What is it?
A Japanese computer magazine ASCII held a computer Othello match 12 times in 1980-86, and Japanese Othello programs progressed much in that period. I won the booby prize twice (among the finalists) in the ASCII match, so I named the program Booby. Now it is considered as one of good reversi programs in Japan.
Now you know why it's called Booby Reversi, in case your hopes were going into another direction. A booby price is a joke price that is awarded for an especially bad performance, often to the one with the worst score. Booby Reversi certainly has come a long way; even on the easiest setting, its AI is nearly invincible. No less than six versions can be downloaded from the homepage:
- DOS command line. This is really a command line program, the board is redrawn after each turn.
- 16-bit Windows.
- 32-bit Windows.
- Macintosh 68K.
- Power Macintosh.
- Carbon for OS 9 and OS X.
Apart from that, you can play it online as a Java applet, however with less features and only three difficulty settings. This is the latest development of a 16-bit Windows game I know.
The of the board and the stones can be freely chosen. Ironically, though the game uses far less than 16 colors, to display the default blue without dithering, you need a hi-color desktop.
