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Examples

Magical Squares Game

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Whether introduced as children in elementary school, as adults in the workplace, or somewhere in between, the concept of magic squares has fascinated people for centuries; The Wikipedia article has discoveries of magic squares dating back to 650 B.C. in China.

Magic Squares of size n (for n >= 3) are n by n grids where the numbers 1, 2, …, n2 are specially arranged such that the sum of each row, column, and diagonal all sum to the same number. Below are two examples of magic squares of size 3 and 4.

834
159
627
411613
151126
101473
58912

Notice first, that in the first square all the numbers 1, 2, 3, .., 9 are used in the square. Likewise, the numbers 1, 2, …, 15, 16 are used in the second square. Second notice that each row, column and diagonal sums to 15 in the first square and 34 in the second square.

I have recently published a puzzle that is based on the concept of magic squares. There are some slight differences though.
– First, instead of using the numbers 1, 2, …, n2 a random set of numbers are generated.
– Second, the rows and columns each have a desired sum that we would like the numbers in the row/column to sum to.

These two changes allow for a puzzle concept to be formulated based on the magic square concept. Users take turns swapping elements until the numbers in each row and column sum to the number in their goal cell, which is located in the last column or row of the grid. Above is an image of a solved puzzle.

Users can determine their progress the numbers in the next-to-last column, which tells the current sum of the numbers in that respective row or column.

To swap two numbers, first click on a cell with one of the two numbers in it. The cell should then turn red. Then click on the cell with the other number in it and the numbers should swap. If you click on the same cell twice no action should take place (except for the cell to turn red and then blank again).

Take a moment to check out the puzzles and let me know what you think.

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Dots and Boxes Game

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Dots and Boxes Game

When I was in high school, one of my favorite ways to waste time in class (not recommended) was to play a game called dots and boxes (although at the time we just called it dots). I was very surprised to find later that this game belongs to a class of games called “Impartial Combinatorial Games”. These are games where the moves available to the player depend only on the position of the game, and not the player.

In a game of Dots and Boxes, we start with an initial grid with dots at each row and column intersection. At each player’s turn, they have the option of drawing either a horizontal or vertical line between two neighboring dots (depending on if the dots are in the same row or column). If a player fills in the last line on a box (the 4th side), we say that player “owns” the box. The game ends when there are no neighboring dots without a line between them. At the conclusion of the game, the player who owns the most dots is declared the winner.

The game is impartial because there is no restriction on which move a player can make other than the fact that a player cannot re-do a move that has already been made (a partial version of this game would be if player one could only move horizontally and player two could only move vertically).

I have implemented a javascript version of this game. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I also spoke earlier about the discovery that this game in particular was an active area of research. I wanted to provide a link to a paper entitled “Solving Dots and Boxes” by Joseph K. Barker and Richard E Korf that speaks about winning strategies for each player in a game of dots and boxes.