Hackenbush: Pocket Edition

Then, when I discovered surreal numbers, I realized that playing games is mathematics. --- John Conway

Hackenbush: Pocket Edition

This project is an implementation of finite Red-Blue Hackenbush, mainly for mobile devices. Hackenbush is a simple and fun puzzle game that led to the discovery of a very large, fascinating algebraic structure, the surreal numbers. It was invented by John Conway.

The aim of this project is to promote combinatorial game theory by giving fans of Hackenbush an easy way to demonstrate it, and potentially to teach it to new players as well. It is entirely free software and open-source; the repository is here.

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Features

These are the current features:

• Singleplayer against Computer
• Local 2-Player Mode
• Level Editor
• Calculation of the surreal number associated with a position
• Handmade Animations & SFX
• A little bit of Story
• 3 Languages: English, Japanese and German
• 32 Levels

This page lists some future feature ideas.

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Heritage

Hackenbush: Pocket Edition is made in Godot Engine and steals the difficult part of its logic from a great Hackenbush implementation for Mac and PC, by Tom R. Davis. Fonts by さつやこ and Kawika Heftel, licensed under Creative Commons. Thanks!

Since Tom Davis' version is under the GPL 2.0 license, so is this project.

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Further Reading

• This video explaining the rules of the game while walking the viewer through the discovery of surreal numbers. A must watch!
  
• Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays is a great introduction to combinatorial game theory in book format.