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MONDAY 25 DECEMBER Christmas Day 1967 359th day - 6 days to come


Thought of the name IN SEARCH OF BIG AND LITTLE GAME for my book of games. Mentioned it to Claude when I spoke to him on the phone. He pointed out that if the word "Games" appears first it can be found by looking at an alphabetic list of books in print. Later thought of the name GAMES FOR THE CONNOISSEUR, A SUPPLEMENT TO HOYLE. Nothing else on games in conversation with Claude, except that he thinks that cartoons or light illustrations would help immeasurably to sell the book. BB knows a few girls, including Lilian Barrasch, who could probably do the illustrating.

Worked out another game - tentative name - DETOUR. Tried it sketchily and further changes, I am sure can be made. The following is a first approximation. [diagram at left: 8 x 8 grid, rows and columns numbered 1-8. Some arrows drawn on grid.] Draw an 8 x 8 grid. Two play. One player takes the red cars from 1 to 8, the other the black cards from 1 to 8. Players shuffle their cards and take a hand of three cards. Each time they play 2 cards they take 2 to replace them. When their deck is ex- hausted it is reshuffled and used again. A play of two cards identifies a square. The player playing places an arrow in this square pointing in any of the 4 directions. Or if an arrow is already there it is turned (by erasing & redrawing). Object is to complete a path of arrows starting, for one player, at the left edge and going to the right edge, for the other player it must be from top edge to bottom edge. The com- pleted path must have at least 4 turns, and the player scores 1 point for each turn. (The example shown is a 5-point win for the left-right player, starting at 1-6 and ending at 8-7.) For a simpler game, draw two cards at each turn and play those two cards. The game can also be played on a checkerboard using cardboard squares with arrows. The game can also be played on a 6x6 grid using 3 or 2 dice.

Read thru parts of THE WORLD OF KI to study the way it was written.