Dots and Virus War

9th May 2020

Today I've added two new games to PAPG, both of which probably originated in the Soviet Union in the 1970s or 1980s.

Dots (Tochki)

Dots seems to have been invented in Russian universities when the Japanese game of Go was becoming popular, and it was developed as an adaptation that could be played on paper when no Go equipment was available.

The aim is to surround and capture one or more of your opponent's dots by making a continuous chain of your dots, but unlike in Go, no dots are removed from the board. The winner is the one who has captured the most dots of their opponent's.

Virus War (Voyna Virusov)

Virus War simulates a competition between two growing colonies of viruses. Each player has three moves in a row, and each move can consist either of adding one of their own viruses to the grid, or of killing an opponent's virus by shading it in their own colour.

An interesting feature of the game is that each player's viruses can spread through any viruses of their opponent that they've killed, but they are blocked by any of their own viruses that have been killed by the opponent.