Quatro!

A new puzzle revolution for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. Quatro! is a more modern adaptation of the wildly popular board game Quarto, invented by Swiss mathematician Blaise Müller.

The aim of the game is to get four pieces in a row that all have at least one property in common. In this case, one reaches a Quatro. And of course, you should get a Quatro on that board before your opponent does. This may seem simple, but once you dive into the wonderful world of Quatro, you will find that timing is crucial, attention is critical and strategy is key.

Play against an immensely smart computer (that is also adjustable to dummy-level,) against a friend on the same device or against your friends elsewhere via Game Center, and become a Quatro-master.

Awesome math facts about the game:

- For the first move (i.e. picking the initial piece) there are 16 possibilities. In the next move this piece can be put on 16 places and one of the remaining 15 pieces can be chosen. An upper limit for the total search space is thus

16. (16.15).(15.14). … . (2.1).1 = (16!)2 = 4.4e26 (this number has a lot of zeros!). A complete check of the board would take a 500 MHz computer 280 billion years.

- The number of distinct Quatro’s in classic mode (only in rows and columns and the main diagonals) is 414298141056 winning Quatro’s, whereas the extreme mode (classic mode + winning positions in squares) holds approximately 18596841216 winning board configurations.

- If both players play optimally, the game will eventually end up in a draw, but I dare say that such a optimal state will never be reached. Just because of the mathematics.

PS: These calculations probably need some sort of check, please contact me if you should find different outcomes!

What I am currently doing to improve gameplay in future versions:

- Multiple themes (Space theme, Sushi theme and more)

- A play-reward system.

- Crazy game variations such as 5x5 boards!

I would love to hear from you, users, what might be improved or what suggestions you might have to increase the Quatro-experience!

Design by SOS Design Studio Hilversum.

Developed by Vincent Roest.