Play abstract strategy board games online with friends or against bots

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 :)

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

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

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

[1]: https://www.iggamecenter.com/en/rules/arimaa

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.

Thanks for the suggestions! Guest accounts are definitely a necessity. I had been looking at some asymmetrical games like Adugo and Viking Chess, myself.

Thanks! Will try to figure out a version that I can get permission to add to the website.

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

You're welcome to "Capture Pentominoes" if you want it!

https://club.cc.cmu.edu/~ajo/free-software/pento/pento.html

Perfect, thank you!

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 :))

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/ (link to the rules at the bottom in menu)

- virus wars: https://nenadalm.github.io/virus-wars/ (link to the rules at the bottom)

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.

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