Owen sat in his chair. Owen looked at the monitor. The monitor showed a video. The video had bright colors. The video had loud music. The music was for a mobile game. Owen did not want to play the mobile game. Owen wanted to play Sim. Owen had been playing Sim for three minutes. He was playing against a computer. The computer was the AI. The AI was fast. Owen was slow. Owen was thinking about the lines.

Sim is a game for two people. The game uses six dots. The dots sit in a circle. Each person chooses a color. One person is blue. One person is red. Each person draws a line between two dots. The lines must connect the dots. The first person to form a triangle in their own color loses the game. This is a simple game. This is a game of logic. Owen likes logic. Owen likes the way the lines cross each other.

The Disappearing Logic

Owen had five lines on the board. The AI had five lines on the board. The board was getting full. Owen saw a move. The move looked safe. Owen clicked a dot. Owen clicked another dot. A blue line appeared. Owen waited for the AI to move. The AI moved in one second. A red line appeared. A red triangle appeared. Owen saw the red triangle. He began to look at the points. He wanted to see his mistake. He wanted to learn from the mistake.

The screen changed. The board vanished. A video filled the browser window. The video was an advertisement. The advertisement had a timer. The timer said thirty seconds. Owen could not skip the advertisement. Owen could not close the advertisement. Owen had to watch the advertisement. He saw a knight fight a dragon. He saw a chest open. He saw gold coins fall out. The advertisement was loud. Owen turned off his speakers. Owen felt a small pain in his head.

I found twenty dollars in my old jeans this morning. The jeans were in the back of the closet. The twenty dollars was a surprise. I felt lucky. I felt like the day was good. I wanted to use my luck. I opened the browser to play a game. I found the page Owen was using. Now I do not feel lucky. I feel like the page is a machine. The machine is built to show advertisements. The game is not the goal of the machine. The game is the bait.

The Economics of the Interruption

The developer of the game page gets money from the advertisement. The developer gets more money when more advertisements play. An advertisement plays when a game ends. This creates a goal for the developer. The developer wants the game to end fast. If the game is long, the advertisement does not play. If the game is short, the advertisement plays often. The AI is programmed to win. The AI is also programmed to end the game. A fast game is a profitable game.

The player wants a long game. The player wants to think. The player wants to understand the dots. The developer wants the player to lose or win quickly. The developer does not want the player to study the board. If the player studies the board, the screen does not change. If the screen does not change, the advertisement stays in the queue. The developer loses money when the player thinks. Thinking is the enemy of the advertisement.

This is a conflict. The player and the developer have different goals. The player thinks the game is the product. The developer knows the player is the product. The advertisement is the buyer. The buyer wants the attention of the player. The game is the thinnest possible excuse for the interruption. The interruption is the point.

Ramsey Theory and Red Triangles

Owen waited for the timer. The timer reached zero. A small X appeared in the corner. Owen clicked the X. The advertisement closed. The game page returned. The board was empty. The dots were clean. The red triangle from the last game was gone. Owen did not know how he lost. He did not see the lines. He could not see the pattern that lead to the loss. He could not improve his strategy. He could only click “New Game.” He clicked “New Game.” He wanted to play. He wanted to win.

The game started again. The AI made a move. Owen made a move. The game was fast. The AI made a move in less than one second. The AI does not think like a person. The AI calculates all possibilities. The AI knows that Sim cannot end in a draw. This is a mathematical fact. Six dots always lead to a triangle. This comes from Ramsey Theory. The number is R(3,3)=6. Many people first learn about this by playing the sim pencil game in a classroom. A pencil does not show advertisements. A piece of paper does not have a timer.

On this game page, the pencil is digital. The paper is a screen. The screen is controlled by a server. The server wants to serve a video. Owen played another game. He played for two minutes. He lost again. The board vanished. The knight returned. The dragon returned. The music returned. Owen closed the browser tab. Owen looked at his desk. He found a pen. He found a notepad. He drew six dots.

Delivery Systems vs. Quiet Gifts

The digital version of the game should be better than the paper version. A computer can track the lines. A computer can prevent illegal moves. A computer can show the history of the match. But many digital versions are worse than paper. They are worse because they are not games. They are delivery systems. They deliver eyes to a video. They deliver clicks to a link.

I looked at Triad. Triad is different. Triad is a website for Sim. Triad does not have a knight. Triad does not have a dragon. Triad has six dots. Triad has a clean board. When a game ends on Triad, the board stays. The player can see the triangle. The player can see the lines. The player can see the color that lost. There is no advertisement. There is no timer. The player can think for as long as the player wants.

The developer of Triad made a choice. The developer chose the game over the advertisement. This is a rare choice in the browser game market. Most sites are full of banners. Most sites have videos that play automatically. Most sites track the mouse. Most sites want to keep the player on the page for as long as possible. But they do not want the player to play. They want the player to consume.

The AI as Opponent

When you find twenty dollars in your jeans, you feel like the world gave you a gift. You did not work for the twenty dollars. You found the twenty dollars. A good game should feel like a gift. A game of logic should be a clean experience. It should be a quiet experience. Sim is a quiet game. It is a game of counting safe moves. It is a game of avoiding the trap.

The advertisement is a trap. The advertisement waits for the end of the game. The AI pushes the player toward the end of the game. This makes the AI an agent for the advertisement. The AI is not playing to test your skill. The AI is playing to trigger the next video. This changes the nature of the challenge. The challenge is not the math. The challenge is the patience.

Owen did not play the game on the notepad. He did not have a partner. Sim is a game for two people. You can play it with a friend. You can play it with an AI. If the AI is on a page with ads, the AI is your opponent in two ways. The AI wants to win the game. The AI also wants to take your time.

The Beauty of Order

The math of the game is beautiful. The result R(3,3)=6 is elegant. It means that order exists in every group of six. It means you cannot avoid the triangle forever. You must lose or the other person must lose. Someone must always lose. But on the ad-stuffed page, the player always loses more than the game. The player loses the chance to learn. The player loses the peace of the logic.

I like to play games that respect my eyes. I like to play games that respect my brain. A game of Sim should be about the lines. It should be about the safe moves. It should be about the history of the game. It should not be about the mobile RPG. It should not be about the coins in the chest.

Owen opened a new tab. He went to a site without ads. He saw the six dots. He saw the clean background. He clicked a dot. He clicked another dot. The line was blue. He waited. The AI moved. The board stayed. Owen smiled. He felt like he had found twenty dollars again. He felt like the board was his own. He looked at the dots. He began to count the safe moves. He was not waiting for a video. He was playing a game.

Owen finished the match. He had formed a red triangle. He had lost the game. He sat and looked at the triangle. He saw the move that caused the loss. He saw the line he should have picked. He understood the game better. The board did not vanish. The screen did not change. The room was quiet. Owen stayed on the page. He was ready to play again. He was ready because the game was for him. The game was not for the buyer of the advertisement. The game was just a game. In a world of interruptions, a game is enough. In a world of ads, the empty board is a luxury. Owen liked the luxury. Owen liked the dots. Owen liked the game of Sim. He clicked the first dot. He began to draw.