Othello

Microsoft's Reversi and Radsoft's Othello were written at about the same time and are similar in their internal design but differences do exist which normally result in a victory for Othello.



Reversi only offers one type of play; Othello offers three. Reversi offers only four ply levels (1, 2, 4, 6) whilst Othello offers all sixty one. In addition Othello adds crunching, a feature which kicks in towards the end of the game.



Both games use minimax ply theory with alpha-beta pruning but Othello goes a bit further. Othello plays an authentically random game whereas Reversi does not, uses two strategy boards where Reversi uses only one, and abandons its strategy boards during the end game where Reversi re-writes its strategy board instead. Reversi can never know the outcome of the game but Othello, crunching out all remaining moves, can irritate with the message 'You will lose'.

Reversi and Othello can only be compared if Othello starts (which is a disadvantage for Othello) but Othello will generally win 9 out of 10 games anyway. Click here.

Bye the bye: Reversi's strategy board has an error. Microsoft never found it; see if you can.

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