New Domino Solitaires Book: Selected Reviews

John Burton is crafting new domino solitaires. With domino games in general already being unusual creatures, solitaires may even be a rarer breed. Split into adaptations and ground-up invented games, one can glean the interesting ways of working around and with the limitations of a set of dominoes. I am also constrained to reviewing games that only need a single set (of double six to double nine) so the choice of games to review is affected by this.

Beleaguered Castle:

Burton's adaptation of Beleaguered Castle uses the same layout as the original, but uses both numbers as basis for building, the advantage of limiting what domino can be played onto another has a downside of foundation-building becoming a trivial cascade. Another move that makes the game easier is the ability to build any domino of the same suit over a double. Doubles are roadblocks until moved to a valid empty space, though once there are enough empty spaces the puzzle solves itself.

Doubles Up:

This version of Aces Up uses a suit system to determine how to remove dominoes from the line, which suit a domino is being interchangeable for each discard. The goal is to finish the game with only four doubles remaining, and if you pay attention this means that the endgame will consist of some maneuvering to remove some low doubles while noting that any double counts as they do not have any special properties are are simply the nth-ranked domino of suit n.

Hanoi and Double Hanoi:

There is not much to say for the first other than to note the interesting move of using random initial position for a Tower of Hanoi puzzle. Double Hanoi is a tougher ordeal whichever ending condition you'd go for, though it's way easier than Panex.