Trioker
Le Trioker is a corner-matching puzzle game played using 25 equilateral triangle-shaped tiles.
In the 1921 book New Mathematical Pastimes, Percy Alexander MacMahon showed there were 24 possible combinations when each of the three edges of an equilateral triangle are assigned one of four colors.
[1]: 4–6 The similar square tiles proposed by MacMahon in the same book have since been adopted into several commercial games.
For consistency, a notation may be adopted in which the count starts from the lowest-numbered edge, proceeding anti-clockwise; in that case, this tile would always be denoted 143.
Marc Odier developed the Trioker tiles by shifting the markings from the edges to the corners,[2]: 235 as patented and published by Robert Laffont Games in 1969.
[3] In addition to the 24 combinations, Odier introduced a tile with a wild card value in one corner, marked by a solid square.
[2]: 236 Spirou published a supplement in 1970 (with issue 1661), providing the game pieces and a description of how to play it, followed by a regular column through the end of the year.
[7] The rapid variant board is an irregular ten-sided shape, taking the form of an irregular hexagon with two indented corners; similar to the original (1970) version, certain spaces are marked with additional actions that are taken when a tile is played in them:[7] Play starts with the player holding the triple-three ('333') tile; that player places that tile in the "GO" spot, and the next turn proceeds to the player on their left (clockwise).
[7] The even-odd version is an advanced variant intended for two players that uses a 24-tile subset, omitting the "joker" piece.
[7] Comic characters from Spirou [fr] were assigned to each piece in the version of the game reprinted in that magazine.
Advanced players may choose to reduce this to a 52-cell board by mutual agreement to avoid the shaded cells, which increases the difficulty.
[7] In Surprenants triangles (1976), Odier proposes several simple game variants, including single, double, and triple linear paths starting from the triple-three tile.
[10] The puzzle variant is intended for solo players to fill a shape while observing corner-matching rules for adjacent tiles.
