Black Box

Black Box © 1978 Creative Computing Soft.

The earliest known implementation of the 1977 pen and paper game of the same name. It came about through a contest in Creative Computing magazine. The game requires the player to find hidden atoms in a grid. The player does so by firing rays into the grid from the borders. Rays normally travel in a straight line. Rays that strike an atom are absorbed. Rays that come within one square of an atom in a diagonal direction are deflected 90 degrees. Rays aimed directly between two atoms one square apart are deflected. Rays that enter the grid directly to the side of an atom are deflected. Players can play alone and try to discover the position of the atoms or play in turns firing rays and guessing the correct locations. The game itself does not keep score.