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Pencil and Paper Games

by aethertap on 10/10/17, 8:16 PM with 48 comments

• by Grue3 on 10/11/17, 10:56 AM

  Pen and paper games were quite widespread among Soviet/Russian math olympiad participiants, and sadly these games are practically unknown outside of these circles. Tochki (dots) is probably the most well known, and it even has a Wikipedia article. Klopy (bedbugs) is a much more advanced game, but it's very obscure. The rules were passed orally and probably not written anywhere. It's a multiplayer game, usually for 4 players, which start in each corner of a sheet of squared paper, which is the base (represented by completely filled square). At each turn a player can put a fixed number of "bugs" (represented by X crosses) which can be placed next to a base or your own bug. Instead of placing a bug, you can turn a neighboring enemy bug into your base. I probably don't remember all the rules right now, but that's the gist of it. The games with many players are extremely fun and involve a lot of strategy and diplomacy.

  [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_(game)

  EDIT: I found the Russian wikipedia article for the second game (I was searching for the wrong name): https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BE... . Looks like I forgot the rule that each base must be "activated" (have at least a single bug next to it) to produce new bugs.

• by jefurii on 10/11/17, 3:32 PM

  Not very intellectual or mathy but my friends and I used to play this "paper arcade game" back in elementary school after Star Wars came out. We'd draw figures and then take turns sliding the pencil to move or shoot.

  https://imgur.com/sJMwze9

  It started out as "UFOs" (circles with a line through them) and mutated into X-Wings v TIE Fighters. Soon we were drawing asteroid fields, opposing planets with gun emplacements, etc, etc. Wish I could go back and look at some of those old drawings.

• by stevewillows on 10/11/17, 8:42 AM

  Often if I'm with a friend at a coffee shop for an extended period of time, we'll play the drawing game. Its simple; each person draws a line on their own pad of paper, then the other person needs to make a picture.

  You could incorporate a theme, but themes tend to occur naturally.

  Especially with the suffocation that comes with technology, simple pen and paper games are breath of fresh air.

• by SamBam on 10/11/17, 4:33 PM

  We often play an Exquisite Corpse-style game we call simply "Words and pictures." Each person writes a sentence, then passes the paper to the right. The next person tries to draw the sentence in an understandable way, and folds over the original sentence, and passes it again. The sentence keeps being translated between words and pictures, and is often hilarious. No real drawing skills required.

  Because I grew up with Oxford academics, my family growing up would also play the same thing but switching between English and Latin. Those who knew Latin would try to translate accurately, but us kids would write stuff that sounded more like bad Harry Potter spells, which the adults would have to make sense of.

• by taejo on 10/11/17, 10:31 AM

  One that I've played a bit in the last few years (IIRC it's discussed in Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays) is to draw an RxC grid (4x5 works well for a short game). Two players take turns placing 1x2 dominoes on two adjacent grid squares, one player horizontally and the other vertically. The winner is the last person to successfully place a domino.

• by tonteldoos on 10/11/17, 3:51 AM

  This brings back so many memories of hours in the afternoons, classrooms and roadtrips. It's nice to be reminded how we kept ourselves busy before smartphones and tablets...

• by shagie on 10/11/17, 9:27 AM

  I’ve enjoyed the Beyond series from Sid Sackson in the past.

  Beyond Tic Tac Toe ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3937/games-art )

  Beyond competition ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3928/beyond-competition )

  Beyond solitaire ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3940/beyond-solitaire )

• by asicsp on 10/11/17, 5:00 AM

  nice, didn't know so many variations are there, especially the ones based on noughts and crosses.. and some of them can be played from the site itself, very nice..

  there is also MetaSquares (http://www.scottkim.com.previewc40.carrierzone.com/squares/i...)

  I have made one too - Square TicTacToe(https://github.com/learnbyexample/squaretictactoe)

• by avighnay on 10/11/17, 11:50 AM

  Great collection! it should also have Hangman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman_(game)

• by decafb on 10/11/17, 7:35 AM

  Lovely reminder. Though nowadays I mostly think that these are also a great coding challenges.

• by speps on 10/11/17, 7:28 AM

  I remember playing Paper Tetris with a friend at uni about 11 years ago now. I made a single player version in Flash at the time. I was quite proud of the algorithm to determine if a piece can be drawn in place as it's a bit different than normal Tetris rules.

  Here it is: http://speps.github.io/papertetris/ (Flash player required, lost source code)

• by JoeDaDude on 10/11/17, 10:13 PM

  There are many traditional board games that can be played with pencil and paper as well. See the following list compiled by the board game geeks:

  https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/74684/non-obvious-pap...

• by malingo on 10/11/17, 5:52 PM

  I've seen some interesting rules-based design games that are more process-based art than games. One of the co-creators of Paper JS [http://paperjs.org/] is a member of this group of artists.

  Some are based on 3-4 participants https://www.conditionaldesign.org/

  Some work with an arbitrary number of participants, e.g. visitors adhering stickers to art gallery walls and floor (see "red fungus"): https://web.archive.org/web/20100829051147/http://poly-luna....

• by scandinavegan on 10/11/17, 7:27 AM

  I'm happy that Race Track is there (in Other)! It's like a super minimalistic version of Car Wars, but still very fun. You get the same realization of "Oh shit, I'm going too faaast!" when you're about to lose control.

• by ianopolous on 10/11/17, 9:29 AM

  My favourite is to play Go: Draw a grid. Player 1 is /, player 2 is \. A cross is an empty square (and you note the prisoner on the side). A cross with two /'s is player 1 again, etc.

• by mrspeaker on 10/11/17, 4:27 PM

  Not really pencil and paper, but when I was a kid I remember using the pencil itself as a die: shave off the ends of a hexagonal pencil (or just etch in to the wood).

  No skill involved, but I spent a zillion hours playing "cricket" by writing "dot ball, 1, 2, 4, 6, out" on the edges. Then you spin the pencil in your hand without looking and slide your thumb up the edge. Whatever you landed on was the score and you marked it down on a score sheet.

  As a bonus you could easily disguise the action as fidgeting - so you could play during class.

• by bass_case on 10/11/17, 4:31 PM

  http://www.ghoulash.com/the-games.html

  The best pencil and paper game ever

• by midgetjones on 10/11/17, 8:52 AM

  "Heads Bodies & Legs" is great fun, especially if the other person is similarly puerile.

  One that I don't see - or maybe I don't know what I'm looking for - is "Fish, Fruit, Flower"[0], which we used to play as a family when I was young.

  [0] http://www.lingolex.com/alfgame.html

• by unixhero on 10/11/17, 4:18 PM

  I really like the academic citations where applicable. Mad props for that.

• by brandonmenc on 10/11/17, 5:47 PM

  ah, Dots and Boxes!

  As a child, I played this game quite often with my babysitter - an older woman who for close to a decade was essentially a third grandmother.

  Our paths cross every five or ten years when I'm visiting back home - she's in her 90s now - and we still fondly remember playing this game together.

  I encourage everyone play these games with their children - there's something about the interaction of the players that creates warm, lasting memories for everyone involved.

• by dodecacat on 10/11/17, 1:30 PM

  How about sprouts? I was introduced to it in Piers Anthony's Macroscope...

• by willlll on 10/11/17, 5:34 AM

  I'm sad it doesn't have the best pencil and paper game, where mostly you write something down in secret and say "done": Escape From The Aliens In Outer Space http://www.eftaios.com/

• by slolean13 on 10/11/17, 8:19 AM

  awesome! I enjoyed playing it :)