Gono

Gono was devised in an attempt to combine aspects of Conway's Game of Life and Gomoku to form a game of strategy. 

In this game you capture 'life' from your opponent in that you gain your opponents positions surrounding your new move position.  But also like Life cells die, in this case all your own positions surrounding your new move position are lost. 

The likeness to Gomoku is that the winner is the one who gets a block of positions.  In Gomoku that is five counters in a row, whereas in Gono the winner is the first to have a square block of nine counters.

The game is played on a 9 by 9 board. Each player places counters to occupy a position and win adjacent positions. The game is won by the player to first gain 9 positions in a 3 by 3 square.

New Game

To clear the board ready for a new game, click on Clear.

Game play options

You have the option of playing at one of two Levels, an Easy or Hard version of the game.

To select your Level, click on Level.

Easy Level

At the Easy Level the computer simply looks for a valid place to move with the highest capture.

Hard Level

At the Hard Level for each possible move the computer looks ahead to see if this gives Red a possible winning move.

Start a game

To start a new game click on Start.

For the first three moves each player in turn takes 3 positions on the board. Each move must be to a position that is not next to a position already occupied.

For the remainder of the game, each move must be to a position next to at least one position occupied by your opponent. All your opponent's positions in the 8 places surrounding your move position are captured and become yours. Any of your own pieces in these surrounding positions are taken off the board.

The winner in the game of Gono is the first to get a three by three square block of positions.