Steven Meyers' homepage

last updated April 2, 2013 link to freeware BoxOff program

my wife Christine and I

This website provides information on some games that appeared in Games magazine and Abstract Games magazine. Many thanks to their respective editors, R. Wayne Schmittberger and Kerry Handscomb. Complete rules are given, as well as sample games with commentary, handicap systems and puzzles. Since all these games can be played with pen-and-paper, I've included some printable boards marked for notation. I'd be happy to play any of these games via e-mail, and I also enjoy playing shogi variants (Wa and Dai-dai in particular). Lately I've been playing a lot of Akron, a game which I had the opportunity to make some helpful suggestions for. Akron is implemented for Richard's, so please challenge me if you'd like --- my user id is stevmey.

For those interested in Y theory, there's now a very nice online proof at Cut-the-Knot.

The revised version of my game Forms has been nicely written up by Joao Neto. Below is a picture of one of our cats, Shogi, checking out a homemade board with a game in progress.

Forms has now been implemented on iggamecenter, where it is known as "advanced Forms."

UPDATE! Greg Schmidt has written a freeware program for BoxOff, a solitaire game that I invented. Here's a pic of my wife playing a game on a physical board.

BoxOff will be featured in the August 2013 issue of GAMES magazine, available in bookstores May 28th!

• Trellis

• Anchor

• Orbit

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Steven Meyers
8356 Lake Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45236
USA

(513) 607-7657

swmeyers@fuse.net

LINKS:

• 3-6-9 --- an enjoyable non-partisan game, for which a freeware program is available.
• Connection Games book --- a large survey of the genre, providing a good classification system and describing underlying graph structures.
• Akron --- a very interesting 3-D connection game!
• Grand Chess --- this variant holds to the essential character of the orthodox game, while at the same time increasing strategic and tactical interest.
• Mark Thompson's website --- detailed information on Y, Poly Y, Star, Twixt and other games.
• Super Duper Games --- a nice abstract gaming server maintained by Aaron Dalton.
• University of Alberta games group --- online AI programs for Hex, Lines of Action, XiangQi and other games.
• Shogi Variants program --- freeware that lets you play Japanese chess and its many variants, both modern and historical.
• Mark Steere's games --- rules for Scribe, Tanbo, Oust and other original games.
• Abstract Strategy --- compendium of both published and unpublished games.
• International Go Newsletter --- a free newsletter edited by 1-dan professional Alexandre Dinerchtein.
• World of Abstract Games --- Joao Neto's informative site.
• Richard's PBeM Server --- a widely used e-mail server for many abstract games.
• American Go Association --- information on the game of Go and the U.S. Go scene.
• David Eppstein's Complexity page --- some thoughts on the relationship between complexity class and puzzle/game enjoyment.
• Paddachee applets --- a pattern-forming game system designed by Bob Harris.
• Paul's graphical front-end --- attractive interfaces for some of the games on Richard's server.

Trellis | Anchor | Orbit