Robert Abbott’s Games    

Recent news:

: This is a great two-player board game that was invented by Don O’Brien. He originally called it Robot Rampage. I became involved with the game, mostly to write the description and to act as agent (a task for which I am ill suited). However, the game is now available from Kadon under the name MANOOVER. You can read the rules on the Kadon site. Kadon also has a pointer to my description of the game, which is here.

Information about my games:

I thought that the best way to organize this section was to list the games I invented. If I have more information about any of these games, then the name of the game will serve as a link to the information. Following the list of my games, there are some other notes about games.

My eight card games, along with the board game Ultima, appeared in my 1963 book, Abbott’s New Card Games. Three of these games can only be found in that long out-of-print book, so they are pretty much unavailable. I indicate which these three games are. Some day I hope to at least copy their rules and put them on this site.

Eleusis and Variety both appeared in the latest edition of Hoyle’s Rules of Games; so I have a separate page about that book. That page also has a 1963 review of Abbott’s New Card Games.

Eleusis

Babel:  Only in Abbott’s New Card Games

Leopard

Auction

Variety

Metamorphosis:  Only in Abbott’s New Card Games

Switch  (Milton Bradley did an equipment version of this called High Hand)

Construction:  Only in Abbott’s New Card Games

Board Games I Invented:

Epaminondas (also called Crossings)

Ultima (also called Baroque). Plus there are Ultima puzzles.

Confusion

An Equipment Game I Invented:

What’s That on My Head? (known in Germany as Egghead)

Games I Did Not Invent But Which Have My Name on Them:

This has been a source of some confusion. There are two games in this category: Code 777 and Genius Rules.

Visits to Jupiter:

No, “Visits to Jupiter” is not the name of a space-themed board game. Jupiter, Florida, is the town where my wife Ann and I live. There’s not a lot of intellectual stimulation here, so if someone from the world of games visits, I’m apt to take a lot of pictures and add a page about the visit to my web site.

During 2005 and 2006, we had visits from Kate Jones of Kadon.

In August, 2005, we had a visit from Oriol Comas i Coma, the game inventor and writer.

And What Else:

This site has an essay of mine from 1975 called “Under the Strategy Tree.” It’s about the concept of “clarity” in games.

Here is an interview that Oriol Comas i Coma conducted with me. After translation, it became part of an article he wrote for the French magazine Jeux sur un Plateau. It appeared in their February, 2006 issue.

There is an entry about me in the Wikipedia encycopedia.

For the last fifteen years I’ve mostly been involved with mazes or, more specifically, a concept I called “mazes-with-rules” or “logic mazes.” For more about these mazes, see www.logicmazes.com.

I have a game booklet you can order from me. See my mail-order page.

And, finally, there is a section of maze and game links.

To send me an e-mail, please use this address: