The first issue of Abstract Games was launched with trepidation, but we hoped the readers would understand our motivation and appreciate the magazine's potential. Many did, and we received a great deal of heart-warming, enthusiastic feedback. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone for their kind comments, suggestions, and, yes, subscriptions.
You may notice that Issue 2 is a little bigger than Issue 1; Issue 3 will be larger still. We hope to hit our stride by the end of the first year.
We return in this issue to two of the games covered in Issue 1, Lines of Action and Kyoto Shogi. We had wanted to publish a second article on Bashne, another game from Issue 1, but there was simply not enough space this time. Likewise, we have some excellent material on Philosopher's Football and Epaminondas which will have to wait until the next issue. We are still working on obtaining some material about Bao, the "King of Mancalas." The greatest two-rank Mancala is Wari, and by analogy I like to think of Wari as the "Queen of Mancalas." The group from the University of Alberta who developed the invincible Chinook checker-playing program is apparently close to solving Wari. We will be looking into this in a future issue.
This may almost be regarded as a special issue on connection games, as we have debut articles on Twixt and Hex; Lines of Action may also be classified as a connection game, albeit non-typical.
It seems incredible from our perspective that the first true connection games were invented only as recently as 60 years ago. Connection subsequently became one of the great themes of twentieth-century abstract gaming, and many prominent game inventors have contributed their own interpretation of this theme.
Older abstract game themes had dealt primarily with warlike or territorial objectives. It seems particularly appropriate that connection games should have arisen during a period when technological advances were leading to an exponential growth in communication. I wonder if there is still the potential for another radically new abstract game concept.
We promised to respond to reader feedback, and there appears to be a demand for material on Chu Shogi. The only reason for hesitation is that we had assumed the readers of this magazine would know Chess but not necessarily Shogi: learning Chu Shogi would perhaps be quite a challenge for someone who does not know Shogi. From what I know about the people who have so far subscribed, I may well have underestimated the game sophistication of the average reader. What do you think? Should we carry a regular column on Chu Shogi, or should we investigate Wa Shogi or Grand Chess, or some other Chess variant altogether?
The Mind Sports Olympics is the premier venue for over-the-board abstract game tournaments. It is held every year in August in London, and this year will be the fourth MSO. The location is good for people living in Europe, but a little inconvenient for North Americans and Antipodeans. On the other hand, the regular Olympics was held in the ancient Greek city of Olympia for the first thousand years of its history, so there is a precedent for keeping it in London for the time being at least.
MSO was unable to give us a press release about their fourth Olympics, this August, at the time of writing. We will be taking a closer look at the MSO phenomenon in a future issue.
Speaking of press releases, we are happy to print information from game publishers about new releases, proprietary game tournaments and so on. I encourage communications officers to put us on their lists.
Kerry Handscomb
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Contents
Editorial
Letters
Book Review The Complete Mancala Games Book
Games on the Internet
Chess Variants Kyoto Shogi Part 2
by Michael Sandeman
An Introduction to Twixt
by David Bush
Hex Strategy Part 1: Introduction and Basic Strategy
by Cameron Browne
Possessed by Fire Demons
An Interview with Colin Adams
Lines of Action Strategic ideas
Part 2 by Kerry Handscomb
MEM … A Game Ready for a Revival
by David Pritchard
"A Nice Egg Holder"
or "Competition in the Marketplace"
by Kerry Handscomb
Abstract Games Issue 3 Autumn 2000.
This issue will revisit some of the games already introduced in the first two issues. Also covered will be Philosopher's Football and Epaminondas. Reviews will include some excellent French game books as well as the games Plateau and Tantrix. Issue 3 will be a little larger than Issue 2.
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