CROSS

Game by Cameron Browne (2009)

12* moves & group restriction

Y play; the goal is to make a group connecting 3 non-adjacent sides.

The winner is whoever makes a Y;
or if no-one does, the player who first made a cross loses.

Game Sample

  ___xx_______oo___
1:  -- i6   k4 k6
2:  l5 l7   j5 k8
3:  j7 o6   g6 n7
4:  f7 m6   h5 g8
5:  n3 i8   m4 p5
6:  o4 f7   n5 d7
7:  f9 h7   e6 s6
8:  k2 h9   h3 r5
9:  h1 r7   j1 m2
10: t7 i2   l3 p7
11: u6 c8   q6 d9
12: q8 n9   l9 p9
13: m8 q10  o8 p11
14: r9 e8   o10 a6
15: resign

: abcdefghijklmnopqrstu
:      . x o . . . 1
:     . . x x o . . 2
:    . . o . o x . . 3
:   . . . . o o x . . 4
:  . . x o o x o o o . 5
: O . o o x o x x o o x 6
:  . o x x x x o o x x 7
:   x x o x o x o x . 8
:    o x x . o x o x 9
:     . . . . . O x 10
:      . . . . . o 11
: abcdefghijklmnopqrstu



ONE-HIT PROGRESSIVE CHESS

As FIDE Progressive Chess except:

Each player makes from 1 to the turn number, of moves, subject to
the condition that any capture, check or promotion ends the series.

Sample Game

     1. e4
     2. e6 Be7
     3. Qg4 Qg5 Q:e7+
     4. N:e7
     5. e4 Nf3e5c6:d8
     6. f5f4 O-O d6 Nc6:d8
     7. Bb5 Bd7 a4 b3 c4 f3 B:c8
     8. Na6b4 a5 c5 g5 h5h4 R:c8
     9. g4 h3 d5 Rh2 Rc3 Raa2 Bd2 B:b4
    10. b6 e5 Kf7 Rc7 Re8e7 c:b4
    11. c5 Rc4 Rac2 Kd3 c:b6
    12. Rb7 Rec7c5 Ke7 Ne6d4e2g1:h3
    13. N....h3
    14. Rb8 K..b7 Rbc8 R:c4
    15. K..b2 Rc1 b:c4
    16. K:b6
    17. Nf2 R...h3 Kb3 N...e7 N:c8+
    18. K..:c8
    19. c567 K...c6 R...b8++
    
Final Position:

. . k . . . . .
. . O . . . . .
. . K p . . . .
p . . O p . p .
O p . . O p O p
. . . . . O . R
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .

CADUCEUS

Played on an 8x8 board, each player starts with two stones, at opposite corners.  
Group-restricted 12* moves per turn.

For each move, a player removes the tail of one of his groups, then adds two successive rookwise-adjacent new stones on empty cells at the head of it.

A player loses if he cannot complete a legal turn.


The first moves (the '-' clarifies the chain structure):

                       _J___N_    _B___T_
. . . . . . . .    1. es   --    ee   ss
. j-j . . . . ,    2. es   nw    nn   ww
. . J . . T-t-t    3.
. . . . . . . .    4.
. . . . . . . .    5.
. . B . . . . .    6.
. . b . . . N-n    7.
. , b . . . . .    8.

and the entire game:
                       _J__N_    _B__T_
. . t-t-t-t-t-t    1. es  --    ee  ss
. . t . . ,-t-t    2. es  nw    nn  ww
. T-t . . . . n    3. se  wn    en  ww
. N-n-n-n-n . n    4. es  nn    ww  ne
b-b-b . . n-n-n    5. ss  en    ss  ee
b . B . . J-j-j    6. ws  es    es  en
b b-b j-j . . j    7. ee  sw    ww  ww
b-b-b j-j-j-j-j    8. ee  wn    nn  ww
                   9. nn  ww    ne  ws
                   10. ww  ww    es  sw
                   11. resign
                  
A better variant uses double removal and triple growth for faster moves (and a 10x10 board)

A game example:
                      
     _J____N_   _B____T_
1.  wws  ---   sss  nww
2.  ssw  enn   eee  wnn
3.  wss  nee   sse  nne
4.  sss  sww   nnn  sss
5.  eee  nnn   www  een
6.  sww  wne   nee  wnn
7.  wwn  ees   ees  www
8.  www  ese   ene  nee
9.  wnn  sww   see  ees
10.  nnn  see   nnw  sss
11.  nnn  ees   www  swn
12.  ese  swn   wss  nww
13.  ess  wsw   ssw  nee
14.  wss  nws   ses  nnw
15.  sww  wnw   enn  nee
16.  nen  swn   nen  sss
17.  wne  nee   wne  sss
18.  nwn  eee   nes  swn
19.  nws  ees   resign

Final Board:
j-j . . b-. b-b . B  1
j J j-j b b-b-b-b-b  2
j-j . j b b-b t-t-t  3
j-j j-j b b-b t-t t  4
j-j j b-b b . . t t  5
j-j j b-b b t-t-t t  6
j-j-j . b-b t T-t t  7
n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n t t  8
n n-n n-n n-. N t t  9
n-n n-n n-n . . t-t 10


This game was inspired by the light motorcyles from the TRON movies.

On Natural & Artificial Games

Can we use the terms natural/artificial for games, in general?

One way to look at this is to relate naturalness to simplicity. Simple games like Hex, Tic Tac Toe or, perhaps, Go, seem almost like discoveries, rather than inventions. But the fact that Hex was only "discovered" in the 1940s does give us pause to ponder. Simplicity is culturally dependent, just as are more obvious or trivial things - e.g. the positional numerical system, or the moral statement "slavery is wrong" -- which were not so in the past.

Another way to look at this is using History. Games, or game concepts, that seem to be invented independently are, at least, cognitively attractive to humans. Perhaps they are cognitively attractive to conscious beings in general, and so, they may even exist in alien cultures. Some examples of those are race games, or Tic Tac Toe/Gomoku variants. Possibly, seed games, Mancalas, also belong here. So, a natural game would be an instance of one of these archetypal game concepts. Of course, as usual, the frontier is blurred. Bao is a very complicated Mancala game. Overly baroque variants can hardly be seen as natural. Shall we include Checkers/Alquerque or Chess games? And how many add-ons can a game include and still be considered a natural one?

A third way to try to make sense of this separation between natural and artificial, is to look into the game's history.

Games like Chess, Go, Mancala and Checkers have evolved through centuries, absorbing gaming experience into their progressive adaptable rules. As in biological natural selection, these games are more like species, with their life trees,
their historical compromises, their multiple branches (cultural instead of biological). So, in this case, every game started in one or more human minds, in some raw artificial state, and was tested in a social environment. Like most species, most games must have become extinct quite quickly. But a few were able to adapt to the cultural intricacies of the memetic landscape of its inventors. And then, when society changed, games also changed, like any adaptable, flexible population of organisms. Of course, the analogy only goes so far. Unlike fossils, if they are rediscovered, games can be brought back and enjoy a new life eventually under new clothes. (The Game of Ur, and Senet, with their reconstructed rules, are famous examples).

Just as for the concept of species, we might differ our final judgement about our recent games. Perhaps Hex will have a biography (it already has thriving children, like Y). Game inventors, nowadays, have an immense set of game ideas and, like alchemists, they try to mix them, mould them into new games. Most of those, as in the past, will become extinct and never get beyond being artificial concepts. Others, because they say something to generations of players, will be carried along with our evolving society and will start to have a biography. They will, slowly and in unexpected ways, become natural concepts.

[also posted in rec.games.combinatorial]

Two Games for Three Players

Here are a couple of games to be played with three players:

Triad by Cameron Browne

Rules can be checked here.

An older game is Atride by Gauthier Fourcade:

More info can be read here (in French).

Board Games Studies 2011

This year edition of BGS happened in Brugge, Belgium. The meeting was held at the KHBO-Spellenarchief. The game archive has several thousand board games and has a database (in Dutch) which is being slowly uploaded with game information and, hopefully, game rules. Here are some pictures from their public section:

And here is a panoramic view (as usual, click to enlarge):

Lots of thousands of games were donated by the Dutch game collector and inventor, Fred Horn, who still collaborates with the Museum. Here is a picture of him (the middle guy, talking math & games with Jorge Nuno and Carlos Santos, two Portuguese friends):

Irving Finkel presented "On to Square Two – the question of dissemination" talking about how games travel between cultures. This travel is useful for game survival but has also the problem of game contamination. Some games may even replace and destroy old games. For a game Historian the modern waves of European migration (like colonists or missionaries) to the rest of the world meant terrible news.

In the colloquium a participant (I don't recall his name...) presented a rediscovered picture from an old book, picturing Adam & Eve in the garden of Eden. Some say they are playing a board game (I saw just them picking and eating grapes or something like that...). Anyway, the picture is pretty:

Michel Boutin made a nice presentation called "The structure of games" were he made an historical perspective of how games were classified in the past.

Fehde

Anyone knows Dutch German?

[Feb 2013] Fred Horn was kind enough to translate the rules:

Game-Rules

A Tactical Game for 2 Persons from 8 years on, with both two Knights and nine Squires.

Aim of the Game is to get your Knight occupying the Opponents Knights’ start-position; or tocapture the Opponents’ Knight by jumping over or in the same way capture all Opponents Squires.

The two Knights (Balls) start, at the beginning of the Game, on their same colored Field (Cirkle), the nine escorting Squires start on the 9 surrounding yellow Fields (Cirkles).

Players draw who begins and then Turns go alternately by moving in his Turn one Piece of the Players’ color. Moving goes in all directions, including diagonal.

A move is only to a next, free adjacent Field (Cirkle).

When it is a Players’ Turn and an Opponents’ Piece is adjacent to one of his Pieces and the Field (Cirkle) behind is empty, The Player MUST in this Turn jump over the Opponents’ Piece.

This Piece is captured and removed from the Board.

Does the Players have more than one opportunity to jump he is free to choose which capture he wants to make.

Only one Piece can jumped over and it is not allowed to jump over your own Pieces.

Knights can move or jump to all Fields –a color does not count-, but Squires are only allowed to occupy their own yellow Fields(Cirkles)-their start-position- or the grey Fields(Cirkles) =No-Mans-Land=. The Squires may jump over an Opponents’ yellow Edge only, when after the jump they occupy a grey Field (Cirkle).

Winning is by 

1. capture of the Opponents’ Knight; 
2. capture of all Opponents’ Squires or 
3. moving the own Knight on to the start-position of the Opponents’ Knight.

Translated from German to English by Fred Horn 12/02/2013

Transvaal

A Bavarian game from early 20th century (click to enlarge):

Chivalry

A 1887 game from George Parker. 

Rules and board from Camelot's website:

 

 

© 2008-2012 Michael Wortley Nolan and the World Camelot Federation

PLAYERS: The game of Chivalry is played between two opponents who move pieces alternately on a Chivalry board.  The two players are called White and Black.  The players choose for color.  White moves first.

PLAYING SURFACE: The Chivalry board contains 176 squares of identical size.  Ranks are rows of squares, numbered 1 through 16, running horizontally from one side of the board to the other.  Files are columns of squares, lettered A through N, running vertically from one end of the board to the other.  The squares of the board, with their actual Camelot designation used for game notation, from the bottom rank to the top rank, from the left-most file to the right-most file, are: G1, H1, D2, E2, F2, G2, H2, I2, J2, K2, C3, D3, E3, F3, G3, H3, I3, J3, K3, L3, B4, C4, D4, E4, F4, G4, H4, I4, J4, K4, L4, M4, A5, B5, C5, D5, E5, F5, G5, H5, I5, J5, K5, L5, M5, N5, A6, B6, C6, D6, E6, F6, G6, H6, I6, J6, K6, L6, M6, N6, A7, B7, C7, D7, E7, F7, G7, H7, I7, J7, K7, L7, M7, N7, A8, B8, C8, D8, E8, F8, G8, H8, I8, J8, K8, L8, M8, N8, A9, B9, C9, D9, E9, F9, G9, H9, I9, J9, K9, L9, M9, N9, A10, B10, C10, D10, E10, F10, G10, H10, I10, J10, K10, L10, M10, N10, A11, B11, C11, D11, E11, F11, G11, H11, I11, J11, K11, L11, M11, N11, A12, B12, C12, D12, E12, F12, G12, H12, I12, J12, K12, L12, M12, N12, B13, C13, D13, E13, F13, G13, H13, I13, J13, K13, L13, M13, C14, D14, E14, F14, G14, H14, I14, J14, K14, L14, D15, E15, F15, G15, H15, I15, J15, K15, G16, H16.  White’s Castle is composed of two Castle Squares G1 and H1, and Black’s Castle is composed of two Castle Squares G16 and H16.

PIECES: Each player begins the game with 20 pieces: eight Knights and 12 Men.  The starting positions are: White Knights on C6, D6, K6, L6, C7, D7, K7, and L7, White Men on E6, E7, F6, F7, G6, G7, H6, H7, I6, I7, J6, and J7, Black Knights on C10, D10, K10, L10, C11, D11, K11, and L11, and Black Men on E10, E11, F10, F11, G10, G11, H10, H11, I10, I11, J10, and J11.

THE PLAIN MOVE: A piece (either Knight or Man) may move one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) to any adjoining unoccupied square.  This move is called a Plain Move.

THE CANTER: A piece (either Knight or Man) may leap in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) over a friendly piece (either Knight or Man) that occupies an adjoining square, provided that there is an unoccupied square immediately beyond it in a direct line onto which the leap may be made.  This move is called a Canter.  Pieces cantered over are not removed from the board.  A player may canter over more than one piece during the same move, but may not make a Canter that ends on the same square from which it began.  When cantering over more than one piece in a move, the direction of the move may be varied after each Canter.  A player is never compelled to canter, nor when cantering is he compelled to canter as far as possible.

THE JUMP: A piece (either Knight or Man) may leap in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) over an opposing piece (either Knight or Man) that occupies an adjoining square, provided there is an unoccupied square immediately beyond it in a direct line onto which the leap may be made.  This move is called a Jump.  Each enemy piece jumped over is captured and immediately removed from the board.  A player is obliged to jump if any one of his pieces is next to an exposed enemy piece.  Having jumped over one enemy piece, the jumping must continue as a part of that same move if the player’s piece reaches a square next to another exposed enemy piece.  When jumping over more than one piece, the direction of the move may be varied after each Jump.  If presented with capturing alternatives, a player may choose which opposing piece to capture, and with which of his pieces to effect the capture.  When compelled to jump, a player may, if he can, capture by a Knight’s Charge instead.  The only situation in which a player may ignore his obligation to jump is when, on his previous move, he has jumped one of his pieces over an opponent's piece into his own castle, ending his turn there, and must, on his next turn, immediately move that piece out from his castle.

THE KNIGHT’S CHARGE: A Knight (only) may combine a Canter and a Jump in a single move, called a Knight’s Charge.  A Knight’s Charge must follow the order of first the Canter(s) and last the Jump(s).  A Knight is never obliged to make a Knight's Charge.  When cantering over more than one piece during the cantering portion of a Knight’s Charge, the direction of the move may be varied after each Canter.  If the Canter of a Knight brings it next to an enemy piece that can be jumped, it must do so, unless by a different route later in that same move it captures one or more enemy pieces elsewhere.  During a Knight's Charge, the directions of the last Canter and first Jump need not be the same.  Having jumped over one enemy piece during the jumping portion of a Knight’s Charge, the jumping must continue as a part of that same move if the player’s Knight reaches a square next to another exposed enemy piece.  When jumping over more than one piece during the jumping portion of a Knight’s Charge, the direction of the move may be varied after each Jump.

NOTATION: The Plain Move is indicated by the notation “-” placed between the starting square and the ending square, e.g., C8-D9.  The Canter is indicated by the notation “-” placed between the starting square, landed upon intermediate squares (if any), and the ending square, e.g., E6-C8-A8.  The Jump is indicated by the notation “x” placed between the starting square, landed upon intermediate squares (if any), and the ending square, e.g., H4xJ4xL6.  The Knight’s Charge is indicated by the notation “-” placed between the beginning square of the cantering portion, landed upon intermediate squares (if any), and the ending square of the cantering portion, and the notation “x” placed between the ending square of the cantering portion (the beginning square of the jumping portion), landed upon intermediate squares (if any), and the ending square of the jumping portion, e.g., F6-F8-H8xH10xJ12.

OBJECT: The game is won if a player moves any two of his pieces (Knights and/or Men) into his opponent’s castle.  Or, the game is won if a player captures all of his opponent’s pieces, and has two or more of his own pieces left.  Or, the game is won if a player has two or more pieces, and his opponent is unable to make a legal move.

DRAWN GAME: The game is drawn if both players have no more than one piece left.

PLAYER’S OWN CASTLE: A player may not plain-move or canter one of his pieces (Knight or Man) into his own castle.  If an enemy piece reaches a square adjacent to his own castle, a player may jump, or make the jumping portion of a Knight’s Charge, over that enemy piece into his own castle.  A player may not, during the cantering portion of a Knight's Charge, move his Knight into his own castle.  If a player jumps over an opponent's piece into his own castle, and the player’s piece is then next to an exposed enemy piece, the jumping must continue (out of his own castle) as part of that same move.  A player who has jumped one of his pieces over an opponent's piece into his own castle, and in so doing was unable to continue the jumping out of his own castle as part of that same move, must, on his next turn to move, immediately move that piece out from his own castle, with no exception.  A player moving one of his pieces out from his own castle must jump out, if possible, instead of plain-moving or cantering out.  If a player has the opportunity to jump out from his own castle, he may, if he can, satisfy the obligation to capture by means of moving out with a Knight's Charge instead.

OPPONENT’S CASTLE: A piece that has entered his opponent’s castle cannot come out, but is allowed to move from one castle square to the other (designated a castle move).  A player is limited to two castle moves during a game.

ILLEGAL MOVES: A player who makes an illegal move must retract that move and make a legal move.  If the mistake is only noticed later on, the game must be restarted from the position in which the error occurred.