from one side of the
board to the other.
See also H. Enderton's
Hex
infrequently asked questions page,
Javhar's hex pages,
and Okie's hex links page.
- Joust,
a game in which two knights use up the squares of a chessboard
until one is stuck.
- Knightsbridge,
a checkers-like game played with chess knights.
- Lines
of Action, a connectivity game played with go stones on a
checkerboard.
- MetaSquares,
a tic-tac-toe like game in which players earn points for making square
patterns on a checkerboard.
- Othello (also called
Reversi), a game played by flipping pieces with two backs (one black, one white).
- Sprouts,
in which players connect dots by non-crossing curves.
- Tablut aka Hnefatafl.
Viking checkers: a small set of defenders helps move a king from
the center to the corner of a board while attackers try to capture
the king.
- Trax,
in which players form paths by placing tiles.
- Troll, a game by Jean-Claude Rosa
combining features of Hex and Othello.
- Twixt. A game involving
placing diagonal bridges to connect two sides of a board.
- Some abstract
games published by Kadon Enterprises. The game of Y (similar to Hex)
looks particularly suitable.
David Eppstein,
Dept. Information & Computer Science,
UC Irvine,
.