Why Simple Games Are Often Harder Than Complex Ones

Simple games are often harder than complex ones because difficulty comes from the depth of your decisions, not the length of the rulebook. Strip away resources and exceptions and there is nowhere to hide: every move is a naked judgment call. The clearest proof is that the game with the simplest rules, Go, resisted computers far longer than the more elaborate Chess.

Triad is a free online version of Sim, the 1969 pencil-and-paper game by Gustavus Simmons where two players draw lines between six dots and the first to complete a triangle in their own colour loses. Six dots, one rule, and more depth than its size suggests. For the rules, see what is Sim.

Why Go Beat Computers Longer Than Chess

For decades the surprise of computer game-playing was that Go, not Chess, was the hard problem. Chess fell to brute-force search relatively early; Go held out far longer, and not because its rules were complicated — they are simpler than Chess. The reason was that those simple rules opened a decision space so vast that calculation alone could not tame it. Simplicity had produced more complexity, not less, which is the whole paradox in one example.

Complexity and Depth Are Not the Same Thing

It is easy to confuse the two. Complexity is how many rules, exceptions, and systems a game contains; depth is how many meaningful decisions it offers. A game can be highly complex and strategically shallow, or extremely simple and astonishingly deep. The games that endure almost always sit in the second category — and Triad, with its single losing condition, is a small, sharp instance of it.

The Rulebook Illusion

A thick rulebook signals sophistication, and more systems feel more strategic. But many of those options are not decisions — they are procedures, things to execute rather than choices to weigh. That manufactures difficulty out of memorisation instead of judgment. Simple games delete that layer entirely and force you to confront the actual decision, which is why they often feel harder despite asking you to learn almost nothing.

Why Constraints Create Better Decisions

When a game hands you many rules, it also hands you guidance: abilities suggest strategies, resources suggest priorities. Remove that scaffolding and you must build the plan yourself, so judgment matters more and every choice carries more weight. Triad shows this with one rule — complete a triangle and you lose — and from that single constraint comes a constant balancing of risk and flexibility, with no mechanic to lean on. Constraint, not content, is doing the work.

Why Simple Games Endure

Most games are popular for a season; a few stay relevant for generations. The ones that last keep revealing new ideas after the rules are long memorised — players improve, strategies evolve, patterns emerge, and the game grows without ever changing. A simple game leaves room for that discovery; a complex one often leaves room only for explanation. The lesson runs through the whole abstract canon, from the most elegant designs to the broader set of games easy to learn but hard to master.

The fastest way to test the claim is from the inside: play Triad and notice how a one-sentence game keeps finding ways to be hard.