| Hexxagon |
Website Links For Ataxx |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT ATAXX | |
| 1988 video games | |
| amiga games | |
| commodore 64 games | |
| atari st games | |
| arcade games | |
| abstract strategy games | |
| linux games | |
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''Ataxx'' (also known as ''SlimeWars'' and ''Frog Cloning'') is a Board Game which first appeared in 1990 as an arcade Video Game by The Leland Corporation. The game was invented by Dave Crummack and Craig Galley in 1988 and was called ''Infection''. It was first programmed on Amiga , Commodore 64 , and Atari ST . The game is purportedly in the public domain now. GAME PLAY Two players take turns placing pieces on a 7x7 board. In the starting position, each player has two pieces of his color around diagonally opposite corners of the board. Player take turns to move any one of their pieces to any square up to two steps away, including diagonally. If the piece is moved to a neighboring (in any direction, including diagonal) square, an additional piece is left on the starting square of the move, so the player has one more piece on the board after the move than before. If the piece is moved to a square two steps away, no new piece is added. After the move, all enemy pieces adjacent to the piece moved change to its color. The game ends when one or both of the players can't move. The player with the most pieces wins. The board configuration may be altered by having certain squares filled (not playable by either player). ''ATAXX'' COMPLEXITY ''Ataxx'' has between 2^n and 3^n possible end game positions, where n represents the board area. Attempts to calculate the complexity of games are normally made by raising the branching factor to the power of the number of plies. In ''Ataxx'', the average number of plies is about 100 and the average branching factor about 60, giving 60^100 games. However, this greatly underestimates the true complexity. In Ataxx, nearly every Combination of the 4 original pieces on the board can be obtained. Thus C = ( n! / r! (n – r)! ), where n is the board area, r is the number of slimes, and C is the number of possible positions. Even this value is much too small, as each combination without repetition having r slimes may have any Permutation with repetition of red or blue slimes (with the exception of 0 red or blue). Therefore,
where r represents to the number of slimes and goes from 4 to n – 1, n represents the board area, and S is the state space complexity. The formula calculates the Summation of the combinations without repetition for r slimes multiplied by the permutations with repetition for r slimes, or the total number of positions which can be achieved for every number of slimes possible without ending the game. The – 2 present in 2^r – 2 is necessary to avoid the two situations where all slimes are either blue or red. In fact, not all permutations with repetition of red or blue slimes may be achieved; for example, if r = 4 and the four slimes are adjacent, then they must necessarily be the same colour. Even so, it is probable that the above formula is fairly accurate, and at least serves as an upper bound. To calculate the Game Tree Complexity , i.e. the total number of possible games that can be played, the summation must be replaced with a product. This gives the following formula:
where r represents to the number of slimes and goes from 4 to n (not n – 1 as above), n represents the board area, and G is the game tree complexity. The reason multiplication is used rather than addition is that, for each position obtained with r slimes, all possible positions with r + 1 slimes (except the restrictions mentioned above) may be obtained. The – 2 again adds some ambiguity; including it implies that a player cannot have zero slimes, excluding it implies that once a player has zero slimes the game may continue (neither of which are true). This answer is probably less accurate than the approximation of the state-space complexity. OTHER VERSIONS The arcade version is timed, similarly to Blitz Chess . Each player's timer counts down while it is their turn to move; they lose if it reaches zero, but may buy more time (100 seconds per quarter) while the game is in progress. After completing a game (whether they won or lost), a player may choose whether or not to play another game with the time remaining. Ataxx can be found all over the internet in numerous variations including board size. The GNOME desktop environment for Linux features an ''Ataxx'' game. Ataxx can be Played By Email , using Richard Rognlie's Play-By-eMail Server . Hexxagōn is a variant of ''Ataxx'' that is played on a Hexagonal board instead of a square one. The rules of the game are the same as in ''Ataxx''. ''ATAXX'' CLONES The most popular of the ''Ataxx'' clones is the Laboratory Puzzle in The 7th Guest , where the player faces off with the AI in the game, in this case the antagonist "Stauf", who is incredibly difficult to beat - all the while laughing and ridiculing the player with phrases like "Ooooooooo Baaaaaaaad Mooooooooove." and "We'll all be dead by the time you solve this!" The pieces were seen through a Microscope on a slide, interpreted as viral infections, two sets blue and two sets green. Passing over this puzzle in the game requires two trips to the library to the hint book. Winning this puzzle causes Stauf to let out a growl, then say "Don't think you'll be so lucky next time!" Another popular ''Ataxx'' clone was Boogers, an online 4 player version hosted by the ImagiNation Network , a pre-internet dial-up game network. Two to four players fought on a large board (9×9). The pieces, called boogers, were colored green, yellow, purple and blue. Blocks were randomly placed on the board to alter game play. Jumping one's booger over an opponent's booger would change the victim's color, resulting in more boogers for the aggressor. Chatting both openly and privately was integrated into the game: this promoted shady non-aggression pacts, ganging up, and stabbing opponents in the back. ''Spot'' For NES, PC, And Game Boy implements the same rules as ''Ataxx''. '' The 11th Hour '' also features a puzzle similar to ''Ataxx'', but with a board of Hexagon s. The Sierra educational title ''Mega Math'' included a clone of Ataxx where the player must answer math questions in order to move. {Link without Title} TRIVIA
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