The family of Foxes and Geese

The Fox & Geese family is a big one. There are multiple variants from everywhere with different board topologies and different types of unequal armies. The following images came from http://hong.vlinden.com except when noted.

Here's a 1880s variant called Siege Game:

Another example with the same name from around 1900:

And with a hexagonal board:

Fred Horn sent me a beautiful variant called Avro Eigen Zender Spel:

More old boards in here.

The Game

At May 2010, I posted some partial info about a 1971 game called "The Game". This week, Fred Horn sent me an email with much more information because Piet Notebaert from Brugge sent him a scan out of the gamebox. Thanks Piet and Fred for this data :-)

 The game box front

 The game material packed in the game box

"Let's start thinking out of the box"

Tue rules (in Dutch)

A publisher's ad

Fred was kind enough to translate the rules to English. He also included some extra rules that he used while playing:

THE GAME

The Winner

The Winner is the Player who succeeds in occupying with one of his Pieces
the start square –Basis- of his opponent in his Turn.

The Rules

1. The Game is played by two players each playing with five identical pieces.

2. Both Players start with their Pieces off the Board.

Their Basis is the square with the same Image as their Pieces.

In their first five turns, the players alternately bring their Pieces upon the Board, starting the Moves on their Basis. 

Draw decides who plays first. 

A Move is done by sliding the Piece horizontally or vertically over five squares of the Board. 

Moving diagonally is not allowed.

During his Move a Player may change direction 2 times, but cannot return to its start-square/-position of this Move.

3. After five turns each Player moves one of his Pieces in his Turn.

4. Players try to reach the opponents Basis by alternately sliding their Pieces.

5. It is not allowed to jump over a Piece.

6. When the last square of a Move is occupied by an opponents Piece, the Player can place his Piece on top of the opponent to neutralize and immobilize this Piece. This Piece cannot move any more until the Piece on top has moved on.

7. Only when the blocked Player can move another Piece on top of these two, the blocking Piece is now the minority on this square and is captured and removed from the Board and out of the Game.

8. A Player is not allowed to hold – occupy with one of his Pieces - his Basis for more than three turns.

9. If a Player has occupied his Basis and the opponent ends upon it in his Turn, this is not a winning Move. The Basis is only neutralized and there is only a win when another Piece lands upon these two to capture the blocked Piece. 

When this is not possible, the Basis first has to be freed from Pieces before it can be occupied again.

N.B.  The rules do not forbid the occupying of a square with more than one Piece of the same kind.

Additional Rules by Fred Horn.

We played the Game with some extra Rules:

• It is not allowed  to occupy a square with more than 2 own Pieces.
• It is not allowed to occupy your own Basis with more than 1 own Piece. This means that a Player cannot capture on its Basis.
• It is not allowed to pass a square for the second time during a Move.
• There is also a WIN when all opponent’s Pieces are blocked.

© Copyright Reserved, Leisure Dimensions Ltd. 1971                     Made in England