At a Christmas party I attended a couple of weeks ago, I discovered a classic board game called Quarto. In fact, the host of the party who's worked for a major gaming company in the past asked me if I knew how to build it as a computer application. I discounted myself as a non-game-developer who only builds business applications, but then followed that by saying that if it is only a 2D game, it was simple to build. So, the challenge was on!!!

Quarto is a two player abstract strategy game by Blaise Muller that plays in 5-10 minutes. You can get it right now from Gigamic. Art Great online store for board games. They always arrive perfectly and undamaged which is important to me. This is a prime coffee-table game: gorgeous pieces with no words or symbols anywhere. All sixteen pieces are beautiful natural wood in dark and light shades, and every piece is unique. There’s a canvas bag to store them in, and a very simple wooden board.

On your turn, you place a piece in any open spot on the board. Your goal is to make a line of four pieces – horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. To make a line, all four pieces must share at least one attribute: height, color, shape, or presence of a “hole”. This combination of four attributes means every one of the sixteen pieces is entirely unique. Tall or Short Light or Dark Square or Circle Solid or Hole Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. What size boards are possible, if we say that there must be the same number of spaces on the board as there are pieces, and all our pieces are different?

If this player has not noticed the alignment and passes a piece to the opponent: The latter may "at that moment" call "QUARTO !" and indicate the alignment: He wins the game. The main objective of this activity is to learn how to classify and arrange the pieces depending on a common denominator. Escape Room Wooden Brain Teaser Puzzle Gift Set - puzzle lovers gift, father's day, Christmas gift, gift for engineers | Kubiya GamesRule 4. You have one move at a time, not a place the piece move followed by a chose a piece move. IE, whenever you place a piece, you should already know there is at least one piece available that you can give that cannot win. It is disheartening to realize that your placement set up both lights and darks, or that it set up both circles and hollows (and the only pieces left are either circular or hollow). This is a boardgame that I did not invent : it was created by a mathematician called Blaise Müller and is now commercialised under the name "Quarto". I decided it would be fun to make one myself... And I will show you how I did it. Here’s the first twist: all the pieces are shared between you and your opponent. You can use any pieces already on the board to make a line. Finally the game comes with a rule book in about a million different languages. Well not that many, but short of you only speaking something rare like Klingon, chances are you’ll find rules in your native tongue. How to Play: With a 3/16in drill bit, drill the ends of two long square pieces and two short square pieces, as well as of two long round pieces and two short round pieces. You do not have do drill very deep : only as much as to look hollowed, in comparison the the plain pieces.

Quarto is distinctive in that there is only one set of common pieces, rather than a set for one player and a different set for the other. It is therefore an impartial game.

It’s certainly possible to imagine playing on a three-dimensional board. You might have seen a 3D noughts and crosses puzzle, or be imagining Star Trek’s 3D chess. Rule 2. Know always where properties can potentially win. For the basic game, there are 10 winning areas (4 rows, 4 columns, 2 diagonals). For the advanced game, there are an additional 9 square areas. In the basic game, each piece will be in 2 or 3 of these areas, while in the advanced game it is 4 or 7 areas. As soon as 2 pieces are in the same area, identify all the ways that something could possibly win there. This is critical to know when there are 3 pieces in an area (a property being set up to win). Using a coping saw or a bandsaw, cut carefully along the line... As close to it but being careful not to come inside the line. The more accurate and regular you are, the less work and time you will have to spend with finer tools in the next steps.