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  • BoxOff app for Android

    From Steven Meyers@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 20 10:39:04 2016
    Hi all,

    An Android app for my boardgame BoxOff was recently released. It features unlimited levels for free, four board sizes to choose from, and two difficulty settings.

    BoxOff is a solitaire boardgame rather than a 2-player abstract. However, the larger boards on the harder difficulty have, in my opinion, a complexity level that is comparable to many good abstract games. I hope that the readers of this forum will give
    it a fair try. Here's the link to the Play Store description:

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cyningstan.boxoff

    Any and all feedback is welcome.

    Steve

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  • From Steven Meyers@21:1/5 to All on Sun Nov 27 05:29:12 2016
    Hello Moh,

    You're entitled to your own opinion of BoxOff, but I do have a question: Did you actually play the game, or did you just read the description? The app is free to download, so there's no investment in trying it out other than a little bit of time.

    Steve

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  • From Moh Bel@21:1/5 to Steven Meyers on Sat Nov 26 08:56:10 2016
    On Sunday, November 20, 2016 at 1:39:05 PM UTC-5, Steven Meyers wrote:
    Hi all,

    An Android app for my boardgame BoxOff was recently released. It features unlimited levels for free, four board sizes to choose from, and two difficulty settings.

    BoxOff is a solitaire boardgame rather than a 2-player abstract. However, the larger boards on the harder difficulty have, in my opinion, a complexity level that is comparable to many good abstract games. I hope that the readers of this forum will
    give it a fair try. Here's the link to the Play Store description:

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cyningstan.boxoff

    Any and all feedback is welcome.

    Steve

    Here is your rule : Two same-colored pieces can be removed if they share a rectangle with no other pieces in it.

    It looks like a game for garbage man.
    In fact it is not a game. It is so boring that I think that it will go nowhere. "Game" for dumb people!

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  • From Moh Bel@21:1/5 to Steven Meyers on Mon Nov 28 06:32:16 2016
    On Sunday, November 27, 2016 at 8:29:13 AM UTC-5, Steven Meyers wrote:
    Hello Moh,

    You're entitled to your own opinion of BoxOff, but I do have a question: Did you actually play the game, or did you just read the description? The app is free to download, so there's no investment in trying it out other than a little bit of time.

    Steve

    Sorry to tell you that I will never play this kind of games.
    Your game fits kids or dumb adults looking for some "wasting-time" games not for for people like me who are playing games where creativity and imagination are the main requirements.

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Luis_Bola=C3=B1os_Mures?=@21:1/5 to All on Mon Nov 28 10:18:27 2016
    BoxOff is a nice puzzle, Steve. Congrats on the app!

    A question: What happened to your site? It's a good job I had downloaded the rules of your games long ago.

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  • From Moh Bel@21:1/5 to All on Mon Nov 28 10:24:10 2016
    On Monday, November 28, 2016 at 1:18:27 PM UTC-5, Luis Bolaños Mures wrote:
    BoxOff is a nice puzzle, Steve. Congrats on the app!

    A question: What happened to your site? It's a good job I had downloaded the rules of your games long ago.

    Nice like Cartezero ha ha ha
    Luis is more than plagiarizer and crappy game designer he is a big hypocrite too. Do not trust him.

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  • From Steven Meyers@21:1/5 to All on Tue Nov 29 12:43:38 2016
    Hi Luis,

    I'm glad you like BoxOff. My website disappeared when Cincinnati Bell decided to stop hosting websites for their customers. I haven't had a chance to put the pages back up yet, except for the homepage (which is hosted by Google now):

    https://sites.google.com/site/stevenmeyershomepage/

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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?Luis_Bola=C3=B1os_Mures?=@21:1/5 to All on Wed Nov 30 00:17:50 2016
    Steve, do you think BoxOff is a strategic puzzle or is it about tactical reading? (And why?)

    Some comment on this might help readers appreciate it more.

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  • From Steven Meyers@21:1/5 to All on Wed Nov 30 05:39:50 2016
    On the larger boards (and to some extent on the 6x9 board), there are too many possibilities to read out the puzzle all the way. Intuition and probabilistic thinking must be used. Here are some basic strategies:

    --- Identify the most problematic clusters, especially those in the corner and on the sides. Don't wait to start resolving these clusters, or you'll find yourself out of matching options later. But be careful not to overcommit; remove no more pairs
    than seem necessary to resolve the worst areas or, once again, you'll find yourself without enough matching options later.

    --- Be aware when the number of pieces of a certain color is getting low relative to the number of pieces of the other colors. The fewer pieces there are of a particular color, the less matching options there will be to remove them.

    --- Be mindful of colors that are scattered very unevenly. For instance, suppose you're playing the 6x9 board on regular difficulty, and there are 18 pieces of each color in the initial setup. But you notice that the distribution of blue pieces is
    quite uneven: there are three blue pieces near the lower right corner that are significantly isolated from the other fifteen. It is dangerous to wait too