The Mind Sports Organisation (MSO) is an association for promoting mind sports including Contract Bridge, Chess, Go, Mastermind, and Scrabble. Since 1997 it has annually organised in England a multi-sport competition, the Mind Sports Olympiad.
An abstract strategy game is a type of strategy game that has minimal or no narrative theme, an outcome determined only by player choice, and in which each player has perfect information about the game. For example, Go is a pure abstract strategy game since it fulfills all three criteria; chess and related games are nearly so but feature a recognizable theme of ancient warfare; and Stratego is borderline since it is deterministic, loosely based on 19th-century Napoleonic warfare, and features concealed information.
Tantrix is a hexagonal tile-based abstract game invented by Mike McManaway from New Zealand. Each of the 56 different tiles in the set contains three lines, going from one edge of the tile to another. No two lines on a tile have the same colour. There are four colours in the set: red, yellow, blue, and green. No two tiles are identical, and each is individually numbered from 1 through 56.
Entropy is an abstract strategy board game for two players designed by Eric Solomon in 1977. The game is "based on the eternal conflict in the universe between order and chaos [...] One player is Order, the other Chaos. Order is trying to make patterns vertically and horizontally. Chaos is trying to prevent this." The game originally employed a 5×5 gameboard, but in 2000 a 7x7 board was introduced to allow deeper strategies.
Kingdoms is a German-style board game for 2-4 players designed by Reiner Knizia and released in 2002 by Fantasy Flight. The game is based on Knizia's original German game Auf Heller und Pfennig, but has been given a Medieval Fantasy theme.
Battle Masters is a miniature wargame by Milton Bradley, made in collaboration with Games Workshop in 1992. It is thematically similar to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but with much simpler game mechanics. Like other Milton Bradley/Games Workshop partnership board games HeroQuest and Space Crusade, Battle Masters was designed by Stephen Baker, who later went on to design the popular game Heroscape.
Bōku is an abstract strategy board game played with marbles on a perforated hexagonal board with 80 spaces. The object of the game is to arrange five marbles in a row. The game has also been sold under the name Bollox, and later Bolix and won a Mensa Select award in 1999.
Continuo is an abstract strategy game by Maureen Hiron which was first published in 1982 and now distributed in board game form by David Westnedge Ltd. In the U.K and U.S. Games Systems in the U.S. It is played by arranging patterns printed on a deck of 42 cards, each card being printed with a grid of 16 colored squares. The goal is to place cards so that the tiles match as many chains of color as possible. Continuo sold over 200,000 units in the United Kingdom alone within a few months of being launched. Continuo won a 1995 Mensa Select games award. The tag line on the box is "The one rule game for all the family".
Hare and Tortoise is a Eurogame designed by David Parlett in 1974 and first published by Intellect Games. In 1978 it was released by Ravensburger in Germany, and received generally positive reviews critically and won the 1979 Spiel des Jahres. It has since sold some 2 million units in at least ten languages. The current editions are published by Gibsons Games in the UK, Ravensburger in Germany and Rio Grande Games in the United States.
Scrabble variants are games created by changing the normal Scrabble rules or equipment.
Ingenious is the English name for Einfach Genial, a German abstract strategy board game designed by Reiner Knizia under commission from Sophisticated Games and published in 2004 by Kosmos. Across most of Europe it is titled as the local translation of Ingenious or Simply Ingenious, the notable exception being Mensa Connections in the UK.
Clobber is an abstract strategy game invented in 2001 by combinatorial game theorists Michael H. Albert, J.P. Grossman and Richard Nowakowski. It has subsequently been studied by Elwyn Berlekamp and Erik Demaine among others. Since 2005, it has been one of the events in the Computer Olympiad.
Take It Easy is an abstract strategy board game created by Peter Burley. It can be characterized as a strategic bingo-like game, and has been published by Ravensburger and subsequently by several other publishers since 1983.
Konductra is a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS, published by O~3 Entertainment. IGN revealed the title on November 23, 2005. At the time, independent developer oeFun had started work without having a publisher lined up. oeFun and O~3 came into a publishing agreement in the summer of 2006 after the title was finished.
Lines of Action is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Claude Soucie. The objective is to connect all of one's pieces into a single group. The game was recommended by the Spiel des Jahres in 1988.
The Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) is an annual international multi-disciplined competition and festival for games of mental skill and mind sports. The inaugural event was held in 1997 in London with £100,000 prize fund and was described as possibly the biggest games festival ever held.
Three-player mahjong is a variation of mahjong for three players rather than the more common four-player variations. It is not a mere adaption of four-player mahjong to suit only three players but has its own rules and idiosyncrasies that place it apart from the more standard variations. The equipment used and the basic mechanisms are much like four-player variations though some tiles are removed, certain plays are prohibited and the scoring system is simplified. The game is embraced in some Asian countries while ignored or snubbed in others.
Scrabble Showdown is an American game show created for the American cable network The Hub. The program was based on the board game Scrabble and was hosted by Justin Willman. It ran from September 3, 2011, to April 15, 2012.
Pacru is an abstract board game invented by Mike Wellman. Pacru has much in common with Chess and Go (game). Pacru can be played by 2,3 or 4 people, each controlling a single colour. Commercial versions will usually come with the rules for two other games that can be played with the same equipment, Azacru and Shacru. Pacru, Azacru and Shacru have all been featured at the Mind Sports Olympiad.
Azul is an abstract strategy board game designed by Michael Kiesling and released by Plan B Games in 2017. Based on Portuguese tiles called azulejos, in Azul players collect sets of similarly colored tiles which they place on their player board. When a row is filled, one of the tiles is moved into a square pattern on the right side of the player board, where it garners points depending on where it is placed in relation to other tiles on the board.
