Marienbad

Marienbad is a Macintosh implementation of the classic mathematical game Nim, written by David A. Belsley of Boston College. Version 4.2, released in July 1995, modernised the original 1988 release with a face lift, color icons, and a fat binary built in CodeWarrior so that it runs natively on both 68k and PowerPC Macs.

How the Game Plays

The board presents several rows of match sticks. Players alternate turns with the Mac, removing any number of sticks from a single row, taken consecutively without breaking the line. Whoever is forced to take the last stick loses, the standard misere Nim convention.

Origin of the Name

The title alludes to Alain Resnais's 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad, in which two characters play a Nim-like match-stick game whose winning strategy puzzles one of them throughout the picture. The variant has been called the Marienbad game ever since.

What 4.2 Changed

The 4.2 update brought color icons, a more modern interface suited to larger color monitors, and native PowerPC code via CodeWarrior. Users upgrading from older versions are advised to rebuild the desktop so the new icons appear.

Preservation Notes

Uploaded to Info-Mac as marienbad-42.hqx by David Belsley (BELSLEY@bcvms.bc.edu) on 11 July 1995. Macintosh Garden hosts both v3.1 (68k only) and v4.2 (fat) for compatibility with System 6 through Mac OS 9.