00 · start here
Start here: what OverGrid asks an AI to see.
A short guide to the game, its scoring, and why one three-piece turn can create a serious search problem.
OverGrid / AI Field Notes
Two ways to read the board.
Choose a behind-the-scenes account of the game AI, or a player-facing strategy story drawn from the same concrete problems.
Two distinct reader paths · historical publication dates reflect the research epoch, not when this collection was assembled.
Behind the AI
For game makers: engineering, evaluation, tooling, and failed experiments.
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01 · search foundation
A small board can still have an enormous turn.
Why OverGrid’s first AI problem was not “which move is best?” but “which legal moves deserve a fair look?”
02 · reply search
More lookahead made the AI worse—until we gave it a smaller job.
The first selective-reply experiments taught OverGrid not to turn every tactical question into a minimax sermon.
03 · early autoresearch
Our first hillclimb had no finish line.
The original autoresearch loop found useful hypotheses—and then taught us why capped snapshots cannot crown a champion.
04 · named AI
Four named AIs walked into the same position. They all made the same move.
The day OverGrid stopped confusing character copy with behavioral identity.
05 · termination
Ending a game is a rule, not a shortcut
Why OverGrid rejected two apparently sensible anti-loop rules before trusting another AI result.
06 · fairness debugging
The home side that won before anyone played.
An identical-agent control exposed a giant seat split in OverGrid’s old arena—and taught us to stop treating a leaderboard as an answer.
07 · fairness reset
When the arena lies, do not add more games
OverGrid archived a large AI dataset after two fairness confounds made its rankings untrustworthy.
08 · reproducibility
Autoresearch needs a contract, not just a hillclimb
The rules OverGrid adopted after a plausible AI lead vanished under more seeds, replies, and horizon.
09 · playtest evidence
A player circled one tile. It changed the AI program.
Why readable game records and public tactical receipts became research infrastructure.
10 · candidate supply
The candidate generator is part of the AI.
Petra’s suspected missed height capture revealed why a good evaluator cannot rescue a move that never enters its menu.
11 · responsive compute
The best move may be outside the search budget
Petra’s missed height tile exposed the real bounded-search problem: evaluating a move is useless if the candidate generator never offers it.
12 · game records
We did not want a replay button. We wanted a game record.
Why OverGrid introduced OGN beside verified replays—and what each format is designed to make possible.
13 · human loop
Autoresearch did not make the breakthrough. Playtests gave it something real to optimize.
How OverGrid playtests made deterministic AI research more useful.
14 · adaptive Ender
Ender had an opponent model. It just never got to use it.
An honest account of a non-promotion, an adaptive search breakthrough, and the difference between activation and strength.
16 · table talk
A good taunt needs the whole table.
Why game AI commentary needs the shared match situation—not hidden information, and not just the bot’s own score delta.
At the Table
For players: transferable OverGrid decisions, routes, pressure, and counterplay.
15 · current checkpoint
The best move is the move you can prove.
A player’s guide to choosing between reply-backed calculation and a small, visible board proof.
17 · asymmetric Bean
Bean’s fork: two threats, one exit.
A player’s guide to building asymmetric OverGrid threats that survive the opponent’s best cut.
18 · public endgame
Close the board, not just the score.
How to protect an OverGrid lead using only the public counter-swings visible before the next hand is dealt.
player guide · orientation
Rotate the whole hand, not just the piece you like.
A practical way to escape the first attractive OverGrid construction and find routes hidden by orientation.
player guide · counterplay
The reply is part of the move.
A short OverGrid calculation routine for choosing between two constructions that both look good.
player guide · conversion
A route is not a bank.
How to tell whether OverGrid pressure will convert into points—or disappear after one good reply.
player guide · multiplayer
Fast expansion is not control.
A multiplayer OverGrid guide to tempo, last replies, and converting neutral territory into a durable lead.