Hex is a two player abstract strategy board game in which players attempt to connect opposite sides of a rhombus-shaped board made of hexagonal cells. Hex was invented by mathematician and poet Piet Hein in 1942 and later rediscovered and popularized by John Nash.
Ataxx (アタックス) is a strategy video game published in arcades by Leland Corporation in 1990. Two players compete on a seven-by-seven square grid. The object of the game is for a player to have a majority of the pieces on the board at the end of the game, by converting as many of their opponent's pieces as possible. In a single-player game, the opponents are "bio-invaders from a different dimension."
Simon is an electronic game of short-term memory skill invented by Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison, working for toy design firm Marvin Glass and Associates, with software programming by Lenny Cope. The device creates a series of tones and lights and requires a user to repeat the sequence. If the user succeeds, the series becomes progressively longer and more complex. Once the user fails or the time limit runs out, the game is over. The original version was manufactured and distributed by Milton Bradley and later by Hasbro after it took over Milton Bradley. Much of the assembly language code was written by Charles Kapps, who taught computer science at Temple University and also wrote one of the first books on the theory of computer programming. Simon was launched in 1978 at Studio 54 in New York City and was an immediate success, becoming a pop culture symbol of the 1970s and 1980s.
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.
The Black Path Game is a two-player board game described and analysed in Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays. It was invented by Larry Black in 1960.
Trax is a two-player abstract strategy game of loops and lines invented by David Smith in 1980.
Escape from Atlantis is a board game that portrays the sinking of Atlantis and the attempts by the population to escape the sinking island. It was originally released in the United States under the title of Survive! and first published in the English language by Parker Brothers in 1982. The game was invented by Julian Courtland-Smith. Early copies of Escape from Atlantis include the name of the then co-copyright owner, C. Courtland-Smith.
Blokus is an abstract strategy board game for two to four players, where players try to score points by occupying most of the board with pieces of their colour. The board is a square regular grid and the pieces are polyominoes. It was designed by French mathematician Bernard Tavitian and first released in 2000 by Sekkoïa, a French company. It has won several awards, including the Mensa Select award and the 2004 Teacher's Choice Award. In 2009, the game was sold to Mattel.
Hive is a bug-themed tabletop abstract strategy game, designed by John Yianni and published in 2001 by Gen42 Games. The object of Hive is to capture the opponent's queen bee by allowing it to become completely surrounded by other pieces, while avoiding the capture of one's own queen. Hive shares elements of both tile-based games and board games. It differs from other tile-based games in that the tiles, once placed, can then be moved to other positions according to various rules, much like chess pieces.
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.
Bookworm is a word-forming puzzle video game by PopCap Games. From a grid of available letters, players connect letters to form words. As words are formed, they are removed from the grid and the remaining letters collapse to fill the available space. Players earn more points by creating longer words or words which use less common letters and earn less for smaller words. In November 2006, PopCap Games released a sequel, Bookworm Adventures. Bookworm was released for the Nintendo DS digital distribution service DSiWare on November 30, 2009. It has also been released on the regular Nintendo DS cartridge.
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.
Reef Encounter is a German-style board game first published in 2004.
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, or Galactrix, is a puzzle video game developed by Infinite Interactive for the PC, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network service.
An edge-matching puzzle is a type of tiling puzzle involving tiling an area with polygons whose edges are distinguished with colours or patterns, in such a way that the edges of adjacent tiles match.
Qwirkle is a tile-based game for two to four players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time. In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres. A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009.
A connection game is a type of abstract strategy game in which players attempt to complete a specific type of connection with their pieces. This could involve forming a path between two or more endpoints, completing a closed loop, or connecting all of one's pieces so they are adjacent to each other. Connection games typically have simple rules, but complex strategies. They have minimal components and may be played as board games, computer games, or even paper-and-pencil games.
Bloody Fun Day is a puzzle Flash game developed by Urban Squall and published by Kongregate on March 12, 2009. Players control one of a family of three grim reapers and are tasked with moving around an island of hexagonal tiles, killing creatures called Cuties in order to replenish their own life force. Cuties come in four colors. Only the red ones restore life; the others charge special abilities that give the player more ways to kill further Cuties.
Serpentiles is the name coined by Kurt N. Van Ness for the hexagonal tiles used in various edge-matching puzzle connection abstract strategy games, such as Psyche-Paths, Kaliko, and Tantrix. For each tile, one to three colors are used to draw paths linking the six sides together in various configurations. Each side is connected to another side by a specific path route and color. Gameplay generally proceeds so that players take turns laying down tiles. During each turn, a tile is laid adjacent to existing tiles so that colored paths are contiguous across tile edges.
Duchess is a chess variant for 2+ players, created by Alan Blair and John Kramer in 1985 with the help of Mike Blair and Warwick Hooke. It supports 2-6 players in either free-for-all, 2v2, or 3v3 formats, and has largely the same rules as standard chess. Notable inclusions are three fairy chess pieces and a central "vortex" space being used for promotion rather than the back rank.
