Blog / Site News
| Last comment time | ||
|---|---|---|
| Long time - no activity! | 15 June 2025 - 10:17pm |
Oh dear! It's been a very long time since I posted anything on EAG. In retirement, I should have lots of free time, but it doesn't seem to work out that way. In particular, my large awkward garden takes up most of my energy. However, I now have a semi-regular over the board opponent for abstract games - MJH. This is so much nicer than online opponents. In consequence, I have returned to BoardSpace to brush up some games against the bots and also returned to EAG. Hopefully, in this new spurt of enthusiasm, an article or two will follow shortly . . . |
| Other Games & Puzzles | 18 February 2024 - 11:16am |
I have expanded the Other Games tab to become Other Games & Puzzles. This will now include not only games which are not strictly abstract but are likely to be of interest to abstract players, but also physical and mathematical puzzles, such as Martin's Menace and the 365! Problems. |
| Measuring Difficulty | 19 January 2024 - 6:18pm |
A really long break from any new content for EAG, but maybe 2024 will be better . . . Starting OK, as there is a new article on Measuring the Difficulty of Abstract Games |
| Game Topics | 11 March 2023 - 6:56pm |
A new tab has been added to the tabs along the top of each page - Game Topics. I have started to compile a list of articles on general topics that are not about a single game. I am not sure how this will develop . . . we shall see. |
| Lasca | 8 March 2023 - 10:15pm |
New article on Lasca written. |
| Bagh Chal | 1 March 2023 - 2:08pm |
Oh dear! It's been another long gap since I added to the site. However, a new article on Bagh Chal, aka Goats & Tigers, has now been written. Hopefully the start of a flurry of activity . . . |
| Hiatus | 16 November 2022 - 6:45pm |
There has been a long gap (even for me) since I last updated any pages on the site. Exeter Junior Chess Club has started up again, after the Covid break, and I have been composing a website especially for them at Exeter Junior Chess Club. At least Chess is an abstract game! Now that the weather is bad, I hope to write several articles before the end of this year, though Christmas does tend to intrude. |
| Pushfight Solved! | 4 August 2022 - 11:28am |
Just discovered (via a BoardSpace forum) that Pushfight has been completely solved!!! See the BoardGameGeek article by Maks Verver. I will update my Pushfight article in due course . . . |
| Hex Revisited | 21 June 2022 - 10:22pm |
Bumped into an online collection of Hex puzzles and an online book on Hex strategy, both by Matthew Seymour. Great stuff, and I have put details in the Further Strategy section of my article on Hex. That, and the lovely summer gardening weather, have kept me from the Phutball articles . . . |
| Noughts & Crosses | 15 May 2022 - 3:15pm |
The Noughts & Crosses article took longer than I expected, having become 3 separate articles which are indexed in the Abstract Games menu as OXO. Phutball articles should follow soon . . . |
| BBC BASIC Programming | 28 April 2022 - 9:48am |
Where does time disappear to? It is months since I added to EAG - partly due to necessary garden work in the unusually dry winter period, but mainly due to my excursion back into some game programming. Articles from this endeavour on Noughts and Crosses and 1 Dimensional Phutball to follow . . . hopefully soon. |
| Checkers (International) | 27 January 2022 - 8:05pm |
What is the difference between Draughts & Checkers? New article motivated by my recent games of International Checkers with Dr.Dave. |
| Amazons | 23 January 2022 - 7:00pm |
Recently introduced a friend to Amazons, which gave me the impetus to collect my knowledge into an EAG article. |
| Sim Game | 20 January 2022 - 10:14am |
Article on Sim now published. A pencil & paper game ideal for children, based on a mathematical theorem in graph theory! |
| Fanorona | 16 January 2022 - 6:45pm |
Just published an article about Fanorona - not a game that I am ever likely to be good at! |
| Winter activity on the way . . . | 5 January 2022 - 11:18am |
Happy New Year! Longest break between blog entries to date - dry autumn so loads of work in the garden; and I've had a complete kitchen & utility room refit (no cooker or sink for 5 weeks made life tricky!); and then Christmas. However, into a proper Exeter winter now, so I hope to produce a substantial number of articles on different games before the better spring weather arrives . . . . |
| Push Fight Pressy | 20 August 2021 - 3:17pm |
Yesterday, my very nice colleague Dr Dave gave me a homemade Push Fight set. Many thanks Dave - that goes way beyond supporting me with the website! See the article Push Fight for a picture and simple problem. |
| Push Fight | 11 August 2021 - 6:44pm |
Played Push Fight for the first time since January today . . . I love that game! It has probably taken over as my favourite from Hex which has been in my topspot for decades. Not as calculatingly technical as hex, it has what feels like tense, hand-to-hand, close combat until a win appears. 6/6 for me. |
| Nim Additions | 16 July 2021 - 11:00am |
I have now added articles on single pile Nim and multiple pile Nim, starting with '3,4,5', as well as the first of several Nim variants. See the menu on the main Abstract Games page. The summer weather is due to be glorious for a while now, so I will be in the garden rather than thinking about EAG. |
| Hex: The Full Story | 24 June 2021 - 10:18pm |
4 days ago, whilst checking facts online for my Hex article, I discovered a new book on Hex by Ryan B. Hayward, with Bjarne Toft. Ordered it online late in the evening, delivered 2 days later, now read! Great book! Lots of detailed history from the origins of Hex, as Polygon in Denmark in 1942, through to today. Lots of pictures of original documents, development of Piet Hein's idea and similar games through to the game we know today, John Nash's independent invention (?!), strategy ideas without becoming too heavy, computer robot players and lots of puzzles. Expensive at £29.68 but worth it! |
| Rainy Day | 21 June 2021 - 7:11pm |
Horrid rainy day today, so I have been working on EAG. I believe that I have now overcome the difficulties I have been having uploading images and files, followed by lots of ensuing site housekeeping. No excuse for not producing some content now - unless the summer weather is good! The Article on Hex has been expanded, but more to do . . . |
| Break for a couple of weeks | 7 June 2021 - 10:25pm |
Life suddenly became busy, so I've not looked at EAG for a couple of weeks. I've been doing lots of garden chores and succeeded in hurting my back! I have also ordered a new computer for online game playing - my old one was not designed for the task but the new one is! Emails . . .
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| Making progress . . . | 22 May 2021 - 10:49am |
The May weather has been awful, so good progress is being made and EAG is beginning to take shape. Up until now, content on the site has only been brief and in draft form, in order to develop and test the site, with continued regular advice and support from Dr Dave. There are ideas for future developments, but I must start devoting a bigger proportion of time to posting content about abstract games, rather than wrestling the tentacled but powerful beast that is Drupal. |
| In the beginning . . . | 22 May 2021 - 10:25am |
This EAG site was born in April 2021 - it is my first website. At that stage, there was no design in mind and only a rough idea of the content I wanted to post. The Drupal installation was done by Dr Dave Regis - many thanks. Since then, I have been learning the techniques required to construct the site that you see and I have been using Drupal for Dummies to steer me through the possibilities. The concepts introduced seem straightforward enough in principle, but when implementing them on EAG in the way that I want, there are a multitude of hurdles that obstruct progress. Thanks again to Dr Dave for his ongoing patient help, without which I am likely to have ground to a halt. |