8 ms·

Show HN: Play abstract strategy board games online with friends or against bots

180 points by abstractbg 11mo ago

Thought I would post in celebration of 1 year of my website being online. I've been working on it on and off and currently the website allows users to play Hex, Tumbleweed, Amazons, and Connect 6 against friends or against practice bots. I've been a long time player of some of these games and I felt for a long time that the world could use a few more popular abstract strategy games compared to Chess or Go. If you try it, let me know what you think. I'm always looking for new games or new features to add :)

dgrin91 11mo ago
As a lay boardgamer, what makes a board game abstract?
- vkou 11mo ago
  Chess is an abstract proxy for a wargame, but is not in itself a wargame. 'Abstract' is somewhere on the chess side of the spectrum between Go and moving miniature battle tanks around and flipping to page 237 of Appendix E to look up how much water the average Italian soldier needed to boil his pasta in the Tobruk campaign.
  - mNovak 11mo ago
    As an aside, I have a slightly masochistic desire to implement an online-playable version of Campaign for North Africa. It bothers me that they can credibly claim there is no documented case of someone finishing the game.
- quuxplusone 11mo ago
  No text, no chance, perfect information. If you have to read things, roll things, or hide things, it's not an abstract. (This fails to include backgammon and Parcheesi when maybe it should, and includes Zark City when somehow I feel it shouldn't, but it's not a bad starting point.) Additionally: No dexterity (which is kind of a special case of "no chance").
  - Paracompact 11mo ago
    The most important subjective criterion, IMO, and the one from which all other objective criteria are just approximations, is that the game be as rules simple and as strategically deep as possible. If there are any superficial criteria, it's that the theming be "austere" (which is what makes Zark City stand out slightly).
  - fsckboy 11mo ago
    is there a game that is an abstract version of D&D? i've always been curious about the gameplay, but have absolutely no interest in reading past words like "wizard", "mage", or "eldritch", and i won't look at anything where i have to see or imagine that somebody is wearing a cape, or even play with gamers who are willing to imagine they are wearing capes in other games.
    - krapp 11mo ago
      Why do you have such an aversion to capes? There's no rule saying you have to play as a character in a cape. If you're asking if there's a version of D&D that's pure math and no roleplay, the closest thing I can imagine would be Dragon Dice, or something with the mechanics of a very basic roguelike. The math in D&D itself such as in combat is affected by your character's stats and the encounters created by the DM, so the mechanics and the role playing are kind of tied together.
      - vkazanov 11mo ago
        The thing is that dragons and magic and Harry Potter all become irrelevant at some point in life. Power fantasies do have an expiration date. Now, the genre itself, all the storytelling involved, can easily be adapted to more serious, or even abstract, thinking. In fact, it was, and there are plenty of alternative rpg universes. But, similar to how serious non-marvel movies are a niche, serious rpgs are also less popular.
        atakan_gurkan 11mo ago
        I understand where you are coming from, but I hope you realize this is very subjective. The things you mentioned and other elements of the fantasy genre do not become irrelevant for many people through their life, well into adult life as well. In fact, they may become irrelevant and become relevant again. Just to make it clear (and perhaps to state the obvious), you are not believing in these when you play these games or read these books, you are voluntarily suspending disbelief.
- jader201 11mo ago
  To me, when I think “abstract”, I think “no theme”. Games that aren’t abstract have a theme that helps make sense of the rules of the game. There are also games with themes that don’t really help make sense of the rules — the theme is just pasted on. These are still considered abstract, despite technically having a theme. The “ameritrash” genre are known for having strong themes that tie to the rules of the game. E.g. a lot of co-op games with plastic figures. Old school euro games often have a pasted on theme, and are more abstract.
zem 11mo ago
pentominoes would be a nice one to add (players take turns placing pentominoes on the board until someone cannot make a move). probably one of the variants like callisto or blokus where everyone has the same set of tiles in different colours and there are rules around connectedness
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Thanks! Will try to figure out a version that I can get permission to add to the website.
  - quuxplusone 11mo ago
    You're welcome to "Capture Pentominoes" if you want it! https://club.cc.cmu.edu/~ajo/free-software/pento/pento.html https://club.cc.cmu.edu/~ajo/free-software/pento/pento.html
    - abstractbg 11mo ago
      Perfect, thank you!
    - zem 11mo ago
      the usenet thread was a fun nostalgic read - something about the character of discussions was different from the ones you get on web based fora like reddit today. (also i recognise your name from rec.puzzles, which was another nice nostalgia moment :))
Paracompact 11mo ago
As a longtime chess and go player, I was just doing some research the other day into what modern abstracts are out there. I was disappointed by how dry I came up. Even if you expand the search criteria to include video games, there just aren't many deeply strategic discrete-time games that weren't invented centuries ago and have players online at any given time. Here I exclude games that are perpetually changing and/or have strategies locked behind progression systems and paywalls, such as TCGs and virtual deck builders. The very few exceptions I found were niche Discord communities around games like Tak, Hex, or Advanced Wars. When did we as a society lose the appreciation for these things? I get why including a component of dexterity in strategic video games (e.g. RTS) is to take full advantage of the medium, but all this in conjunction means we are very likely never to see another deeply studied cerebral game like go, chess, shogi, mahjong, etc. arise ever again.
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  I'm very hopeful that the problem is simply lack of general awareness of these games, and that once there's enough content surrounding them, we'll have a healthy population of people playing more abstract strategy games. Fun story regarding Hex. It nearly reached what I would call a "mainstream" audience with the movie "A Beautiful Mind" about John Nash starring Russel Crowe. Unfortunately, the Hex scene was cut from the movie! You can watch the cut scene at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTZ3nn2Bge4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTZ3nn2Bge4
  - ixwt 11mo ago
    I'm not an expert by any means, but there isn't much to draw people to other games aside from curiosity. When it comes to Chess and Go, there is significant money on the line. Chess was also a proxy fight during the Cold War.
  - Paracompact 11mo ago
    > I'm very hopeful that the problem is simply lack of general awareness of these games, and that once there's enough content surrounding them, we'll have a healthy population of people playing more abstract strategy games. Possibly, but my takeaway from COVID is that games like chess and go (which experienced a bump in popularity during the lockdowns, and have since been dwindling back down) are not merely gems waiting to be rediscovered, but instead appeal to outdated tastes in gaming, and are unlikely to be replicated given market realities. You need approachability for game-one beginners, you need vivid and eye-catching visuals, you need progression systems and content drips to keep players hooked, you need monetization to milk the whales, etc.
7373737373 11mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone_%28board_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone_%28board_game%29 would be cool
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Thanks! I haven't added a commercial game before, but I will reach out to the owners of the game and see what I can do.
ixwt 11mo ago
I'm personally a big fan of asymmetrical games. A game I've wanted to play but have never had the board to play it on is Unlur [0]. Arimaa [1] is another one with some history behind it that is uncommon. It is very much appreciated that I don't have to make an account to play. That is one of the most annoying thing on sites like these to play games. [0]: https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/unlur https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/unlur [1]: https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/arimaa https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/arimaa
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Thanks for the suggestions! Guest accounts are definitely a necessity. I had been looking at some asymmetrical games like Adugo and Viking Chess, myself.
- sloum 11mo ago
  I also really like asymmetrical games. In particular the various Tafl[0] reconstructions. Some are unbalanced, but some are very balanced and fun to play as either attacker or defender. There are various versions with rule variations to accommodate various board sizes too. I have not played Unlur. Looks like a cool hex variant. I like the initial phase where who plays white is decided. It is a neat way of working that out. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games
mylesp 11mo ago
Hive is my favourite for anyone looking for another abstract strategy boardgame. It has been very fun and feels very deep.
- workingonit3 11mo ago
  Hive is a really nice game. This year we picked up Homeworlds, there are more rules, but scratches a deeper itch. Plus you feel like a space general while playing lol. https://youtu.be/Nz16s6oCIlQ?si=lzSYIZZG4LtSLZUf https://youtu.be/Nz16s6oCIlQ?si=lzSYIZZG4LtSLZUf
bix6 11mo ago
I don’t quite understand this tumbleweed game but it seems fun so I’ll look up a video.
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Here's the rules video used by the Tumbleweed community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjA_g3nwYW4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjA_g3nwYW4 Also, in case you are curious, Tumbleweed has a discord https://discord.com/invite/wu6Xdtt497 https://discord.com/invite/wu6Xdtt497 They are currently playing through the 2025 Tumbleweed World Championship. Lots of strong players there!
  - bix6 11mo ago
    You should put that video in the info link, super helpful. I am getting crushed by the bot lol. Fun game!
nenadalm 11mo ago
nice website, Thanks for sharing. I like board games, so I'll definitely try some (or all) of them. > I'm always looking for new games or new features to add Nice feature to add would be single device multiplayer for the games. I play board games mostly in person. I know that there are travel versions of many games... but I don't like to carry too much stuff. So I've created 2 games that I sometimes play with other people (e.g. on a train, bus, or anywhere else if there's nothing better to do). Both games have only 2 player mode on single device. They're PWAs with offline support, so you can install them on your phone and don't need internet to play. These are: - backgammon: https://nenadalm.github.io/backgammon/ https://nenadalm.github.io/backgammon/ (link to the rules at the bottom in menu) - virus wars: https://nenadalm.github.io/virus-wars/ https://nenadalm.github.io/virus-wars/ (link to the rules at the bottom)
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Thanks, single device multiplayer is a great idea. Someone else recently mentioned to me that Virus Wars is their favorite game! I'm glad to see it getting some love.
aidenn0 11mo ago
The name of my favorite abstract strategy game escapes me, but it is played on a solitaire[1] shaped board, with lines connecting the dots indicating valid moves (all lateral moves are allowed, diagonal are somewhat restricted; I can draw the board from memory). It starts with the offense occupying every spot except for the nine that make up one limb of the cross (the "fortress"). Defense has two pieces only, placed anywhere inside the fortress. Offense can move any piece by one dot, following the lines, and cannot jump. Defense can move or jumping the pieces from the offense, in any direction, following the lines. Jumping is obligatory, consecutive jumps are allowed (and also obligatory, e.g. you can't not take a double jump). Game ends when: 1. The offense occupies all 9 squares of the fortress (offense wins) 2. There is no legal move for a player on their turn (that player loses) 3. The offense has fewer than 9 pieces left (defense wins) For practiced players #1 is the most common end to a game and the offense gets a number of points equal to the remaining pieces; players then switch sides and the player with the most points wins. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_solitaire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_solitaire
- Paracompact 11mo ago
  Asalto? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asalto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asalto
  - aidenn0 11mo ago
    Bingo! That looks exactly like the game I'm thinking of, but it was not named that. What I played was in one of those books that came with checkers and had different board-game printed on each page, and I'm guessing "Asalto" is trademarked or something.
    - quuxplusone 11mo ago
      The Book of Classic Board Games called it "The Dalmatian Pirates and the Volga Bulgars." https://boardgamegeek.com/image/926606/the-book-of-classic-board-games https://boardgamegeek.com/image/926606/the-book-of-classic-b...
animal531 11mo ago
I love games and once back in the day had the idea of using some form of genetic algorithm to combine game elements to make new games (Today we'd probably replace the genetic part with some form of NN). I spent a lot of time collecting and breaking down game elements from all board games I could find, but as things go with ADD I then ran out of steam before I had any kind of functional prototype. As always I highly recommend The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, and although its not his best book I really enjoyed the game aspects in it.
- Paracompact 11mo ago
  Are you familiar with The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse?
pred_ 11mo ago
How about 2 players playing on the same device, i.e. offline play? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dnane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dnane might be a fit.
tasuki 11mo ago
What do I think? It's amazing! Got crushed by a 300 bot in Hex, then beat a 100 bot, then again lost against 200. It's great how one can see the review immediately afterwards! Feature requests: - TwixT - just TwixT PP like on LittleGolem is fine (much easier to implement). - Quoridor - a delightfully incomprehensible game. - Larger board sizes. Hex starts being really fun at 19x19! Questions and suggestions: - On reddit you mention you "used AlphaZero-style methods to train the bots" - I suppose the networks are size-dependent? You could look into the many KataGo improvements[0]. - You mention the source code isn't released. If you released it, people could help add games. Again, very well done, thank you! [0]: https://github.com/lightvector/KataGo#training-history-and-research-and-docs https://github.com/lightvector/KataGo#training-history-and-r...
- almostdeadguy 11mo ago
  I love TwixT, I discovered the Bookshelf Games version of this recently (a friend of mine's parents had an old copy at their beach house). Also a big fan of Alex Randolph's Ricochet Robots. Dieter Stein's games are also supposed to be wonderful abstracts (Urbino, Fendo, Tintas) though I haven't had a chance to play those yet.
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Wow, beating a 100 bot is still impressive in my book. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! Yes, the networks are size dependent right now. It's a great idea to copy-paste and then adapt the KataGo network architecture since it isn't size dependent and has been proven to reach superhuman strengths.
  - tasuki 11mo ago
    I'm about 1950 on littlegolem, but trying again, I just lost a couple of games in a row against the 100 bot. A couple more questions/remarks: - It seems everything is happening on the client? My CPU (I'm on a laptop without a real GPU) goes wild during analysis. But also I don't notice any big bag of neural-net-weights being downloaded. Mind sharing how it works? - Care to share more about the networks? How long did you train the networks for and on what GPU? Circa how many params? Any and all details you'd like to share :) - This Tumbleweed game is fun! This game seems somewhat inspired by both Hex and Go, and the author lives in Warsaw. Interestingly, I lived in Warsaw in 2020, am very active in the Go scene (4 dan), and at least know the names of the people who play Hex, and yet somehow never heard about Michał or Tumbleweed before...
anentropic 11mo ago
> Hex is a two-player abstract strategy game invented independently by Piet Hein in 1942 and John Nash in 1948. This sounded very intriguing - what are the chances of two people inventing the same abstract strategy game!? At the least there might be some interesting story about how they arrived at same idea. Wikipedia phrases it differently though: > Hex was invented by mathematician and poet Piet Hein in 1942 and later rediscovered and popularized by John Nash. Ok less amazing
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Sorry, thanks for pointing that out! Yes Nash rediscovered it. Will update once things calm down
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Fixed! HexWiki has a full section on the controversy surrounding Nash's claim of rediscovering Hex independently https://www.hexwiki.net/index.php/History_of_Hex https://www.hexwiki.net/index.php/History_of_Hex
robobro 11mo ago
Reminds me of boardspace, though the UI is much cleaner. You should try to add the Gipf games at some point, they are very wonderful!
- fhcbix 11mo ago
  I was just going to recommend boardspace.net here! It also somewhat recently went open source: https://github.com/ddyer0/boardspace.net https://github.com/ddyer0/boardspace.net It clearly is stuck in the Java Applet era where it started but Dave eventually made an Android port and modern Java has no issues running it!
hermitcrab 11mo ago
Have you come across the Mancala family of board games? I learned to play the Hus variation in Namibia: https://mancala.fandom.com/wiki/Hus https://mancala.fandom.com/wiki/Hus It is fun how it is deterministic in theory, but it is hard to predict more than a few moves ahead - so seems random in practice. Also that you can go from being way ahead to losing, very quickly. I implemented a game engine for it. Can discuss if you are interested.
- zahlman 11mo ago
  > deterministic in theory, but it is hard to predict more than a few moves ahead - so seems random in practice. Also that you can go from being way ahead to losing, very quickly. How does one become skilled in something like that?
  - hermitcrab 11mo ago
    I guess similar to chess. You have to be able to see more moves ahead than your competitor. The game tree is quite narrow compared to chess, but complexity is added by the cascading nature of moves. It is a fun game. I recommend trying it. Good for kids as well.
kej 11mo ago
This reminds me of the game engine "Zillions of Games" from the '90s. It was a basic system for describing abstract strategy games and then an AI that could play them with you. They're still online but I don't know how active the community is: https://www.zillions-of-games.com/ https://www.zillions-of-games.com/
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
robobro 11mo ago
Is your site down? I'm unable to load it now.
- abstractbg 11mo ago
  Apologizes! Are you able to load it now? The activity finally calmed down and I just pushed a new version a few hours ago. I'm not sure if that's related to what you experienced. If it's still down for you, I'm happy to debug further, you can reach me at my Discord https://discord.gg/cSmaVrJMYy https://discord.gg/cSmaVrJMYy

180 points by abstractbg 11mo ago

dgrin91 11mo ago

As a lay boardgamer, what makes a board game abstract?

vkou 11mo ago
Chess is an abstract proxy for a wargame, but is not in itself a wargame. 'Abstract' is somewhere on the chess side of the spectrum between Go and moving miniature battle tanks around and flipping to page 237 of Appendix E to look up how much water the average Italian soldier needed to boil his pasta in the Tobruk campaign.
- mNovak 11mo ago
  As an aside, I have a slightly masochistic desire to implement an online-playable version of Campaign for North Africa. It bothers me that they can credibly claim there is no documented case of someone finishing the game.
quuxplusone 11mo ago
No text, no chance, perfect information. If you have to read things, roll things, or hide things, it's not an abstract. (This fails to include backgammon and Parcheesi when maybe it should, and includes Zark City when somehow I feel it shouldn't, but it's not a bad starting point.) Additionally: No dexterity (which is kind of a special case of "no chance").
- Paracompact 11mo ago
  The most important subjective criterion, IMO, and the one from which all other objective criteria are just approximations, is that the game be as rules simple and as strategically deep as possible. If there are any superficial criteria, it's that the theming be "austere" (which is what makes Zark City stand out slightly).
- fsckboy 11mo ago
  is there a game that is an abstract version of D&D? i've always been curious about the gameplay, but have absolutely no interest in reading past words like "wizard", "mage", or "eldritch", and i won't look at anything where i have to see or imagine that somebody is wearing a cape, or even play with gamers who are willing to imagine they are wearing capes in other games.
  - krapp 11mo ago
    Why do you have such an aversion to capes? There's no rule saying you have to play as a character in a cape. If you're asking if there's a version of D&D that's pure math and no roleplay, the closest thing I can imagine would be Dragon Dice, or something with the mechanics of a very basic roguelike. The math in D&D itself such as in combat is affected by your character's stats and the encounters created by the DM, so the mechanics and the role playing are kind of tied together.
    - vkazanov 11mo ago
      The thing is that dragons and magic and Harry Potter all become irrelevant at some point in life. Power fantasies do have an expiration date. Now, the genre itself, all the storytelling involved, can easily be adapted to more serious, or even abstract, thinking. In fact, it was, and there are plenty of alternative rpg universes. But, similar to how serious non-marvel movies are a niche, serious rpgs are also less popular.
      - atakan_gurkan 11mo ago
        I understand where you are coming from, but I hope you realize this is very subjective. The things you mentioned and other elements of the fantasy genre do not become irrelevant for many people through their life, well into adult life as well. In fact, they may become irrelevant and become relevant again. Just to make it clear (and perhaps to state the obvious), you are not believing in these when you play these games or read these books, you are voluntarily suspending disbelief.
jader201 11mo ago
To me, when I think “abstract”, I think “no theme”. Games that aren’t abstract have a theme that helps make sense of the rules of the game. There are also games with themes that don’t really help make sense of the rules — the theme is just pasted on. These are still considered abstract, despite technically having a theme. The “ameritrash” genre are known for having strong themes that tie to the rules of the game. E.g. a lot of co-op games with plastic figures. Old school euro games often have a pasted on theme, and are more abstract.

zem 11mo ago

pentominoes would be a nice one to add (players take turns placing pentominoes on the board until someone cannot make a move). probably one of the variants like callisto or blokus where everyone has the same set of tiles in different colours and there are rules around connectedness

abstractbg 11mo ago
Thanks! Will try to figure out a version that I can get permission to add to the website.
- quuxplusone 11mo ago
  You're welcome to "Capture Pentominoes" if you want it! https://club.cc.cmu.edu/~ajo/free-software/pento/pento.html https://club.cc.cmu.edu/~ajo/free-software/pento/pento.html
  - abstractbg 11mo ago
    Perfect, thank you!
  - zem 11mo ago
    the usenet thread was a fun nostalgic read - something about the character of discussions was different from the ones you get on web based fora like reddit today. (also i recognise your name from rec.puzzles, which was another nice nostalgia moment :))

Paracompact 11mo ago

As a longtime chess and go player, I was just doing some research the other day into what modern abstracts are out there. I was disappointed by how dry I came up. Even if you expand the search criteria to include video games, there just aren't many deeply strategic discrete-time games that weren't invented centuries ago and have players online at any given time. Here I exclude games that are perpetually changing and/or have strategies locked behind progression systems and paywalls, such as TCGs and virtual deck builders. The very few exceptions I found were niche Discord communities around games like Tak, Hex, or Advanced Wars. When did we as a society lose the appreciation for these things? I get why including a component of dexterity in strategic video games (e.g. RTS) is to take full advantage of the medium, but all this in conjunction means we are very likely never to see another deeply studied cerebral game like go, chess, shogi, mahjong, etc. arise ever again.

abstractbg 11mo ago
I'm very hopeful that the problem is simply lack of general awareness of these games, and that once there's enough content surrounding them, we'll have a healthy population of people playing more abstract strategy games. Fun story regarding Hex. It nearly reached what I would call a "mainstream" audience with the movie "A Beautiful Mind" about John Nash starring Russel Crowe. Unfortunately, the Hex scene was cut from the movie! You can watch the cut scene at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTZ3nn2Bge4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTZ3nn2Bge4
- ixwt 11mo ago
  I'm not an expert by any means, but there isn't much to draw people to other games aside from curiosity. When it comes to Chess and Go, there is significant money on the line. Chess was also a proxy fight during the Cold War.
- Paracompact 11mo ago
  > I'm very hopeful that the problem is simply lack of general awareness of these games, and that once there's enough content surrounding them, we'll have a healthy population of people playing more abstract strategy games. Possibly, but my takeaway from COVID is that games like chess and go (which experienced a bump in popularity during the lockdowns, and have since been dwindling back down) are not merely gems waiting to be rediscovered, but instead appeal to outdated tastes in gaming, and are unlikely to be replicated given market realities. You need approachability for game-one beginners, you need vivid and eye-catching visuals, you need progression systems and content drips to keep players hooked, you need monetization to milk the whales, etc.

7373737373 11mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone_%28board_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone_%28board_game%29 would be cool

abstractbg 11mo ago
Thanks! I haven't added a commercial game before, but I will reach out to the owners of the game and see what I can do.

ixwt 11mo ago

I'm personally a big fan of asymmetrical games. A game I've wanted to play but have never had the board to play it on is Unlur [0]. Arimaa [1] is another one with some history behind it that is uncommon. It is very much appreciated that I don't have to make an account to play. That is one of the most annoying thing on sites like these to play games. [0]: https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/unlur https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/unlur [1]: https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/arimaa https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/arimaa

abstractbg 11mo ago
Thanks for the suggestions! Guest accounts are definitely a necessity. I had been looking at some asymmetrical games like Adugo and Viking Chess, myself.
sloum 11mo ago
I also really like asymmetrical games. In particular the various Tafl[0] reconstructions. Some are unbalanced, but some are very balanced and fun to play as either attacker or defender. There are various versions with rule variations to accommodate various board sizes too. I have not played Unlur. Looks like a cool hex variant. I like the initial phase where who plays white is decided. It is a neat way of working that out. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games

mylesp 11mo ago

Hive is my favourite for anyone looking for another abstract strategy boardgame. It has been very fun and feels very deep.

workingonit3 11mo ago
Hive is a really nice game. This year we picked up Homeworlds, there are more rules, but scratches a deeper itch. Plus you feel like a space general while playing lol. https://youtu.be/Nz16s6oCIlQ?si=lzSYIZZG4LtSLZUf https://youtu.be/Nz16s6oCIlQ?si=lzSYIZZG4LtSLZUf

bix6 11mo ago

I don’t quite understand this tumbleweed game but it seems fun so I’ll look up a video.

abstractbg 11mo ago
Here's the rules video used by the Tumbleweed community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjA_g3nwYW4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjA_g3nwYW4 Also, in case you are curious, Tumbleweed has a discord https://discord.com/invite/wu6Xdtt497 https://discord.com/invite/wu6Xdtt497 They are currently playing through the 2025 Tumbleweed World Championship. Lots of strong players there!
- bix6 11mo ago
  You should put that video in the info link, super helpful. I am getting crushed by the bot lol. Fun game!

nenadalm 11mo ago

nice website, Thanks for sharing. I like board games, so I'll definitely try some (or all) of them. > I'm always looking for new games or new features to add Nice feature to add would be single device multiplayer for the games. I play board games mostly in person. I know that there are travel versions of many games... but I don't like to carry too much stuff. So I've created 2 games that I sometimes play with other people (e.g. on a train, bus, or anywhere else if there's nothing better to do). Both games have only 2 player mode on single device. They're PWAs with offline support, so you can install them on your phone and don't need internet to play. These are: - backgammon: https://nenadalm.github.io/backgammon/ https://nenadalm.github.io/backgammon/ (link to the rules at the bottom in menu) - virus wars: https://nenadalm.github.io/virus-wars/ https://nenadalm.github.io/virus-wars/ (link to the rules at the bottom)

abstractbg 11mo ago
Thanks, single device multiplayer is a great idea. Someone else recently mentioned to me that Virus Wars is their favorite game! I'm glad to see it getting some love.

aidenn0 11mo ago

The name of my favorite abstract strategy game escapes me, but it is played on a solitaire[1] shaped board, with lines connecting the dots indicating valid moves (all lateral moves are allowed, diagonal are somewhat restricted; I can draw the board from memory). It starts with the offense occupying every spot except for the nine that make up one limb of the cross (the "fortress"). Defense has two pieces only, placed anywhere inside the fortress. Offense can move any piece by one dot, following the lines, and cannot jump. Defense can move or jumping the pieces from the offense, in any direction, following the lines. Jumping is obligatory, consecutive jumps are allowed (and also obligatory, e.g. you can't not take a double jump). Game ends when: 1. The offense occupies all 9 squares of the fortress (offense wins) 2. There is no legal move for a player on their turn (that player loses) 3. The offense has fewer than 9 pieces left (defense wins) For practiced players #1 is the most common end to a game and the offense gets a number of points equal to the remaining pieces; players then switch sides and the player with the most points wins. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_solitaire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_solitaire

Paracompact 11mo ago
Asalto? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asalto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asalto
- aidenn0 11mo ago
  Bingo! That looks exactly like the game I'm thinking of, but it was not named that. What I played was in one of those books that came with checkers and had different board-game printed on each page, and I'm guessing "Asalto" is trademarked or something.
  - quuxplusone 11mo ago
    The Book of Classic Board Games called it "The Dalmatian Pirates and the Volga Bulgars." https://boardgamegeek.com/image/926606/the-book-of-classic-board-games https://boardgamegeek.com/image/926606/the-book-of-classic-b...

animal531 11mo ago

I love games and once back in the day had the idea of using some form of genetic algorithm to combine game elements to make new games (Today we'd probably replace the genetic part with some form of NN). I spent a lot of time collecting and breaking down game elements from all board games I could find, but as things go with ADD I then ran out of steam before I had any kind of functional prototype. As always I highly recommend The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, and although its not his best book I really enjoyed the game aspects in it.

Paracompact 11mo ago
Are you familiar with The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse?

pred_ 11mo ago

How about 2 players playing on the same device, i.e. offline play? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dnane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dnane might be a fit.

tasuki 11mo ago

What do I think? It's amazing! Got crushed by a 300 bot in Hex, then beat a 100 bot, then again lost against 200. It's great how one can see the review immediately afterwards! Feature requests: - TwixT - just TwixT PP like on LittleGolem is fine (much easier to implement). - Quoridor - a delightfully incomprehensible game. - Larger board sizes. Hex starts being really fun at 19x19! Questions and suggestions: - On reddit you mention you "used AlphaZero-style methods to train the bots" - I suppose the networks are size-dependent? You could look into the many KataGo improvements[0]. - You mention the source code isn't released. If you released it, people could help add games. Again, very well done, thank you! [0]: https://github.com/lightvector/KataGo#training-history-and-research-and-docs https://github.com/lightvector/KataGo#training-history-and-r...

almostdeadguy 11mo ago
I love TwixT, I discovered the Bookshelf Games version of this recently (a friend of mine's parents had an old copy at their beach house). Also a big fan of Alex Randolph's Ricochet Robots. Dieter Stein's games are also supposed to be wonderful abstracts (Urbino, Fendo, Tintas) though I haven't had a chance to play those yet.
abstractbg 11mo ago
Wow, beating a 100 bot is still impressive in my book. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! Yes, the networks are size dependent right now. It's a great idea to copy-paste and then adapt the KataGo network architecture since it isn't size dependent and has been proven to reach superhuman strengths.
- tasuki 11mo ago
  I'm about 1950 on littlegolem, but trying again, I just lost a couple of games in a row against the 100 bot. A couple more questions/remarks: - It seems everything is happening on the client? My CPU (I'm on a laptop without a real GPU) goes wild during analysis. But also I don't notice any big bag of neural-net-weights being downloaded. Mind sharing how it works? - Care to share more about the networks? How long did you train the networks for and on what GPU? Circa how many params? Any and all details you'd like to share :) - This Tumbleweed game is fun! This game seems somewhat inspired by both Hex and Go, and the author lives in Warsaw. Interestingly, I lived in Warsaw in 2020, am very active in the Go scene (4 dan), and at least know the names of the people who play Hex, and yet somehow never heard about Michał or Tumbleweed before...

anentropic 11mo ago

> Hex is a two-player abstract strategy game invented independently by Piet Hein in 1942 and John Nash in 1948. This sounded very intriguing - what are the chances of two people inventing the same abstract strategy game!? At the least there might be some interesting story about how they arrived at same idea. Wikipedia phrases it differently though: > Hex was invented by mathematician and poet Piet Hein in 1942 and later rediscovered and popularized by John Nash. Ok less amazing

abstractbg 11mo ago
Sorry, thanks for pointing that out! Yes Nash rediscovered it. Will update once things calm down
abstractbg 11mo ago
Fixed! HexWiki has a full section on the controversy surrounding Nash's claim of rediscovering Hex independently https://www.hexwiki.net/index.php/History_of_Hex https://www.hexwiki.net/index.php/History_of_Hex

robobro 11mo ago

Reminds me of boardspace, though the UI is much cleaner. You should try to add the Gipf games at some point, they are very wonderful!

fhcbix 11mo ago
I was just going to recommend boardspace.net here! It also somewhat recently went open source: https://github.com/ddyer0/boardspace.net https://github.com/ddyer0/boardspace.net It clearly is stuck in the Java Applet era where it started but Dave eventually made an Android port and modern Java has no issues running it!

hermitcrab 11mo ago

Have you come across the Mancala family of board games? I learned to play the Hus variation in Namibia: https://mancala.fandom.com/wiki/Hus https://mancala.fandom.com/wiki/Hus It is fun how it is deterministic in theory, but it is hard to predict more than a few moves ahead - so seems random in practice. Also that you can go from being way ahead to losing, very quickly. I implemented a game engine for it. Can discuss if you are interested.

zahlman 11mo ago
> deterministic in theory, but it is hard to predict more than a few moves ahead - so seems random in practice. Also that you can go from being way ahead to losing, very quickly. How does one become skilled in something like that?
- hermitcrab 11mo ago
  I guess similar to chess. You have to be able to see more moves ahead than your competitor. The game tree is quite narrow compared to chess, but complexity is added by the cascading nature of moves. It is a fun game. I recommend trying it. Good for kids as well.

kej 11mo ago

This reminds me of the game engine "Zillions of Games" from the '90s. It was a basic system for describing abstract strategy games and then an AI that could play them with you. They're still online but I don't know how active the community is: https://www.zillions-of-games.com/ https://www.zillions-of-games.com/

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

robobro 11mo ago

Is your site down? I'm unable to load it now.

abstractbg 11mo ago
Apologizes! Are you able to load it now? The activity finally calmed down and I just pushed a new version a few hours ago. I'm not sure if that's related to what you experienced. If it's still down for you, I'm happy to debug further, you can reach me at my Discord https://discord.gg/cSmaVrJMYy https://discord.gg/cSmaVrJMYy