Math Games with Bad Drawings, Orlin

Created: September 01, 2023
Updated: October 14, 2024

Spatial Games

  • ⭐️ Dots and Boxes
    • Classic game where you take turns drawing lines in a grid and claiming territory.
  • ⭐️ Sprouts
  • ⭐️ Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe
    • 9 Tic-Tac-Toe grids in a big grid, the move in each minor box determines the position of the next move.
  • Dandelions
    • One person is the wind and one person is the dandelions. Dandelions spread seeds in the wind, determined by the direction of the wind blowing. Dandelions try to fill a 5x5 grid, the wind tries to stop them.
  • Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe
    • Make two moves per turn, creating two “entangled” particles. If a loop of entangled particles is formed, the opposing player gets to decide how to “collapse” the system, which means picking definite locations of each of the previous moves.
  • Bunch of Grapes
    • Draw a bunch of grapes. Moving consists of consuming a grape and then moving to a new square. If you can’t make any moves, you lose.
  • ⭐️ Neutron
    • Start with a 5x5 grid with seperate pieces for yourself and your opponent along each home row. Add an extra token in the middle (the ”neutron”).
    • On your move, move one of your pieces as far as it goes in any direction, and move the neutron one square.
    • You win if the neutron reaches your home row, or if you trap the neutron so your opponent cannot move it on their turn.
  • Order and Chaos
    • Start with a 6x6 grid. Either player can write Xs and Os. The “Order” player tries to create a five-in-a-row, the other “Chaos” player tries to prevent them.
  • Splatter
    • Start with one player filling a grid with an equal number of dots of different colours. Other player chooses which colour they would like to be.
    • On your turn, you can either splatter just your own dot (and fill in the square) or splatter your dot and all your neighbours.
    • The player with the last remaining unsplattered blob is the winner.
  • ⭐️ 3D Tic-Tac-Toe

Number Games

  • Chopsticks
    • Start by holding out one finger on each hand.
    • Take turns tapping one of your opponent’s hands with one of yours, which adds that many fingers to your opponents hands.
    • If you reach 5 fingers, then that hand is out and resets to zero and can’t tap or be tapped.
    • Arithmetic is mod 5.
    • You can also transfer some amount of fingers to your other hand, including reviving an eliminated hand.
    • Loser is whoever has both their hands eliminated.
  • ⭐️ Sequencium
    • Thue-Morse sequence
    • 6x6 grid. Start with 1,2,3,3,2,1 along the diagonal, with each group of three corresponding to one player.
    • On your turn: pick an existing number, add one to it, and write a new number in an adjacent cell including diagonals.
    • Take turns. Even if you can’t go, you just pass.
    • End with the player who has the highest number on the board.
  • 33 to 99.
    • Shout out a number from 33 to 99 and then roll 5 dice.
    • Try and make the target number using the standard four arithmetic operations, using each number once.
  • Pennywise
    • Each player beings with 4x1p, 3x5p, 2x10p and 1x20p.
    • On your turn place on of your coins in the middle, then take back any combination of coins whose total value is strictly less than the coin you put in.
    • Last player with any coin remaining is the winner.
  • ⭐️ Prophecies
    • Start with a grid, of any size (suggested 4-8 for both dimensions).
    • Take turns marking empty cells with either a number or an X.
    • Each number is a prediction of how many numbers will eventually appear in that row or column.
    • No number can appear twice in a given row or column.
    • If a cell is impossible to fill, mark it with an X.
    • Once full, whoever made the correct prophecy in each row or column gets a point.
  • Mediocrity
    • Each player (of which there are an odd amount) takes turn selecting a whole number between 0 and 30.
    • Whoever choses the median wins that amount of points.
    • If there’s a tie, then the player who picked a different number gets to break the tie and assign the points to whichever player they wish.
    • You win if you have the median number of points.
  • Black Hole
    • Draw a pyramid of 21 circles in six rows.
    • Take turns writing 1, 2, 3, …
    • When you both reached 10, there will be one circle left. This black hole destroys all of its neighbouring circles.
    • Whoever has a greater sum of numbers left over wins.
  • Jam
    • Tic-Tac-Toe but with numbers 1 to 15.
    • Also works with picking words with being the first to pick three words with a letter in common: “In fact, Sir Boss’s Barn was built on rot”.
  • Starlitarie
    • Draw a circle of dots as many as you like.
    • Connect two dots according to a rule of your choosing, e.g. “skip one dot”. End up factoring the numbers.
  • ⭐️ Gridlock
    • Start with two 10x10 grid.
    • Each player takes turn rolling two dice and then drawing a rectangle of that size on their grid, or their opponents’.
    • When two players have to pass, the player with the most amount of squares wins.
  • ⭐️ Tax Collector
    • One player game.
    • Write down all the whole numbers up to some ceiling.
    • Then on each turn, claim a number, and add it to your score. The Tax Collector receives all the remaining numbers that divide it evenly.
    • Tax Collector must receive something on every turn.
    • Keep going until the only remaining numbers have no divisors left, at which point the Tax Collector gets them all.
  • Love and Marriage
    • Complicated classroom game with lots of slips of paper.

Combination Games

The Four Core Challenges of Games: Mastering your physical reactions, understanding other people, overcoming our own bad instincts about probability, solving problems perceived as NP-hard using heuristics.

  • Sim
    • Draw six dots in a hexagon.
    • Take turns connecting any two dots using a coloured pen.
    • When your opponent creates a triangle entirely in their color, point it out.
    • If your opponent fails to point out you doing the same, you can steal the victory by pointing out the triangle yourself.
  • Teeko
    • Start with a 5x5 grid and 4 tokens for each of the two players.
    • Goal: create a four in a row, or the outlines of a square.
    • Start by taking turns placing the tokens onto the board.
    • Then take turns moving any token one step in any direction. You can only move onto an empty space.
  • ⭐️ Neighbours
    • Start with a 5x5 grid and 10-sided die.
    • Roll die 25 times, and each player writes the number in the grid.
    • Score points whenever like numbers appear as neighbours within a row or column.
  • ⭐️ Wordsworth, maybe favourite game in the book.
  • Rocks Game
  • ⭐️ Corners
  • ⭐️ Amazons
  • Turning Points
  • ⭐️ Domineering
  • Hold That Line
  • Cats and Dogs

Games of Risk and Reward

  • ⭐️ Undercut
  • Arpeggios
  • Outrangeous
  • ⭐️ Paper Boxing
  • ⭐️ Racetrack
  • Pig
  • Crossed
  • Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock
  • 101 and You’re Done
  • The Con Game
  • Breaking Rank

Information Games

  • Bulls and Cows
  • Caveat Emptor
  • ⭐️ LAP
  • ⭐️ Quantum Go Fish
  • Saesara
  • Battleship
  • Quantum Hangman
  • Buried Treasure
  • Patterns II
  • ⭐️ Win, Lose, Banana
  • Franco-Prussian Labyrinth


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