🔺 Sim Strategy

About this game

Sim is an elegant and genuinely clever paper-and-pencil style strategy game built entirely around a single, brutally simple avoidance rule, played on just six dots arranged in a circle with every possible line between them available to be drawn. On your turn, you connect any two dots that are not already joined with a line drawn in your own color, and the twist that defines the entire game is that you are not trying to build anything at all; instead, whichever player is first forced to complete a triangle made up of three lines that are all their own color loses the game immediately. Because a game theory proof guarantees that Sim can never actually end in a draw, someone is always mathematically forced to complete a losing triangle eventually as more and more of the fifteen possible lines between the six dots get filled in, which means the entire game becomes a careful, forward-looking exercise in forcing your opponent into that unavoidable trap before they can do the same to you. The computer opponent actively checks every available move to avoid completing a losing triangle itself whenever a safe option exists, making for a surprisingly sharp little strategic duel despite the tiny board.