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Concept
Connection game
Summary
A connection game is a type of abstract strategy game in which players attempt to complete a specific type of connection with their pieces. This could involve forming a path between two or more endpoints, completing a closed loop, or connecting all of one's pieces so they are adjacent to each other. Connection games typically have simple rules, but complex strategies. They have minimal components and may be played as board games, computer games, or even paper-and-pencil games.
In many connection games, the goal is to connect two opposite sides of the board. In these games, players take turns placing or moving pieces until one player has a continuous line of pieces connecting their two sides of the playing area. Hex, TwixT, and PÜNCT are typical examples of this type of game.
According to Browne, Hex (developed independently by the mathematicians Piet Hein and John Nash in the 1940s) is considered to be the first connection game, although earlier games involving connectivity have been noted to predate Hex, including Lightning (1890s) and Zig-Zag (1932). Martin Gardner is credited with popularizing the genre in his writeup of Hex in Scientific American (1957), expanded and republished in Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions (1959). It was shown, starting with smaller boards, the player making the first move had a decided advantage, depending on where the initial move was made. In his 1959 book, Gardner also mentions that Claude Shannon proposed a modified version of Hex that would be played on a board with three equal-length sides; the winning condition would be changed to the first to connect all three sides. This was a variant of the game Y, which was a generalization of Hex that had been invented independently by John Milnor, Charles Titus, and Craige Schensted in the early 1950s.
Hex and Y were examples of games where the players competed to build a path connecting sides of the board. In the June 2000 issue of Games, R.
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