Variants
The most common variant of Black Box is played on an 8-by-8 grid with five (or more) atoms. Five-atom configurations allow for positions that cannot be unambiguously determined by probes. The grid at left shows an example of this.
If the fifth atom is in any of the four positions marked by the X, no ray can ever determine where it is located, because it is shielded from all directions by the surrounding atoms. The addition of more atoms allows for more complex indeterminate configurations, but also allows for more intriguing interactions.
It is possible to "hide" a ball with this four-atom configuration.
It is not ambiguous, however.
Black Box can also be played with different-sized grids, such as 10-by-10 or 12-by-12 grids.
A related class of computer puzzle games feature different types of obstacles concealed in the box, which affect rays in varying ways — such as mirrors which reflect only a direct-hit ray, or prisms which split one ray into two. The GNOME game GFingerPoken and one section of the Macintosh game System's Twilight fall into this class.
Read more about this topic: Black Box (game)
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