Reversi

Objective

Have the majority of your colored disks on the board at the end of the game.

Rules

Players alternate turns, with Black going first
Place a disk to trap opponent's disks between yours
All trapped disks flip to your color
You must flip at least one disk with each move
If you can't move, your turn is skipped
Game ends when neither player can move

Controls

Keyboard Shortcuts

Arrow Keys - Navigate board
Enter/Space - Place disk
Ctrl+Z - Undo move
Ctrl+Y - Redo move
H - Toggle hint
? - Show help

Strategy

Corners are valuable - they can't be flipped
Edges are strong - harder to capture
Avoid C-squares - squares next to corners
Mobility matters - keep your options open
Think ahead - consider future moves

History

Before it became the software powerhouse behind Windows 1.0's premier gaming experience, Reversi was a Victorian-era parlor dispute wrapped inside a brilliant strategy game.

Known today primarily by its modern commercial name, Othello, this game's tagline—"A minute to learn... a lifetime to master"—perfectly summarizes a history spanning over 150 years.

The Victorian Feud (1880s)

The exact origin of Reversi is shrouded in a remarkably petty 19th-century rivalry. Two English inventors, John W. Mollett and Lewis Waterman, both claimed to have invented the game in the late 1880s, routinely denouncing each other in the press as frauds.

The Setup: The game used an 8x8 grid. Players used double-sided discs (usually red on one side, black on the other).
The Twist: Unlike Chess or Checkers, where pieces are captured and removed, Reversi focused on conversion. By trapping an opponent's pieces between two of your own, you flipped their discs to your color.

The game became an instant craze in London, but as the hype faded into the 20th century, Reversi largely fell into obscurity.

The Rebirth: Enter Othello (1971)

The game was entirely reinvented in Japan during the early 1970s by a salesman named Goro Hasegawa.

Hasegawa had played a variant of the game using milk bottle caps as a child. In 1971, he refined the rules, standardized the colors to black and white, and fixed the initial setup to a specific four-piece cross in the center of the board.

Looking for a theatrical name, Hasegawa's father—a Shakespearean scholar—suggested Othello. The name was a brilliant marketing stroke:

The green board represented the battlefield, while the flipping black and white discs mirrored the dramatic shifts, jealousy, and conflicting natures of Shakespeare's Moor of Venice and Desdemona.

Hasegawa registered the trademark, and the game exploded globally, selling millions of copies under the toy giant Tsukuda Original (and later Milton Bradley).

The Digital Pioneer (1985–1990)

Because Reversi operates on simple, binary rule sets (a piece is either black or white, a move is either legal or illegal), it was an ideal candidate for early computer programming.

When Microsoft released Windows 1.0 in 1985, computer mice were a brand-new concept for everyday consumers. Microsoft needed a way to teach people how to use a mouse without writing a boring instruction manual.

They included Reversi as the built-in operating system game. It taught users the precise "point-and-click" spatial coordination required to operate a graphical interface. It held this prestigious default spot for years until Minesweeper dethroned it in Windows 3.1.

Legacy and AI Domination

Othello holds a unique place in the history of Artificial Intelligence. Because it has a smaller state-space complexity than Chess or Go, computers mastered it much faster.

In 1997, a computer program named Logistello completely dismantled the human World Champion, Takeshi Murakami, winning all six games in their match. Today, the game enjoys a robust international competitive scene, proving that a Victorian-era argument could evolve into an eternal test of strategic thinking.