tic-tac-toe
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Playing solitaire and tic-tac-toe is as easy as a Google search
A Google search is handy for getting info on nearly anything, but now the company is making it easier to play two timeless games on both mobile and the web. When you search for "solitaire" or "tic-tac-toe," you'll be able to play them both from the comforts of your browser on the desktop or inside the Google app on your phone or tablet. The company has been keen on adding these bits of whimsy to its search tool for a while now as these games follow animal sounds and a coin flip. You know, in case you need to decide who's picking up the check in today's cashless society. There's also those Google Doodles that have been a mainstay for years, most recently offering Olympic-themed games.
Researcher details method for teaching computers to win at board games through short training videos
All right, hotshot -- sure, you can trounce your five-year-old niece in a round of Connect Four, but are you ready to do battle with a machine? Łukasz Kaiser of Paris Diderot University in France has detailed a method for teaching computers how to learn relatively simple games like Tic-Tac-Toe, Breakthrough and the aforementioned eternal vertical struggle between checker pieces, using quick videos generally under two minutes in length. "The presented algorithm requires only a few demonstrations and minimal background knowledge," Kaiser explains, in his paper Learning Games from Videos Guided by Descriptive Complexity, "and, having learned the rules, automatically derives position evaluation functions and can play the learned games competitively." Kaiser adds, having taken on the world of Tic-Tac-Toe and other relatively simple games that, "there is strong theoretical evidence that it will generalize to other problems." Now if only we can sum up the world's issues Connect Four-style, we should be covered.
Allods Online cheekily promotes Game of Gods expansion
Say what you will about Allods Online; at least it has a sense of humor when it comes to its own publicity. While most MMOs would use the opportunity of an upcoming major patch for a serious, percussion-heavy trailer fraught with sword swinging and landscapes, Allods decides to go... another way. We don't want to spoil it, so suffice it to say that it begins with an epic confrontation between an ogre and a hermit crab that might well go down in history as one of the most nail-biting battles of the minds. The trailer is a promotion for Allods' upcoming Game of Gods expansion and includes brief glimpses into the update's new features -- including the not-at-all prancing Bard. (Bards rule, by the way.) You can watch the full trailer after the jump!
Big Bang Board Games come to iPhone/iPod touch
If you're looking for a collection of classic timewaster games for your iPhone or iPod touch, look no further than Freeverse's Big Bang Board Games, which includes Chess, Backgammon, Checkers, Mancala, Reversi, 4-In-A-Row, and Tic-Tac-Toe. The artwork and gameplay is taken directly from the Mac version of the game, and Chess has a portrait (3D) and landscape (2D) mode. Unfortunately, each game only has a one-player mode. It would be nice to have a two-player option, for those situations where you're waiting with your significant other for a table, or in line for a movie. Other than that, they're great games for my (sigh) favorite activity: sitting quietly through endless telephone meetings. Note to self: my clients don't read TUAW, do they? Just kidding, everyone! Big Bang Board Games is available in the App Store for $7.99.
DS vs. PSP: Tic-tac-toe throwdown [Update 1]
In a complicated process which no doubt involved dark alchemy and at least one blood sacrifice, a clever member of the homebrew community has managed to get the DS and the PSP talking to each other wirelessly. The hot topic under disussion between them is nothing other than Tic-tac-toe, that ancient game born in the absence of our wonderful handheld devices. After loading the homebrew application, users can engage in an epic battle of noughts and crosses, one of them using a DS and the other using a PSP. Very impressive indeed! Will this usher in a new utopia of cross-platform homebrew games, or is it just another Romeo & Juliet yarn in the making?[Thanks Probot!][Update: Check out some discussion on this development over here. Thanks GameCop!]
