Robert Abbott (game designer)

Robert Abbott (March 2, 1933 – February 20, 2018) was an American game inventor, sometimes referred to by fans as "The Official Grand Old Man of Card Games".

Though early in his life he worked as a computer programmer with the IBM 360 assembly language, he began designing games in the 1950s.

Two of his more popular creations include the chess variant Baroque chess (also known as Ultima) and Crossings, which later became Epaminondas.

Eleusis was also successful, appearing in several card game collections, such as Hoyle's Rules of Games and New Rules for Classic Games, among others.

Abbott created all of his card games during the 1950s, starting with Babel in 1951, and ending with Auction in 1956.

Soon after, he moved to New York City, where the rules for his game Eleusis were first published by Martin Gardner in his Mathematical Games column.

Abbott also invented logic mazes, the first of which appeared in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in the October 1962 issue of Scientific American.

One of the more prominent of these is Theseus and the Minotaur, which was originally published in the book Mad Mazes.

Motivated by the article, Abbott self-published the rules for four of his card games in the book Four New Card Games in 1962, which he sold by mail.

The first logic maze ever published, Traffic Maze in Floyd's Knob, appeared in the October 1962 issue of Scientific American in the Mathematical Games column.

The maze looks like a street grid, with arrows pointing down various roads at each intersection.

When one comes to an intersection, only arrows leading from the road you are on to another road can be followed.

One must continue in this fashion, following the arrows at the intersection, until the end is reached.

In 1963, Abbott himself released a publication, Abbott's New Card Games, which included instructions for all of his card games, in addition to Baroque chess.

In 1963, after Abbott's book, Abbott's New Card Games, received only moderate success, he "got tired of being poor" and moved back to St. Louis.

There, he became a computer programmer at the Washington University in St. Louis Computer Research Laboratory.

In 1963, the book Abbott's New Card Games was published by Sol Stein of Stein and Day, containing the rules for all eight of his card games and the rules for his chess variant, Baroque chess.

In 1965, he moved back to New York, where he continued to work as a computer programmer, mostly with the IBM 360 assembly language.

In 1968, the publisher Funk & Wagnalls published a paperback edition of Abbott's New Card Games, in which Abbott slightly modified the rules of Baroque chess, but these changes never became popular.

Around the same time that Abbott's New Card Games was published, Abbott sent his maze, Traffic Maze in Floyd's Knob, to Martin Gardner.

This was the first logic maze to be published, appearing in Gardner's Mathematical Games column.

After that time, Abbott created various mazes, most of which appeared in the books SuperMazes and Mad Mazes.

In 2008, RBA Libros published a Spanish version of his book Abbott's New Card Games, under the title Diez juegos que no se parecen a nada, which translates to Ten games that do not resemble anything.

This version was not just a Spanish translation of the original, however; the most up-to-date rules for the various games were used; in addition, the rules for Eleusis Express and Confusion were included.

In 2010, his Where are the Cows? maze was published by the Oxford University Press in Ian Stewart's book Cows in the Maze.

In 2011, his game Confusion was published by Stronghold Games.

His game Confusion was named "Best New Abstract Strategy Game" for 2012 by GAMES Magazine.

Abbott was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and attended St. Louis Country Day School.

Abbott went to Yale for two years, then attended the University of Colorado for another two, but never graduated.

Soon after, Abbott moved to New York, where he and his games were discovered by Martin Gardner.

The game was named "Best New Abstract Strategy Game" for 2012 by GAMES Magazine.

Abbott was the inventor of a style of maze called logic mazes.

A logic maze has a set of rules, ranging from the basic (such as "you cannot make left turns") to the extremely complicated.

These mazes are also called "Multi-State mazes".

The reason for this name is that sometimes you can return to a position you were in before, but be traveling in a different direction.

That change in direction can put you in a different state and open up different choices for you.

One example, from the book SuperMazes, would be a rolling-die maze.

Where you can move from a particular square depends on what number is facing up on the die.

If you return to that same square, the die may be in a different state, with a different number on top.

Thus, you would have different options than the first time.