Cactus strategy game

CACTUS is a 3D spatial strategy board game for two players — designed in 2014, digitized in 2026. The board is a 2×2×8 grid of cubes. Players take turns attaching pieces to its outward-facing surfaces. Every piece can be placed in 24 different orientations. No piece is played twice. Every decision is permanent. The goal: maximize your score by placing pieces efficiently, building unbroken sequences, and denying space to your opponent before the board fills up. ── HOW IT PLAYS ── Each player has 10 unique pieces. On your turn, position and rotate your piece in 3D space — a ghost preview shows valid placements in green, invalid in red. Commit when ready. Score is calculated from units placed. Unbroken sequences trigger bonus points. Unused pieces at game end are deducted as penalty — hoarding is punished. The game ends when both players pass or no valid moves remain. ── TWO WAYS TO WIN ── Score Win — the player with the higher final score wins. Lock Win — if you leave your opponent with no valid placements, you win outright. ── PLAY ANYWHERE ── Local — same screen, two players, pass and play. Online — create a room, share the code, play across any distance in real time. ── DEPTH ── CACTUS sits between Checkers (~10³¹) and Chess (~10¹²³) in game tree complexity, estimated at ~10³⁸. With 1,935 valid first moves alone, no two games play out the same way. ── ORIGIN ── CACTUS was a finalist in the IMMIB Konsept 2014 national design competition and was exhibited at the 87th İzmir International Fair in 2018 as a physical wooden prototype. The physical version never reached commercial production. The digital version removes every constraint that blocked it. No ads. No accounts. No installs. Just the game.