Octal Games

Publication Date

2026

Presentation Length

15 minutes

College

College of Sciences & Mathematics

Department

Math and Computer Science, Department of

Student Level

Undergraduate

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Andy Miller

Presentation Type

Talk/Oral

Summary

The field of combinatorial game theory studies the strategies of two-player finite games without chance or hidden information. Octal games are a specific type of combinatorial game where players can reduce the number of game pieces from various piles (known as "heaps"). In this presentation, we introduce octal games and show an unlikely equivalence between two games: Movie Night, invented by Max Goskie in 2026, and Dawson's Chess, invented by Thomas Rayner Dawson 91 years earlier. We also discuss current research investigating octal games and their Sprague-Grundy values.

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