Ask HN: Are there board games like Go, Hex etc but a bit simpler?

15 points·justaguyhere··12 comments

Looking to make board game playing computer programs. Go, Hex etc are way too complex for my skill level, are there others that are simpler than Go but not too simple?

Also, are there any good books on programming such games? Games that are purely logical/computational and do not involve any graphics?

View on HN

See John Conway's classic on Combinatorial Game Theory Winning Ways For Your Mathematical Plays

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_Ways_for_your_Mathemat...

As far as programming agents to play board games you can check out this Python implementation of Monte Carlo Tree Search

http://mcts.ai/code/python.html

Go is sometimes played on a reduced size board, like 9 X 9. You can play a game in 45 minutes or less, but YMMV.

I would highly recommend playing 9x9 Go! It is a lot shorter and generally played at a faster pace (lower time controls). It still retains a good balance of strategy and tactics.

There are actually a number of abstract games that can be played on a go board with go pieces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_played_with_Go_equipment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomoku

gomoku is simpler

What about Othello?

Connect 4 should be really easy to implement.

Tak is relatively new but is pretty fun to play for an abstract game.

Blackjack. You could even use a command line text interface.

tic-tac-toe

Chess? Checkers?

Mancala

Reply on news.ycombinator.com