Trax (board game)

Trax is a two-player abstract strategy game of loops and lines invented by David Smith in 1980.

The game is played with a set of identical square tiles. One side of the tile has red and white straight lines and the other red and white curves.

History

{|class="floatright" style="text-align:center;background:#484;border-spacing:0px;"

|+Loops in Trax

| frameless|25px || frameless|25px

Trax was invented in 1980 by David Smith, a chartered accountant in Christchurch, New Zealand. Smith published five games between 1970 and 1980, including Chess Cards, a variant of chess in which players could choose to either draw a card (with a chess piece printed on the obverse) or move a card already in play according to the revealed piece's rules. Chess Cards featured "boardless" play; once drawn, the card could be played onto any flat surface, subject to additional rules that would prevent playing the cards into isolation from the cards already in play. In November 1980, Smith began to develop the boardless aspect of Chess Cards with a more original, abstract game, which led to Trax. He quickly developed the idea of two coloured paths, but discovered that play could stop if three edges had the same colours, leading to his breakthrough invention of the forced-play rule,

The game was first published in New Zealand and the United States in 1982. Originally, the tiles were made out of cardboard and were red with black and white lines. As the game became more popular, the tiles were changed to high-density plastic using the same colors. The change to black tiles with red and white lines took place in 2005.

In 1999, Microsoft Corporation selected Trax as one of the first proprietary games in its Internet Gaming Zone. For the 2015 International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology in Queenstown, New Zealand, Trax was selected for the design competition for implementation using a field programmable gate array processor.

The reigning world champion is Donald Bailey, an engineering professor at Massey University in New Zealand. , with the exception of a loss in the 1994 final, he has won every Trax world championship since 1990.

Gameplay

TRAX is a two-player game that does not have a defined playing board, but any flat surface is suitable. For the commercial boxed versions of the game, 64 identical square, double-sided tiles are included. On one side is the cross/straight paths, where the colors connect opposite sides, and on the other side is the curved paths, where the colors connect adjacent sides. Rotating the tile by 90 degrees yields six possible orientations:

Straight side: frameless|25px frameless|20px frameless|25px
Curved side: frameless|25px frameless|20px frameless|25px frameless|20px frameless|25px frameless|20px frameless|25px

By mutual agreement, the players select a colour for their path, with the player selecting the white path making the first move. The first tile to be played is either frameless|25px (curved tile with white running top–left and red running bottom–right) or frameless|25px (cross tile with white running top–bottom and red running left–right). For example, the following sequence is a legal series:

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size:100%;text-align:center;"

! Move !! colspan=6 | Board !! Notation !! Player

! style="font-size:250%;" rowspan=3 | 1

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @ || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" colspan=3 |  

| rowspan=3 | || rowspan=3 | White

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 0 || style="background:#ff0;border:0px;" | frameless|50px || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 0 || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" colspan=3 |  

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @ || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" colspan=3 |  

| colspan=9 |  

! style="font-size:250%;" rowspan=5 | 2

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | A || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | B

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" colspan=2 |  

| rowspan=5 | || rowspan=5 | Red

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;height=50px;" | 0 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;text-align:left;" colspan=2 | 0

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 1 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" | frameless|50px || style="background:#ff0;border:0px;" | frameless|50px

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;text-align:left;" colspan=2 | 1

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;height=50px;" | 2 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;text-align:left;" colspan=2 | 2

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | A || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | B

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" colspan=2 |  

| colspan=9 |  

! style="font-size:250%;" rowspan=5 | 3

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | A || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | B

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | C || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |  

| rowspan=5 | || rowspan=5 | White

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;height=50px;" | 0 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" | || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 0

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 1 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" | frameless|50px || style="background:#484;border:0px;" | frameless|50px

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 1

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;height=50px;" | 2 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#ff0;border:0px;" | frameless|50px

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 2

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | A || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | B

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | C || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |  

| colspan=9 |  

! style="font-size:250%;" rowspan=5 | 3(F)

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | A || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | B

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | C || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |  

| rowspan=5 | || rowspan=5 | White (forced play)

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;height=50px;" | 0 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 0

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 1 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" | frameless|50px || style="background:#484;border:0px;" | frameless|50px

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 1

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;height=50px;" | 2 || style="background:#484;border:0px;" |  

| style="background:#aaf;border:0px;" | frameless|50px || style="background:#ff0;border:0px;" | frameless|50px

| style="background:#484;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | 2

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |   || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | @

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | A || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | B

| style="background:#fff;border:0px;" | C || style="background:#fff;border:0px;" |  

The objective is to get a loop or line of your colour while attempting to stop your opponent from completing a loop in their colour. In the three-move example above, note that the White path player created a forced move with the third tile played and the fourth tile extended the path of the Red player.

An illegal move is one that creates an adjacent space into which the same coloured track enters from more than two edges. The entire turn must be replayed from the initial tile. The third character denotes the type of tile played; symbols were chosen based on the general shape of the tracks. Crosses/straights are denoted by "+" and the curved tiles are denoted by the forward slash ("/") or backslash ("\") characters, which represent the direction of the diagonal of the corners between unconnected sides. For example, once the first move is made ( or ), that first tile becomes position A1 for the second turn, so if the second player plays a tile to the right of that first tile, the second move is recorded as , , or . The only legal moves for the second turn would be (to the left), (above), (below), or (to the right).

Prior to 1998, an alternative three-character notation system was used. The first two characters consist of a number and a letter, with the letter denoting the column (in order from left to right, A, B, C, ...) and the number denoting the row (in order from top to bottom, 1, 2, 3, ...). The third character is either S (when a straights/cross piece is played), C (when a curved piece is played as the first tile or against two edges), or U/D/L/R (depending on the track which being continued, either Up, Down, Left, or Right, respectively). The sequence of the first two characters are reversed when the tile is played above the tile in the top left corner, so for example A1x is played to the left of the tile in the top-left corner, while 1Ax is played above that tile. With the advent of virtual play, "SuperTrax" has become the dominant variant.

Example game

{| style="background:#484;text-align:center;float:right;border-spacing:0px;border:0px;"

|+After move 31, (White) / (Black) 1994

|- style="background:#fff;"

!   !! @ !! A !! B !! C !! D !! E !! F !! G !! H !! I !! J !! K !!  

! style="background:#fff;height:35px;" | 0

| ||

! style="background:#fff;" | 0

! style="background:#fff;" | 1

| ||

| || frameless|35px

| frameless|35px ||

| ||

! style="background:#fff;" | 1

! style="background:#fff;" | 2

| ||