Four-Color Theorem Game

Game written by Rolf Mertig (originally in german in 1998), Mertig Consulting, http://www.mertig.com

Software distributed as is.
Feel free use, modify, add other geometries, but please indicate here that you did.

Click below to start the game.

Start game

See also: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Four-ColorTheorem.html

The four-color theorem states:

Any map in a plane can be colored using four colors in such a way that regions sharing a common boundary (other than a single point) do not share the same color.

This game is to visualize the theorem interactively:
Try to color all countries of Africa in such a way that no two neighboring coutries are colored the same.

Clicking on the colored squares next to the country names colors the respective country. Clicking on the country names gives a list of neighboring countries. (Don't click on the map itself! (this might be a J/Link exercise to do ...)).

Goal of the game is to color the map without making mistakes in record time. The needed (wall-clock) time from the first to the last click is displayed in the window title bar.

As a variation you might want to try to color as few countries as possible with, say, yellow.

Have fun!!