Selfo
{{Short description|Board game}}
Selfo is a class of abstract strategy board games subscribed to the category of connection games.{{cite journal|last=Vico|first=Francisco J.|title=Selfo: A class of self-organizing connection games|journal=Technical Report ITI 07-7. Computer Science School, Malaga University|year=2007| url =http://riuma.uma.es/xmlui/handle/10630/6708?show=full|hdl=10630/7743|hdl-access=free}} It was designed by Prof. Francisco Vico and its name derives from the phenomenon of self-organization (increase in a system's organization without external guidance), since during the game the sets of pieces might flow in a coordinated way as they step on the board.
Description
Despite its very simple definition (“group your set of pieces by moving in turns to adjacent cells”) complex self-organization processes take place during the game under concrete circumstances (a balanced distribution of pieces and players with a similar level of expertise), and is the result of abrupt and deep changes in the tactics. The particular values given to the traditional parameters that define a game (i.e. board tiling, size and initial position, or number of pieces and players) are not so relevant, and many variants have been found to meet the conditions for self-organization. The Selfo class of connection game is defined, instead, by the interrelations among parameters in order to favor self-organization. Subclasses of Selfo derive upon the move length (number of movements of a piece in a single turn to adjacent empty cells). In a generic Selfo-n game, a player can move one piece from 0 (passing on the turn) to n consecutive steps.
An algorithm has been designed to play Selfo at a human level,{{cite journal|last=Albarracin|first=David|title=Design and implementation of a strategy for a connection game|journal=Undergraduate Thesis Project. Computer Science School, Malaga University|year=2010| url =http://riuma.uma.es/xmlui/handle/10630/6770?show=full}} and an implementation of it is publicly accessible.{{cite web |url= http://www.zillions-of-games.com/cgi-bin/zilligames/submissions.cgi?do=show;id=1772|title= Selfo|date= 2009-11-28|website= |publisher= Zillions Development Corporation|accessdate=2014-06-27}}