Black Box (game) Black Box gameboard and pieces Black Box is a board game for one or two players, which simulates shooting rays into a black box to deduce the locations of "atoms" hidden inside. It was created by Eric Solomon. The board game was published by Waddingtons from the mid-1970s and by Parker Brothers in the late 1970s. The game can also be played with pen and paper, and there are numerous computer implementations for many different platforms, including one which can be run from the Emacs text editor. Black Box was inspired by the work of Godfrey Hounsfield who was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his invention of the CAT scanner. Its theme has always been abstract. Black Box is played on a two-dimensional grid. The most common configuration for novice players is four atoms in an 8×8 grid. There are 32 input positions in an 8×8 grid, eight each at the top, bottom, right, and left.
Atoms interact with rays in three ways. There are also misses. It is not ambiguous, however. Black Box (game) Black Box gameboard and pieces Black Box is a board game for one or two players, which simulates shooting rays into a black box to deduce the locations of "atoms" hidden inside. It was created by Eric Solomon. The board game was published by Waddingtons from the mid-1970s and by Parker Brothers in the late 1970s.
The game can also be played with pen and paper, and there are numerous computer implementations for many different platforms, including one which can be run from the Emacs text editor. Black Box was inspired by the work of Godfrey Hounsfield who was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his invention of the CAT scanner. Its theme has always been abstract. Black Box is played on a two-dimensional grid. The most common configuration for novice players is four atoms in an 8×8 grid. There are 32 input positions in an 8×8 grid, eight each at the top, bottom, right, and left. Atoms interact with rays in three ways. There are also misses. It is not ambiguous, however. Clickmazes. BlackBox Game Applet. This is the classic board game Black Box, originally invented by Eric Solomon.
This web page presents the standard version. You can also play the large version. The yellowish area is the "black box". Four of the squares contain atoms which are hidden from the player. The player may click on the white squares around the border to fire rays into the black box. The rays will either be absorbed if they hit an atom directly, be reflected back out the same location, or be deflected by one or more atoms and exit the black box at a different edge location. The player may click on the yellow squares to place or remove "guesses" as to where he or she thinks that an atom may be present. The player may end the game at any time by clicking the "Try guesses" button, whereupon the actual atom locations will be revealed, and the final score displayed.
For details of how the rays are absorbed, reflected, or deflected by atoms, please see the Black Box entry in Wikipedia.