Pentago


[Image:Pentago-Game-Winning-Position.jpg|thumb|Pentago Winning Position for White]
Pentago is a two-player abstract strategy game invented by Tomas Flodén.
The game is played on a 6×6 board divided into four 3×3 sub-boards. Taking turns, the two players place a marble of their color onto an unoccupied space on the board, and then rotate one of the sub-boards by 90 degrees either clockwise or anti-clockwise. This is optional at the beginning of the game, up until every sub-board no longer has rotational symmetry, at which point it becomes mandatory. A player wins by getting five of their marbles in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row. If all 36 spaces on the board are occupied without a row of five being formed then the game is a draw.
There is also a 3-4 player version called Pentago XL. The board is made of 9 3×3 boards, and there are 4 colours instead of the basic 2.
MindtwisterUSA has the rights of developing and commercializing the product in North America.
The 6×6 version of Pentago has been strongly solved with the help of a Cray supercomputer at NERSC. With symmetries removed, there are 3,009,081,623,421,558 possible positions. If both sides play perfectly, the first player to move will always win the game.

Awards

So far Pentago has won 8 major awards, lastly Game of the Year 2007, by Creative Child Magazine.