Domineering

Hyung-Min Mun

Game: Domineering

The goal:

To win the game! The victory goes to the player who makes the last move in the game.

Core mechanics:

The game is a turn-based game, meaning one player makes one move then the next player makes a move. There can be only two people playing the game. The way to distinguish the players is by their marks; one player makes horizontal line and the other player makes vertical line. The player who makes the first move has to make a vertical line. Although the players are color coded in this assignment, the color does not play a big role in the game.

Space of the game:

The map or the playing field of the game is quite simple; a square grid measuring 5x5 (the smallest) creates the map. The field can be as large as the player wants it to be. Obviously, the larger it is, the more time and thinking will be involved. There are two ways for the map to be created: 1) making dots and connecting them and 2) making a square grid and coloring them. (shown on the bottom). The move is made by connecting two dots or two boxes either horizontally or vertically.

Actions:

The obstacles are created by the players’ move. At the start of the game, one has the freedom of putting the mark anywhere. However, as the game progresses, it is recommend for one to think ahead and predict the opponent’s moves then making the moves to his or her advantage. Because the moves will become more limited, it will be hard to win by random placement of the lines.

Here are some examples to some basic strategy:

As one can observe in the example on the right, the blue player was smart to use the map to his or her advantage. Each player only made three marks. The blue player knew where to place the mark so him or herself can make more marks in the future but the opponent will not be able to place a mark. The circle represents the available dots for that player to make the move.

At this point, no matter where the blue player makes a mark, he or she will win because the red player only have one more marking place left while the blue player has multiple places for his marks.

Each action may result in a victory or defeat. For example, a player has the choice of making the mark for his or her advantage or for the opponent’s advantage. It depends on how the player thinks and where the move is made.

The example below is a representation of how player’s moves (labeled by the numbers) can be beneficial or not. The blue player starts off by making the mark all the way to the left while the red player starts from the inside. In this case, the blue player gave the red player the advantage because as one can observe, there are more dots to make the horizontal lines than the vertical lines.

This is an example of what a player can do to win more effectively.

Rules:

The rule of this game is quite simple. The two players need to take turns making the marks. The player starting the game makes a vertical line while second player makes a horizontal line. The trick with this game is that no dot can make more than one link, which means that depending on the players’ moves, there will be dot(s) that will not be connected at all. The loser of the game is determined by not being able to make any more moves. In other words, if player 1 can make two more moves while player 2 can make more than two moves, player 2 will end up winning.

Object, attribute, states:

The object, attribute, and states act as the adjective in the world of game. The objects are all the details that live within the map. For Domineering, the objects are the horizontal and vertical lines and the grid. The attribute is another word for information about the objects. So the attributes continuously change as the game takes place. In other words, when the player makes a move, the object’s attributes change because a move means that the grid is being filled up. As a result, the attribute acts as a state in this game. The consequence of one move is a obstacle or less space for the next player.

Skills players learn:

The players will learn how to effectively makes his marks to use the map for his or her advantage. Referring back to the previous example in the “action” paragraph, the player 1 was foolish in his or her decision to make the mark on the edge of the field while player 2 was wise to make the marks inside to save him or herself some extra moves for the future.

As the game progresses the players will come across a place where he or she have to make decision to sacrifice his or her future turn. For example, it’s time for player to make a vertical line. He or she has a multiple choices. However, depending on the move, the blue player can win or lose.

In this case (on the left), the blue player has several options. In order to win this game, he or she will have to place the mark in the right place which there is only one.

Here (middle left), the blue player placed the make (number 9) in the winning place. As a result of the player 1’s move, player 2 is forced to make the mark on the only available place. Thus player 1 is victorious in this game.

In this example(bottom left), the blue player makes the 9^th mark in the wrong place. By placing the mark in such place gives two more available for player 2 and having one available place for player 1. Consequently, player 2 will be making the last move, thus being the winner of this game.

The game “Domineering” requires a lot of thinking. The player should predict what the opponent’s thinking and work against it by making the moves accordingly. Although the game has very little rules in fact close to no rules, it still sparks a very intense game. Since the field in which the players play can be altered to size as big as 100 x 100 or even bigger, it is a very simple game that can be very tricky at times.

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