Related papers: Tron, a combinatorial Game on abstract Graphs

In this paper we study the computational complexity of the game of Scrabble. We prove the PSPACE-completeness of a derandomized model of the game, answering an open question of Erik Demaine and Robert Hearn.

We define a two-player combinatorial game in which players take alternate turns; each turn consists on deleting a vertex of a graph, together with all the edges containing such vertex. If any vertex became isolated by a player's move then…

We investigate the combinatorial game Slime Trail.This game is played on a graph with a starting piece in a node. Each player's objective is to reach one of their own goal nodes. Every turn the current player moves the piece and deletes the…

Graph Pebbling is a well-studied single-player game on graphs. We introduce the game of Blocking Pebbles which adapts Graph Pebbling into a two-player strategy game in order to examine it within the context of Combinatorial Game Theory.…

We prove that Strings-and-Coins -- the combinatorial two-player game generalizing the dual of Dots-and-Boxes -- is strongly PSPACE-complete on multigraphs. This result improves the best previous result, NP-hardness, argued in Winning Ways.…

In this paper, we introduce a two-player impartial game on graphs, called a {\em feedback game}, which is a variant of the generalized geography. We study the feedback game on Eulerian graphs. In particular, we show that the…

We define a new impartial combinatorial game, Flag Coloring, based on flood filling. We then generalize to a graph game, and find values for many positions on two colors. We demonstrate that the generalized game is PSPACE-complete for two…

Combinatorial Game Theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that studies sequential 2-player games with perfect information. Normal play is the convention where a player who cannot move loses. Here, we generalize…

Very recently, a long-standing open question proposed by Bodlaender in 1991 was answered: the graph coloring game is PSPACE-complete. In 2019, Andres and Lock proposed five variants of the graph coloring game and left open the question of…

We initiate the study of simple games from the point of view of combinatorial topology. The starting premise is that the losing coalitions of a simple game can be identified with a simplicial complex. Various topological constructions and…

In 2010, Bre\v{s}ar, Klav\v{z}ar and Rall introduced the optimization variant of the graph domination game and the game domination number, which was proved PSPACE-hard by Bre\v{s}ar et al. in 2016. In 2024, Leo Versteegen obtained the…

In combinatorial game theory, the winning player for a position in normal play is analyzed and characterized via algebraic operations. Such analyses define a value for each position, called a game value. A game (ruleset) is called universal…

Positional games are a branch of combinatorics, researching a variety of two-player games, ranging from popular recreational games such as Tic-Tac-Toe and Hex, to purely abstract games played on graphs and hypergraphs. It is closely…

We present an algebraic framework for the analysis of combinatorial games. This framework embraces the classical theory of partizan games as well as a number of misere games, comply-constrain games, and card games that have been studied…

Burke and Teng introduced a two-player combinatorial game Atropos based on Sperner's lemma, and showed that deciding whether one has a winning strategy for Atropos is PSPACE-complete. In the original Atropos game, the players must color a…

We study a two-player game played on undirected graphs called {\sc Trail Trap}, which is a variant of a game known as {\sc Partizan Edge Geography}. One player starts by choosing any edge and moving a token from one endpoint to the other;…

We consider the weighted version of the Tron game on graphs where two players, Alice and Bob, each build their own path by claiming one vertex at a time, starting with Alice. The vertices carry non-negative weights that sum up to 1 and…

We consider a simple game, the $k$-regular graph game, in which players take turns adding edges to an initially empty graph subject to the constraint that the degrees of vertices cannot exceed $k$. We show a sharp topological threshold for…

In this note, we investigate combinatorial games where both players move randomly (each turn, independently selecting a legal move uniformly at random). In this model, we provide closed-form expressions for the expected number of turns in a…

We introduce a new two-player game on graphs, in which players alternate choosing vertices until the set of chosen vertices forms a dominating set. The last player to choose a vertex is the winner. The game fits into the scheme of several…