Items that are licensable to other publishers on agreement with the University of Cambridge.
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Shifting Times Tables Game
In this activity, the computer chooses a times table and shifts it. Can you work out the table and the shift each time?
Board Block Challenge
Choose the size of your pegboard and the shapes you can make. Can you work out the strategies needed to block your opponent?
Two Stones
A simple game to understand; a player wins when they have blocked their opponent. An interactive version is available on line.
Strike it Out
Use your addition and subtraction skills, combined with some strategic thinking, to beat your partner at this game.
Squayles
A game for 2 players. Given an arrangement of matchsticks, players take it is turns to remove a matchstick, along with all of the matchsticks that touch it.
Pentanim, a Game for Two Players
A game for 2 players with similaritlies to NIM. Place one counter on each spot on the games board. Players take it is turns to remove 1 or 2 adjacent counters. The winner picks up the last counter.
Multiplication Tables - Matching Cards
Interactive game. Set your own level of challenge, practise your table skills and beat your previous best score.
Chocolate Bars
An interactive game to be played on your own or with friends. Imagine you are having a party. Each person takes it in turns to stand behind the chair where they will get the most chocolate.
Crocogator a Game for Two Players
A game for two players. You'll need some counters and somewhere to draw a board.
The New Zealand Mu Torere Game
Block your opponent's markers by surrounding them and by having one of your markers in the centre space.
Horizontal Vertical
Take it in turns to place a domino on the grid. One to be placed horizontally and the other vertically. Can you make it impossible for your opponent to play?
Traffic Lights
The game uses a 3x3 square board. 2 players take turns to play, either placing a red on an empty square, or changing a red to orange, or orange to green. The player who forms 3 of 1 colour in a line wins.
Endless Noughts and Crosses
An extension of noughts and crosses in which the grid is enlarged and the length of the winning line can to altered to 3, 4 or 5.
Gotcha
A game for 2 players. This could be played outside with people instead of counters. Try to trap or escape from your opponent.
Coordinate Cunning
A game for 2 people that can be played on line or with pens and paper. Combine your knowledege of coordinates with your skills of strategic thinking.
Part the Piles
Try to stop your opponent from being able to split the piles of counters into unequal numbers. Can you find a strategy?
Achi
This game for two players is played in Ghana, but stones that were marked for this game in the third century AD have been found near Hadrian's Wall in Northern England.
Dominoes
Everthing you have always wanted to do with dominoes! Some of these games are good for practising your mental calculation skills, and some are good for your reasoning skills.
Flip Flop - Matching Cards
A game for 1 person to play on screen. Practise your number bonds whilst improving your memory
Yih or Luk Tsut K'i or Three Men's Morris
Some puzzles requiring no knowledge of knot theory, just a careful inspection of the patterns. A glimpse of the classification of knots and a little about prime knots, crossing numbers and knot arithmetic.
Roundabout
This is a game for 2 players. Each player has 4 counters each, and wins by blocking their opponent's counters. A good follow-on from two stones.
Online - a Game for Two Players
A game for 2 players that can be played online. Players take it in turns to select a word from the 9 words given. The aim is to select all the occurrences of the same letter.
Wari
This is a simple version of an ancient game played all over the world. It is also called Mancala. What tactics will increase your chances of winning?
Game of PIG - Sixes
Can you beat Piggy in this simple dice game? Can you figure out Piggy's strategy, and is there a better one?
Snail Trails
This is a game for two players. You will need some small-square grid paper, a die and two felt-tip pens or highlighters. Players take turns to roll the die, then move that number of squares in a straight line. Move only vertically (up/down) or horizontally (across), never diagonally. You can cross over the other player's trails. You can trace over the top of the other player's trails. You can cross over a single trail of your own, but can never cross a pair of your trails (side-by-side) or trace over your own trail. To win, you must roll the exact number needed to finish in the target square. You can never pass through the target square. The game ends when a player ends his/her trail in the target square, OR when a player cannot move without breaking any of the rules.
Diagonal Dodge
A game for 2 players. Can be played online. One player has 1 red counter, the other has 4 blue. The red counter needs to reach the other side, and the blue needs to trap the red.
Last Biscuit
A game that demands a logical approach using systematic working to deduce a winning strategy
Low Go
A game for 2 players. Take turns to place a counter so that it occupies one of the lowest possible positions in the grid. The first player to complete a line of 4 wins.
Down to Nothing
A game for 2 or more people. Starting with 100, subratct a number from 1 to 9 from the total. You score for making an odd number, a number ending in 0 or a multiple of 6.
Calculator Bingo
A game to be played against the computer, or in groups. Pick a 7-digit number. A random digit is generated. What must you subract to remove the digit from your number? the first to zero wins.
Fifteen
Can you spot the similarities between this game and other games you know? The aim is to choose 3 numbers that total 15.
Khun Phaen Escapes to Freedom
Slide the pieces to move Khun Phaen past all the guards into the position on the right from which he can escape to freedom.
Domino Magic Rectangle
An ordinary set of dominoes can be laid out as a 7 by 4 magic rectangle in which all the spots in all the columns add to 24, while those in the rows add to 42. Try it! Now try the magic square...
Noughts and Crosses
A game for 2 people that everybody knows. You can play with a friend or online. If you play correctly you never lose!
Pumpkin Patch
A game for 2 players based on a game from the Somali people of Africa. The first player to pick all the other's pumpkins is the winner.
Sliding Puzzle
The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of moves.
Daisy
A game for 2 players which can be played on line. Draw a daisy with at least 5 petals. Shade 1 or 2 petals next to each other. The winner shades the last petal.
Shunting Puzzle
A shunting puzzle for 1 person. Swop the positions of the counters at the top and bottom of the board.
Penta Play
A shape and space game for 2,3 or 4 players. Be the last person to be able to place a pentomino piece on the playing board. Play with card, or on the computer.
Square It
Players take it in turns to choose a dot on the grid. The winner is the first to have four dots that can be joined to form a square.
Jumping Reindeer
A game for 1 person to develop stategy and shape and space awareness. 12 counters are placed on a board. Counters are removed one at a time. The aim is to be left with only 1 counter.
One, Three, Five, Seven
A game for 2 players. Set out 16 counters in rows of 1,3,5 and 7. Players take turns to remove any number of counters from a row. The player left with the last counter looses.
Put Yourself in a Box
A game for 2 players. Given a board of dots in a grid pattern, players take turns drawing a line by connecting 2 adjacent dots. Your goal is to complete more squares than your opponent.
Do You Measure Up?
A game for two or more players that uses a knowledge of measuring tools. Spin the spinner and identify which jobs can be done with the measuring tool shown.
Turnablock
A simple game for 2 players invented by John Conway. It is played on a 3x3 square board with 9 counters that are black on one side and white on the other.
Instant Insanity
We have a set of four very innocent-looking cubes - each face coloured red, blue, green or white - and they have to be arranged in a row so that all of the four colours appear on each of the four long sides of the resulting cuboid.
Frogs
You can solve frogs on the computer, using counters, or acting it out. Start with frogs in a line on one side, and toads on the other, with a space in between. They need to change places.
Factors and Multiples Game
A game in which players take it in turns to choose a number. Can you block your opponent?
Stop or Dare
All you need for this game is a pack of cards. While you play the game, think about strategies that will increase your chances of winning.
Pass the Peas, Please
A game for 2 or more players. Practise your addition and subtraction with the aid of a game board and some dried peas!
Counter Roundup
A game for 1 or 2 people. Use the interactive version, or play with friends. Try to round up as many counters as possible.
GOT IT
A game for two people, or play online. Given a target number,say 23, and a range of numbers to choose from, say 1-4, players take it in turns to add to the running total to hit their target.
Scissors, Paper, Rock
Play this well-known game against the computer where each player is equally likely to choose scissors, paper or rock. Why not try the variations too?
Matching Fractions Decimals Percentages
An activity based on the game 'Pelmanism'. Set your own level of challenge and beat your own previous best score.
Roll the Dice
A game for 1 person. Can you work out how the dice must be rolled from the start position to the finish? Play on line.
Odds and Threes
A game for 2 people using a pack of cards Turn over 2 cards and try to make an odd number or a multiple of 3.
Asteroid Blast
A game for 2 people. Use your skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to blast the asteroids.
Subtraction Squares
A game for 2 players. Using 2 dice, some counters and a games board, can you form a line of counters from one side of the board to the other?
Nim-interactive
Start with any number of counters in any number of piles. 2 players take it in turns to remove any number of counters from a single pile. The winner is the player to take the last counter.
18 Hole Light Golf
The computer starts with all the lights off, but then clicks 3, 4 or 5 times at random, leaving some lights on. Can you switch them off again?
Oware
Oware is a Mankala-like game of strategy. Simple rules, but not so simple to win - and you'd better be good at counting! Play the computer or play a friend.
Oware, Naturally
Could games evolve by natural selection? Take part in this web experiment to find out!
White Box
This game challenges you to locate hidden triangles in The White Box by firing rays and observing where the rays exit the Box.
Slippery Snail
A game for 2 people. Take turns to move the counters 1, 2 or 3 spaces. The player to remove the last counter off the board wins.
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NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project, which also includes the Plus and Motivate sites.
email: nrich@damtp.cam.ac.uk