This is a version of the board game Othello I made. The rules of Othello are simple. You play as either the black or white pieces. You capture the opposite color pieces by placing a piece so that it sandwiches your opponents’ pieces. Black always moves first and you cannot pass. If you have no moves your opponent moves again. If neither player can move the game ends. The winner is the player with more pieces.

The game can be played by two players on one computer or phone. It also includes seven distinct levels of AI. The lowest level only tries to take as many pieces as it can on every move. The highest level uses game trees to look ahead and make the best move possible after considering millions of outcomes.

Othello is very easy to learn but hard to master. Here are a few quick tips. The corners are the most important spaces on the board because once taken they can never be “sandwiched” and taken back. Moving next to a corner you do not control is usually bad because it makes it easy for your opponent to take the corner. Sides are also harder to take, but not as crucial as corners. Oddly, the player controlling the most spaces in the middle game is usually losing because he is giving his opponent more places to move while having fewer himself.

Links on the right go to the Google Play Store (where for trademark reasons the game is called Reversi), and to a downloadable version for Windows. Windows Defender (or another anti-virus) will probably not trust the installer because I didn’t pay for a code signing certificate. You can still choose to install it anyways.