Qubic
| Qubic / Checkline | |
|---|---|
 a homemade qubic game |
|
| Game data | |
| publishing company |
Crestline Manufacturing Company (1961), Qubic Games (1962), Parker Brothers (1965), et al. a. |
| Publishing year | 1961 |
| Art | Strategy game |
| Teammates | 2 |
| Duration | 15 minutes |
| Age | from 10 years on |
Qubic is a board game for two players. It represents an extension of four in a row or tic-tac-toe to three dimensions . It is a two-person strategy game with complete information.
Goal of the game
The aim of the game is to arrange four game pieces in a 4 × 4 × 4 cube on a straight line. A row can be vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. With the diagonals there are surface and room diagonals. Due to the three-dimensionality, several diagonals are always possible, so that you have to play very carefully so as not to overlook one.
variants
The similar game Sogo is mostly realized with 16 sticks that are arranged vertically in a 4 × 4 square. The balls fall to the base plate or to the ball below. Qubic, on the other hand, consists of layers made of glass or transparent plastic, which are arranged one above the other on a frame made of rods.
There are also a number of variants that apply the principle of several in a row to three-dimensional bodies other than the 4 × 4 × 4 cube.
Both Qubic and Sogo were programmed as computer games in many ways .
history
In 1961, the Crestline Manufacturing Company released the game Checkline: The classic space tic-tac-toe game . Because of its futuristic appearance, it was also used in some episodes of the television show Starship Enterprise . Qubic was released by Qubic Games in the US in 1962 and by Parker Brothers in 1965 . In 1978 Carol Shaw developed 3D Tic Tac Toe for the Atari 2600 game console .
Game theory resolution
In game theory , Qubic was completely solved by Oren Patashnik in 1980 through an exhaustive search. Patashnik proved that if the game is optimal, the player who makes the first move always wins. In 1992, Allis and Schoo also provided constructive proof by writing a qubic program that always wins when it has the first move.
The variant known as Sogo , in which the pieces (usually balls) fall through, is not solved in game theory.
Similar games
- Four wins 2D , Just 4 Fun
- Sogo
- 3D Mill is played on the same board. Only this is always filled to the end. The winner is whoever was able to shape the most mills (four stones in a row). In this game, the second player can always force a tie by imitating the moves of his opponent along one of the perpendicular planes of symmetry.
- Trimula is a 3D mill game with 3 × 3 × 3 setting points.
literature
- How to play: Qubic, Parker Brothers 3-D Tic Tac Toe Game for 2 to 6 Players ages 8 to adult (PDF, 1 page; 133 kB), 1972
- Oren Patashnik: Qubic : 4x4x4 Tic-Tac-Toe , Mathematics Magazine, September 1980, Vol. 53, No. 4, pp. 202-216, ISSN 0025-570X
- L. Victor Allis, PNA Schoo: Qubic solved again , In: Heuristic Programming in Artificial Intelligence, 3, Congress: The Third Computer Olympiad (Maastricht 1991), Ed .: Jaap van den Herik, LV Allis, Ellis Horwood, Chichester 1992, Publication series: Ellis Horwood series in artificial intelligence, pp. 192–204, ISBN 0-13-388265-9
- Dergl: Searching for Solutions in Games and Artificial Intelligence (PDF, 223 pages, zip ), PhD thesis (dissertation), Rijksuniversiteit Limburg te Maastricht, Ponsen & Looijen, Wageningen 1994, ISBN 90-900748-8-0
Web links
- Qubic in the game database BoardGameGeek (English)
credentials
- ↑ a b 3-d three & four-in-a-row gallery at abstractstrategy.com (English)
- ↑ a b Checkline: The Classic Space Tic-Tac-Toe Game (English)