Editing Sprouts (game) (section)

{{Short description|Paper-and-pencil mathematical game}}
{{technical|date=October 2018}}
'''Sprouts''' is an [[Impartial game | impartial]] [[paper-and-pencil game]] which can be analyzed for its [[mathematics|mathematical]] properties. It was invented by mathematicians [[John Horton Conway]] and [[Michael S. Paterson]]<ref name="sciamerican">{{cite journal |last1=Gardner |first1=Martin |title=Mathematical Games - The fantastic combinations of John Conway's new solitaire game 'Life' |journal=Scientific American |date=October 1970 |volume=223 |pages=120–123 |url=http://www.dbs.informatik.uni-muenchen.de/Lehre/Programmierpraktikum/WS0708/material/MathematicalGames.pdf |access-date=30 January 2019|doi=10.1038/scientificamerican1070-120 }}</ref> at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge University]] in the early 1960s. The setup is even simpler than the popular [[dots and boxes]] game, but gameplay develops much more artistically and organically.