This is a list of boardgame related research papers, code, blog posts, and other media. The list primarily includes research on "solving/playing/learning" games (by various different approaches), or occasionaly about designing or meta-aspects of the game. This doesn't cover all aspects of each game (notably missing social-science stuff), but should be of interest to anyone interested in boardgames and their optimal play. While there is a ton of easily accessible research on games like Chess and Go, finding prior work on more contemporary games can be a bit hard. This list focuses on the latter. If you are interested in well-researched games like Chess, Go, Hex, take a look at the Chess programming wiki instead. The list also covers some computer-games that fall under similar themes.
You can browse the collection at https://www.zotero.org/captn3m0/collections/8S9AI4TI as well.
An importable RDF version is available as well:
See Import instructions here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/importing_standardized_formats
Watch the repository to get the latest updates for now (Choose "All Activity").
If you aren't able to access any paper on this list, please try using Sci-Hub or reach out to me.
- 2048
- Accessibility
- Azul
- Blokus
- Carcassonne
- Crew, The
- Diplomacy
- Dixit
- Dominion
- Flood-It / Mad Virus / Honey Bee
- Frameworks
- Game Design
- General Gameplay
- Hanabi
- Hearthstone
- Hive
- Jenga
- Kingdomino
- Lost Cities
- Mafia
- Magic: The Gathering
- Mobile Games
- Modern Art: The card game
- Monopoly
- Monopoly Deal
- Netrunner
- Nmbr9
- Pandemic
- Patchwork
- Pentago
- Puerto Rico
- Quixo
- Race for the Galaxy
- Resistance: Avalon
- RISK
- Santorini
- Scotland Yard
- Secret Hitler
- Set
- Settlers of Catan
- Shobu
- Terra Mystica
- Terraforming Mars
- Tetris Link
- Ticket to Ride
- Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe
- UNO
- Yahtzee
- Similar Projects
- License
- Systematic Selection of N-Tuple Networks for 2048 (bookSection 2016)
- Systematic selection of N-tuple networks with consideration of interinfluence for game 2048 (conferencePaper 2016)
- An investigation into 2048 AI strategies (conferencePaper 2014)
- Threes!, Fives, 1024!, and 2048 are Hard (journalArticle 2015)
- Making Change in 2048 (journalArticle 2018)
- Analysis of the Game "2048" and its Generalization in Higher Dimensions (journalArticle 2018)
- Multi-Stage Temporal Difference Learning for 2048-like Games (journalArticle 2016)
- 2048 is (PSPACE) Hard, but Sometimes Easy (journalArticle 2014)
- Temporal difference learning of N-tuple networks for the game 2048 (conferencePaper 2014)
- On the Complexity of Slide-and-Merge Games (journalArticle 2015)
- 2048 Without New Tiles Is Still Hard (journalArticle 2016)
- Meeple Centred Design: A Heuristic Toolkit for Evaluating the Accessibility of Tabletop Games (journalArticle 2018)
- Eighteen Months of Meeple Like Us: An Exploration into the State of Board Game Accessibility (journalArticle 2018)
- A summary of a dissertation on Azul (report )
- Ceramic: A research environment based on the multi-player strategic board game Azul (conferencePaper )
- Ceramic: A research environment based on the multi-player strategic board game Azul (computerProgram )
- FPGA Blokus Duo Solver using a massively parallel architecture (conferencePaper 2013)
- Blokus Duo game on FPGA (conferencePaper 2013)
- Algorithm Modeling for Hardware Implementation of a Blokus Duo Player (thesis )
- Artificial Intelligence for Blokus Classic using Heuristics, FloodFill, and Greedy Algorithm (journalArticle 2021)
- FPGA implementation of Blokus Duo player using hardware/software co-design (conferencePaper 2014)
- Exploring Combinatorics and Graph Theory with Simple Blokus (journalArticle 2022)
- An FPGA-based specific processor for Blokus Duo (conferencePaper 2013)
- Blokus Game Solver (report 2018)
- Highly scalable, shared-memory, Monte-Carlo tree search based Blokus Duo Solver on FPGA (conferencePaper 2014)
- Implementation of a highly scalable blokus duo solver on FPGA (conferencePaper 2013)
- An implementation of Blokus Duo player on FPGA (conferencePaper 2013)
- The Liquid Metal Blokus Duo Design (conferencePaper 2013)
- Artificial intelligence of Blokus Duo on FPGA using Cyber Work Bench (conferencePaper 2013)
- Hardware/software co-design architecture for Blokus Duo solver (conferencePaper 2014)
- From C to Blokus Duo with LegUp high-level synthesis (conferencePaper 2013)
- Blokus Duo engine on a Zynq (conferencePaper 2014)
- Optimize MinMax algorithm to solve Blokus Duo game by HDL (conferencePaper 2014)
- A Case Study of FPGA Blokus Duo Solver by System-Level Design (journalArticle 2014)
- Playing Carcassonne with Monte Carlo Tree Search (journalArticle 2020)
- On the Evolution of the MCTS Upper Confidence Bounds for Trees by Means of Evolutionary Algorithms in the Game of Carcassonne (journalArticle 2021)
- Evolving the MCTS Upper Confidence Bounds for Trees Using a Semantic-inspired Evolutionary Algorithm in the Game of Carcassonne (preprint 2022)
- The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is NP-Complete (preprint 2021)
- Generating Solutions to The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (blogPost )
- Learning to Play No-Press Diplomacy with Best Response Policy Iteration (journalArticle 2020)
- No Press Diplomacy: Modeling Multi-Agent Gameplay (journalArticle 2019)
- Agent Madoff: A Heuristic-Based Negotiation Agent For The Diplomacy Strategy Game (journalArticle 2019)
- Monte Carlo Tree Search for the Game of Diplomacy (conferencePaper 2020)
- Human-Level Performance in No-Press Diplomacy via Equilibrium Search (journalArticle 2021)
- Creative Captioning: An AI Grand Challenge Based on the Dixit Board Game (journalArticle 2020)
- Dixit: Interactive Visual Storytelling via Term Manipulation (journalArticle 2019)
- Dominion Simulator (computerProgram )
- Dominion Simulator Source Code (computerProgram )
- Best and worst openings in Dominion (blogPost )
- Optimal Card Ratios in Dominion (blogPost )
- Card Winning Stats on Dominion Server (blogPost )
- Dominion Strategy Forum (forumPost )
- Clustering Player Strategies from Variable-Length Game Logs in Dominion (journalArticle 2018)
- Game Balancing in Dominion: An Approach to Identifying Problematic Game Elements (journalArticle )
- Playing Various Strategies in Dominion with Deep Reinforcement Learning (journalArticle 2023)
- The Flood-It game parameterized by the vertex cover number (journalArticle 2015)
- The complexity of flood-filling games on graphs (journalArticle 2012)
- The complexity of Free-Flood-It on 2 × n boards (journalArticle 2013)
- A Survey on the Complexity of Flood-Filling Games (bookSection 2018)
- Flood-it on AT-Free Graphs (preprint 2015)
- On Complexity of Flooding Games on Graphs with Interval Representations (bookSection 2013)
- Efficient approaches for the Flooding Problem on graphs (journalArticle 2020)
- The Complexity of Flood Filling Games (preprint 2011)
- Flood it! An exact approach (blogPost 2012)
- Exact Approaches for Flood-it: A*, IDA*, a SAT- and ILP-Solver compared (thesis 2023)
- An algorithmic analysis of Flood-It and Free-Flood-It on graph powers (journalArticle 2014)
- Parameterized Complexity of Flood-Filling Games on Trees (bookSection 2013)
- An algorithmic analysis of the Honey-Bee game (journalArticle 2012)
- Extremal properties of flood-filling games (journalArticle 2019)
- Spanning Trees and the Complexity of Flood-Filling Games (journalArticle 2014)
- Inundação em Grafos / Graph Flooding (conferencePaper 2012)
- Flooding games on graphs (journalArticle 2014)
- Tractability and hardness of flood-filling games on trees (journalArticle 2015)
- The Complexity of Flood Filling Games (bookSection 2010)
- Flood-It as a SAT problem (thesis 2020)
- RLCard: A Toolkit for Reinforcement Learning in Card Games (journalArticle 2020)
- Design and Implementation of TAG: A Tabletop Games Framework (journalArticle 2020)
- Game Tree Search Algorithms - C++ library for AI bot programming. (computerProgram 2015)
- TAG: Tabletop Games Framework (computerProgram )
- MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research (conferencePaper )
- Exploring anonymity in cooperative board games (conferencePaper 2011)
- Player of Games (journalArticle 2021)
- A general reinforcement learning algorithm that masters chess, shogi, and Go through self-play (journalArticle 2018)
- How to Make the Perfect Fireworks Display: Two Strategies forHanabi (journalArticle 2015)
- Evaluating and modelling Hanabi-playing agents (conferencePaper 2017)
- The Hanabi challenge: A new frontier for AI research (journalArticle 2020)
- The 2018 Hanabi competition (conferencePaper 2019)
- Diverse Agents for Ad-Hoc Cooperation in Hanabi (conferencePaper 2019)
- Improving Policies via Search in Cooperative Partially Observable Games (journalArticle 2019)
- Hanabi is NP-hard, Even for Cheaters who Look at Their Cards (journalArticle 2016)
- Generating and Adapting to Diverse Ad-Hoc Cooperation Agents in Hanabi (journalArticle 2020)
- Evaluating the Rainbow DQN Agent in Hanabi with Unseen Partners (journalArticle 2020)
- Re-determinizing MCTS in Hanabi (conferencePaper 2019)
- Evolving Agents for the Hanabi 2018 CIG Competition (conferencePaper 2018)
- Aspects of the Cooperative Card Game Hanabi (bookSection 2017)
- Playing Hanabi Near-Optimally (bookSection 2017)
- An intentional AI for hanabi (conferencePaper 2017)
- Solving Hanabi: Estimating Hands by Opponent's Actions in Cooperative Game with Incomplete Information (conferencePaper 2015)
- A Browser-based Interface for the Exploration and Evaluation of Hanabi AIs (journalArticle 2017)
- I see what you see: Integrating eye tracking into Hanabi playing agents (journalArticle )
- State of the art Hanabi bots + simulation framework in rust (computerProgram )
- A strategy simulator for the well-known cooperative card game Hanabi (computerProgram )
- A framework for writing bots that play Hanabi (computerProgram )
- Operationalizing Intentionality to Play Hanabi with Human Players (journalArticle 2020)
- Behavioral Evaluation of Hanabi Rainbow DQN Agents and Rule-Based Agents (journalArticle 2020)
- Playing mini-Hanabi card game with Q-learning (conferencePaper 2020)
- Hanabi Open Agent Dataset (computerProgram )
- Hanabi Open Agent Dataset (conferencePaper )
- Evaluation of Human-AI Teams for Learned and Rule-Based Agents in Hanabi (journalArticle 2021)
- Emergence of Cooperative Impression With Self-Estimation, Thinking Time, and Concordance of Risk Sensitivity in Playing Hanabi (journalArticle 2021)
- K-level Reasoning for Zero-Shot Coordination in Hanabi (conferencePaper )
- Is Vanilla Policy Gradient Overlooked? Analyzing Deep Reinforcement Learning for Hanabi (journalArticle 2022)
- Generating and Adapting to Diverse Ad-Hoc Partners in Hanabi (journalArticle 2022)
- Theory of Mind for Multi-agent Coordination in Hanabi (thesis 2022)
- The Hanabi challenge: From Artificial Teams to Mixed Human-Machine Teams (thesis )
- A Graphical User Interface For The Hanabi Challenge Benchmark (thesis )
- Analysis of Symmetry and Conventions in Off-Belief Learning (OBL) in Hanabi (blogPost )
- Using intuitive behavior models to adapt to and work with human teammates in Hanabi (thesis )
- Behavioral Differences is the Key of Ad-hoc Team Cooperation in Multiplayer Games Hanabi (preprint 2023)
- The Hidden Rules of Hanabi: How Humans Outperform AI Agents (conferencePaper 2023)
- Towards Few-shot Coordination: Revisiting Ad-hoc Teamplay Challenge In the Game of Hanabi (preprint 2023)
- Mapping Hearthstone Deck Spaces through MAP-Elites with Sliding Boundaries (journalArticle 2019)
- Multiplayer Tension In the Wild: A Hearthstone Case (conferencePaper 2023)
- Improving Hearthstone AI by Combining MCTS and Supervised Learning Algorithms (preprint 2018)
- Analysis of gameplay strategies in hearthstone: a data science approach (thesis )
- Decision-Making in Hearthstone Based on Evolutionary Algorithm (journalArticle 2023)
- I am a legend: Hacking hearthstone using statistical learning methods (conferencePaper 2016)
- The Many AI Challenges of Hearthstone (journalArticle 2020)
- Evolutionary deckbuilding in hearthstone (conferencePaper 2016)
- Evolving the Hearthstone Meta (preprint 2019)
- Optimizing Hearthstone agents using an evolutionary algorithm (journalArticle 2020)
- Exploring the hearthstone deck space (conferencePaper 2018)
- Computational Intelligence Techniques for Games with Incomplete Information (thesis )
- Perfect Information Hearthstone is PSPACE-hard (preprint 2023)
- Summarizing Strategy Card Game AI Competition (preprint 2023)
- Towards sample efficient deep reinforcement learning in collectible card games (journalArticle 2023)
- General-Purpose Planning Algorithms in the Card Game Duelyst II (conferencePaper 2023)
- Cards with Class: Formalizing a Simplified Collectible Card Game (thesis 2024)
- Means-end analysis decision making model in Santorini Board Game (thesis )
- On the complexity of Hive (thesis 2020)
- The Cost of Reinforcement Learning for Game Engines: The AZ-Hive Case-study (conferencePaper 2022)
- Jidoukan Jenga: Teaching English through remixing games and game rules (journalArticle 2020)
- Maximum genus of the Jenga like configurations (journalArticle 2018)
- Deep Instance Segmentation and Visual Servoing to Play Jenga with a Cost-Effective Robotic System (journalArticle 2023)
- Monte Carlo Methods for the Game Kingdomino (conferencePaper 2018)
- Monte Carlo Methods for the Game Kingdomino (journalArticle 2018)
- NP-completeness of the game Kingdomino (journalArticle 2019)
- Applying Neural Networks and Genetic Programming to the Game Lost Cities (conferencePaper )
- A mathematical model of the Mafia game (journalArticle 2010)
- Automatic Long-Term Deception Detection in Group Interaction Videos (journalArticle 2019)
- Human-Side Strategies in the Werewolf Game Against the Stealth Werewolf Strategy (bookSection 2016)
- A Theoretical Study of Mafia Games (journalArticle 2008)
- Ensemble Determinization in Monte Carlo Tree Search for the Imperfect Information Card Game Magic: The Gathering (journalArticle 2012)
- Optimal Card-Collecting Strategies for Magic: The Gathering (journalArticle 2000)
- Monte Carlo search applied to card selection in Magic: The Gathering (conferencePaper 2009)
- Magic: the Gathering is as Hard as Arithmetic (journalArticle 2020)
- Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete (journalArticle 2019)
- Neural Networks Models for Analyzing Magic: the Gathering Cards (journalArticle 2018)
- Neural Networks Models for Analyzing Magic: The Gathering Cards (bookSection 2018)
- The Complexity of Deciding Legality of a Single Step of Magic: The Gathering (conferencePaper )
- Magic: The Gathering in Common Lisp (conferencePaper )
- Magic: The Gathering in Common Lisp (computerProgram )
- Mathematical programming and Magic: The Gathering (thesis )
- Deck Construction Strategies for Magic: The Gathering (conferencePaper )
- Deckbuilding in Magic: The Gathering Using a Genetic Algorithm (thesis )
- Magic: The Gathering Deck Performance Prediction (report )
- AI solutions for drafting in Magic: the Gathering (journalArticle 2021)
- Trainyard is NP-Hard (journalArticle 2016)
- Threes!, Fives, 1024!, and 2048 are Hard (journalArticle 2015)
- Rikudo is NP-complete (journalArticle 2022)
- A constraint programming based solver for Modern Art (computerProgram )
- Monopoly as a Markov Process (journalArticle 1972)
- Learning Monopoly Gameplay: A Hybrid Model-Free Deep Reinforcement Learning and Imitation Learning Approach (journalArticle 2021)
- Negotiation strategy of agents in the MONOPOLY game (conferencePaper 2001)
- Generating interesting Monopoly boards from open data (conferencePaper 2012)
- Estimating the probability that the game of Monopoly never ends (conferencePaper 2009)
- Learning to Play Monopoly with Monte Carlo Tree Search (report )
- Monopoly Using Reinforcement Learning (conferencePaper 2019)
- A Markovian Exploration of Monopoly (report )
- Learning to play Monopoly: A Reinforcement Learning approach (conferencePaper )
- What’s the Best Monopoly Strategy? (presentation )
- Implementation of Artificial Intelligence with 3 Different Characters of AI Player on “Monopoly Deal” Computer Game (bookSection 2015)
- Netrunner Mate-in-1 or -2 is Weakly NP-Hard (journalArticle 2017)
- Nmbr9 as a Constraint Programming Challenge (journalArticle 2020)
- Nmbr9 as a Constraint Programming Challenge (blogPost )
- NP-Completeness of Pandemic (journalArticle 2012)
- State Representation and Polyomino Placement for the Game Patchwork (blogPost )
- State Representation and Polyomino Placement for the Game Patchwork (journalArticle 2020)
- State Representation and Polyomino Placement for the Game Patchwork (presentation )
- On Solving Pentago (thesis )
- Pentago is a First Player Win: Strongly Solving a Game Using Parallel In-Core Retrograde Analysis (journalArticle 2014)
- A massively parallel pentago solver (computerProgram )
- An interactive explorer for perfect pentago play (computerProgram )
- An Application of Machine Learning to the Board Game Pentago (report )
- Learning finite functions by neural networks : Evaluation of Pentago positions by convolutional neural networks (report )
- Artificial Intelligence Techniques for the Puerto Rico Strategy Game (bookSection 2018)
- QUIXO is EXPTIME-complete (journalArticle 2020)
- Quixo Is Solved (journalArticle 2020)
- SCOUT: A Case-Based Reasoning Agent for Playing Race for the Galaxy (bookSection 2017)
- Ludometrics: Luck, and How to Measure It (journalArticle 2018)
- Finding Friend and Foe in Multi-Agent Games (journalArticle 2019)
- Mini-Risk: Strategies for a Simplified Board Game (journalArticle 1990)
- Learning the risk board game with classifier systems (conferencePaper 2002)
- Markov Chains and the RISK Board Game (journalArticle 1997)
- Markov Chains for the RISK Board Game Revisited (journalArticle 2003)
- Planning an Endgame Move Set for the Game RISK: A Comparison of Search Algorithms (journalArticle 2005)
- An Intelligent Artificial Player for the Game of Risk (presentation 2005)
- RISKy Business: An In-Depth Look at the Game RISK (journalArticle )
- RISK Board Game ‐ Battle Outcome Analysis (journalArticle )
- A multi-agent system for playing the board game risk (thesis 2005)
- Monte Carlo Tree Search for Risk (conferencePaper 2021)
- Wargaming with Monte-Carlo Tree Search (presentation 2021)
- A Mathematical Analysis of the Game of Santorini (thesis )
- A Mathematical Analysis of the Game of Santorini (computerProgram )
- The complexity of Scotland Yard (report )
- Competing in a Complex Hidden Role Game with Information Set Monte Carlo Tree Search (journalArticle 2020)
- Game, Set, Math (journalArticle 2012)
- The Joy of SET (journalArticle 2018)
- The effectiveness of persuasion in The Settlers of Catan (conferencePaper 2014)
- Avoiding Revenge Using Optimal Opponent Ranking Strategy in the Board Game Catan (journalArticle 2018)
- Game strategies for The Settlers of Catan (conferencePaper 2014)
- Monte-Carlo Tree Search in Settlers of Catan (bookSection 2010)
- Deep Reinforcement Learning in Strategic Board Game Environments (bookSection 2019)
- Settlers of Catan bot trained using reinforcement learning (computerProgram )
- Trading in a multiplayer board game: Towards an analysis of non-cooperative dialogue (conferencePaper 2012)
- POMCP with Human Preferencesin Settlers of Catan (journalArticle )
- The impact of loaded dice in Catan (blogPost )
- Monte Carlo Tree Search in a Modern Board Game Framework (journalArticle )
- Reinforcement Learning of Strategies for Settlers of Catan (conferencePaper 2004)
- Playing Catan with Cross-dimensional Neural Network (journalArticle 2020)
- Strategic Dialogue Management via Deep Reinforcement Learning (journalArticle 2015)
- Analysis of 'The Settlers of Catan' Using Markov Chains (thesis 2021)
- Learning to Play Settlers of Catan with Deep Reinforcement Learning (blogPost )
- Using Ant Colony Optimisation for map generation and improving game balance in the Terra Mystica and Settlers of Catan board games (conferencePaper 2020)
- Shobu AI Playground (computerProgram )
- Shobu randomly played games dataset (webpage )
- Using Tabu Search Algorithm for Map Generation in the Terra Mystica Tabletop Game (conferencePaper 2020)
- Mastering Terra Mystica: Applying Self-Play to Multi-agent Cooperative Board Games (journalArticle 2021)
- TM AI: Play TM against AI players. (computerProgram )
- Using Ant Colony Optimisation for map generation and improving game balance in the Terra Mystica and Settlers of Catan board games (conferencePaper 2020)
- Map Generation and Balance in the Terra Mystica Board Game Using Particle Swarm and Local Search (bookSection 2020)
- Using Ant Colony Optimisation for map generation and improving game balance in the Terra Mystica and Settlers of Catan board games (conferencePaper 2020)
- TAG: Terraforming Mars (journalArticle 2021)
- A New Challenge: Approaching Tetris Link with AI (journalArticle 2020)
- AI-based playtesting of contemporary board games (conferencePaper 2017)
- Materials for Ticket to Ride Seattle and a framework for making more game boards (computerProgram )
- The Difficulty of Learning Ticket to Ride (report )
- Evolving maps and decks for ticket to ride (conferencePaper 2018)
- Applications of Graph Theory and Probability in the Board Game Ticket to Ride (presentation 2020)
- Ticket to Ride and Dijkstra’s algorithm (blogPost )
- Ticket to Ride and the Traveling Salesperson Problem. (blogPost )
- At Most 43 Moves, At Least 29: Optimal Strategies and Bounds for Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe (journalArticle 2020)
- UNO Is Hard, Even for a Single Player (bookSection 2010)
- The complexity of UNO (journalArticle 2010)
- Nearly Optimal Computer Play in Multi-player Yahtzee (bookSection 2011)
- Computer Strategies for Solitaire Yahtzee (conferencePaper 2007)
- Modeling expert problem solving in a game of chance: a Yahtzeec case study (journalArticle 2001)
- Probabilites In Yahtzee (journalArticle 1982)
- Optimal Solitaire Yahtzee Strategies (presentation )
- Yahtzee: a Large Stochastic Environment for RL Benchmarks (journalArticle )
- Optimal Yahtzee performance in multi-player games (thesis 2013)
- How to Maximize Your Score in Solitaire Yahtzee (manuscript )
- Using Deep Q-Learning to Compare Strategy Ladders of Yahtzee (thesis 2019)
- Defensive Yahtzee (report )
- An Optimal Strategy for Yahtzee (report )
- Let’s Get Rolling! Exact Optimal Solitaire Yahtzee (journalArticle 2022)
Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal. See LICENSE file for complete text.
