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| Bruce Incognito 18 July 2013 23:11:07
THE Q8 GAME - with Squiffy the Alcoholic Artificial Intelligence
Introduction
Don't Panic
You do not need to know anything about chess to play Q8.
No really, you could write books about what you DON'T need to know about chess to be able to play Q8. All you need to know is that a queen can move any number of squares along a row, down a column or along a diagonal. If a move of one queen could reach the square that another queen is on then the second queen could be "taken". You now know as much about chess as Squiffy does, if you are still unsure then the game has a tutorial function that will illustrate how it works on the playing board. The game is based on a simple puzzle, you are given a standard 8 x 8 chess board and eight queens. You have to position all eight queens on the board in such a way that no two queens can take each other i.e. no two queens are on the same row, the same column or the same diagonal. Just in case you think that the problem is easy or impossible there are 92 different configurations of the board that meet the criteria out of a total of 4,426,165,368 different ways of placing the eight queens on the board.
If you happen to be a nerd, geek, dweeb or just curious you can click here to find out more about the Computer Science behind the puzzle.
The GameWhen a game starts your board and your opponents board are both populated with the eight queens placed in the same random positions on the board. You and your opponent then take turns moving one queen at a time until one of you gets to a position where no two queens can take each other. Yes, it really is that simple.
Playing ModesThere are four different variations of the basic game play that you can experience with Q8, the variations are described below.
| Normal | This is the basic playing mode as described above. | | Columns | In this mode the board is populated with the eight queens on separate rows and columns. Each player moves by selecting two queens which then swap columns. | | Fix-One | This is the same as the normal play mode but you get to 'freeze' one of your opponents queens so that they can't move it. Your opponent also gets to freeze one of your queens. | | Mole | This is the same as the normal game but one of your and your opponents queens are hidden, it can't be seen on the board but it can still take any other queen. Also the hidden queen cannot be moved and if you try to move another queen to the position on the board where the hidden queen is lurking then you miss a turn. |
OpponentsBy default you play against an Artificial Intelligence (AI) called Squiffy. You can also play in practice mode with no opponent at all or you can play against another live opponent on the same device, over bluetooth or over the internet.
More Information Click here to find out more about how to play the Q8 game.
Click here to find out more about playing the Q8 game against an opponent
Click here to read more about The Big Pink Buttons.
Click here to see frequently asked question about the Q8 game.
Click here to find out more about Squiffy the Artificial Intelligence.
Click here to see frequently asked questions about Squiffy.
Click here to see about reporting problems with the Q8 game. |
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