The Game of Passo

The Game of Passo is a 1919 game by Leonard Budd Gaylor, which was self-published.

The game is played on a Checkers board, so only the pieces were sold,

Each player has ten pieces and one ball. The pieces are concave on top and can hold the ball.

This is the initial setup:

The balls are placed at e1 and d8.

• The player, on his turn, either (a) moves one friendly piece, or (b) passes his ball to another friendly piece in moving range (assuming it didn't have the ball).
• A piece without the ball can move like the Chess Queen.
• A piece with the ball can move one step diagonally (forwards or backwards) .
• There are no captures.
  
• Wins the player that either moves his ball to his last row, or surrounds the enemy ball such that it cannot be passed.
• If a player blockades all access to his first row, on his half of the board, he loses the game.

I find it interesting that the rules acknowledge an obvious drawish strategy of blocking all ways to pass through. They still leave that possibility in the opponent's area, which seems fair, since it is quite difficult to achieve that. The rules feel quite modern, despite the game is now a century old.

A rule page from that time:

The game was patented as US1363769 in 1920. Here's the visual description of the two types of pieces:

More about the game and the author in AGPI Quarterly volume 8 [1].

Steppe

Steppe, aka Stak, is a 1985 game by David Rea, published in DMR Games and Tactical Studies Rules.

Steppe is a tiling game played on a 5x5 board. Each player has fifteen 1x1 tiles, five 1x2 tiles and three 1x3 tiles (the colors are Blue and White). There's also six 1x1 red tiles, where each player gets three.

In the TSR edition, the white tiles are the neutral ones

Each match consists of three phases, each ending when the board is full:

• On the first phase, players take turns dropping one of their available tiles over empty board squares.
• Each 1x1 tile values one point, each 1x2 values five points, each 1x3 values ten points. 
• Red tiles are not scored, i.e., they are worth zero points.
  
• The second and third phases are the same, but the points are multiplied by 2 and 3, respectively.
• For each phase, the player that places the last tile starts the next phase.
• In any phase, if one player cannot place more tiles, then the other player will continue playing until the board is full or he is unable to continue.
  
• There are also requirements for placing tiles:
• Red tiles are owned by both players, assume the board is made of 25 red tiles; there are no restrictions in placing red tiles, or placing other tiles on top of them.
  
• 1x1 and 1x2 tiles must be placed on top of tiles owned by the current player.
• 1x3 tiles can only be placed if their extremes are on top of tiles owned by the current player; the middle section can be over any color but it cannot be over an empty square.
  
• When the third phase ends, the player with more points wins the game.

The official rules include some strategy tips:

• The first level is your basic foundation. You want to place your tiles into patterns that will allow you to place large tiles on top of them in the upper levels. If you want to place a "five" in a certain location in the second level, you'll need to have two tiles of yours together in the first level. You must think ahead to what you want in the third level, so you need to try to set up the second level by setting up the first level.
• Not only that, but a big part of setting up the second level usually means going first in the second level. Which means placing the last tile in the first level. Which means a move/counter-move situation:
• White goes first and there are 24 spaces to be filled in the first level. So if each player places "ones" on every turn, blue will place the last tile in the first level, and thus go first in the second level.
• If white wants to go first in the second level, he'll have to place a "five" (which takes up two spaces) in the first level. If both players then place "ones" on each turn in the first level, white will place the last tile in the first level. But, if blue places a "five" ....
• Once you get to the second level, you'll want to not only try to complete your planned pattern (so you can place the tiles you want in the third level), but you'll probably want to disrupt your opponent's pattern. That's where red tiles come in. If your opponent has set up a string of three tiles of his color in the first level (so he can place a" ten" on top of them in the second level) you can place a red tile on top of the middle tile (when you're in the second level) to block.

a complete match of Steppe, White wins 151-115

 

The game was mentioned in GAMES #87:

Games with Othello pieces: Blocs and Troll

These are two games found in Jeux et Stratégie #43, printed in February 1987.

The first game is called Blocs. It is played on a 4x4 board with 16 Othello pieces.

• Initially, players take turns dropping one piece on an empty square, with its face turned up, until the board is full
• Then, on his turn, the player must select a rectangle of pieces (it can be as small as an isolated piece, or as large as the entire board) that has a black piece on its lower-right corner. Then the player flips all the rectangle's pieces.
• It is assumed that both players are facing the board from the same side. If they are opposite to each other, then the other player can only flip rectangles with a black piece in its upper-left corner.
  
• Wins the player that moves last (i.e., the first to make the board all covered with white pieces)

Here's the J&S text:

At first the game seems to allow endless matches, since we are flipping pieces on and on. But that is not so. The lower-right most pieces, after becoming White, will never be flipped again. So, each board constructed at the initial phase has a budget that is spent on every turn, making the game end sooner or later.

The text mentions John Conway as the game author. I was unable to find the English name of this game. In the book Winning Ways, chapter 14 is dedicated to Turning games, but this specific ruleset is not included. 

§

The second game is Troll by Jean-Claude Rosa. It is played on an 8x8 board with 64 Othello pieces (i.e., the entire Othello set). 

The rules are like Othello except:

• One player owns the left and right edges of the board, while the other owns the top and bottom edges
• Capturing/flipping enemy pieces is only mandatory in the squares owned by the adversary (his edges, including corners). So, a piece can be dropped on an empty square, in the middle of the board, without making any capture.
  
• Wins the player that makes a connection between his edges (diagonal connections are not valid)
  

This game is indexed at BGG.

Duell

Duell, aka Conquest, is a 1975 game by Geoffrey Hayes, published by Alga (among others).

The game is played on an 8x9 board. It uses dice, not as random generators, but as pieces. Each army has eight regular dice, plus a 'key piece' with one dotted star on every side.

The setup is as follows (with all faces 4 facing inwards):

The rules:

• Regular dice move by 'tumbling' their faces over the next empty square (there's no diagonal moves; there's no jump over other pieces).
• The initial move must be forward or backward
• Pieces can also turn right or left during the move; this can be done just once during the move
  
• The number of moves is given by the die's top face; the piece cannot stop until the entire move sequence is done
• Key pieces can only move one square per turn (after all, all their faces have a one)
• Capture is by replacement and is only possible at the last square of the moving piece
  
• Wins the player that captures the enemy key piece; or moves his own key piece to the initial square of the enemy key piece (so White's moving from e1 to e8, or Black's from e8 to e1).
  

move examples from the rule book

Some hints given by the rule book:

• It is sometimes possible to approach one square from two different paths.
• Your choice of path will determine what number will be on the "top face" of your piece at the conclusion of the move.
• Your strategy can include planning for a subsequent move if you can control the top number and space location.

Here's a review from GAMES magazine #2: 

And from Games & Puzzles #48:

There are not that many abstract games using dice as pieces. We already mentioned Chase (1985) here in the blog. Other examples are Mojave (2004) and Cublino (2006).

Tris

Tris is a 2006 game by Daniel Solis.

The game is played on an 8x8 board, initially empty. Each player has enough pieces of one color (probably 40 is more than enough).

Rules:

• On his turn, the player either:
• drops a friendly piece, on an empty square, at the first/last row or vertically connected to another piece (or either color)

 all legal next drops shown

• moves a piece to a horizontally adjacent empty square
• then, the piece 'falls' until meeting another piece (falls in the direction of the edge supporting its column of vertically connected pieces)
• if there were pieces on top of the moving piece, those pieces also 'fall' 

all movements available

• If, after the drop/move, an orthogonal or diagonal 4 in-a-row of pieces of the same color is made, those pieces are removed from the board (cf. next rule for exceptions)
• the remaining pieces fall accordingly, which might produce more 4 in-a-rows, and so on...
• Fixed pieces: the pieces at the first/last row are fixed and cannot be removed
• when a row is full, those pieces also become fixed
• A player wins if either:
• his first four rows are full
• twelve of his pieces are removed
  

Comment from the author: Pretty simple game here, essentially taking elements of Tetris and Connect 4 and laying it flat on a board instead of vertically.

Hexagonia

Hexagonia is one of the first two hexagonal Chess in the literature^(*), c.1860. It was published by Jaques & Son, and its author is possibly J. W. Smith [1].

A new game for two players, played on a board divided into hexagons. Each player had fourteen pieces, representing infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and one principal piece, the King. The various pieces have certain moves on the board analogous to those of a real army, and the game is won by the player who first succeeds in placing his King (without liability to capture) on the central hexagon.

In Cazaux and Knowlton's A World of Chess, [2], the game is described. Each army is composed of one King, two Cannons, four Knights and eight Pawns. However, it is not known how the pieces moved. The book also refers that this game appears to have been invented, some years earlier, in New Zealand.

The book also includes the following quote about the game (page 377):

The last game which we have to notice is undoubtedly the most scientific of the lot, and somewhat resembles chess. It is called" Hexagonia," and is published by Mr. Jaques, of Hatton Garden. The board is in the shape of a hexagon, and contains hexagonal figures, painted red, blue, or white. Two play at this game. To each combatant is given a king, four knights, and two pieces in the shape of cannon, called artillery, and eight pawns, or pieces of infantry. Each piece has a different mode of moving, and can capture an enemy; and the object is to place the king on a gold square in the centre of the board. This sovereign can never be taken, but can be checked as in chess. The reader will gather fom this that much head-work and tact can be brought into play in this game, and that a knowledge of chess is often highly advantageous. We have endeavoured somewhat briefly to state the chief points of the new in-door games. We feel sure that they are varied enough to please the tastes of everybody, and we sincerely hope that our youngfiends may enjoy many a pleasant hour in the enjoyment of the intricate manoeuvres that these games involve" (Edmund Routledge, "The New Winter In-door Games," Routledge's Every Boy's Annual, an Entertaining Miscellany of Original Literature, George Routledge and Sons, 1866, New York, p. 35)

Pritchard's book, [3], also refers to the game: 

Hexagonia (Proprietary game, John Jaques and Son). Published in 1860 according to van der Linde, and allegedly awarded two prize medals in 1862, the game was in fact published on 23 September 1864 and registered at Stationers’ Hall the following January. 127-cell hexagonal board, central cell distinguished. Each player has 1 x King, 2 x Cannon (artillery), 4 x Knight (cavalry), 8 x Pawn (infantry). The moves of the pieces are not recorded. The object was to get one’s K safely to the central cell.

About the piece's moves. The King, Knight and Pawn moves are directly translated to hexagonal boards. The Cannon however could have been like a Rook, sliding rows of hexes, or like Bishops sliding thru diagonals, which might explain the use of three colors in the Hexagonia board (since it makes it easier to follow these diagonals). Both hypotheses for the Cannon would be stronger than the Knight's, which is compatible with their smaller number (two) compared to the Knights' (four). However, this is just speculation.

Since the game's goal is not to capture or stalemate the enemy King, it's arguably not a chess variant, but most of Chess themes are here, nonetheless. The first known hexagonal Chess with checkmate was 1910's Mars by M. van Leeuwen and published by F. H. Ayres.
______

(*) the other early Hexagonal Chess (also without checkmate) was designed by Thomas Hanmer Croughton, c.1853.

[1] Michael Thompson, Hexagonia, https://michaelthomson.org/game/hexagonia
[2] Jean-Louis Cazaux, Rick Knowlton - A World of Chess (2017)
[3] David Pritchard's The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (2007)

The commercial offsprings of Chess: Ploy

Ploy, aka Imperium, is a 1970 game by Frank Thibault, published by 3M among other companies. 

The initial setup:

The rules by Mats Winther from his Zillions implementation:

The goal is to capture the enemy Commander, or reduce the opponent army to a single Commander. Each piece has an indicator which determines at which directions the piece can move. This can be altered by rotating the piece 45 degrees, left or right (a direction move). Rotating the piece costs a move.

Each player has three Shields, five Probes, six Lances, and one Commander. The Shield moves one step and has only one movement freedom at any time. The Probe slides two steps and has two freedoms. The Lance slides three steps and has three freedoms. The Commander has four, but can only move one step.

A player must either make a direction move or a motion move. The three Shields are the only pieces that can perform a direction move immediately after a motion move. Capture occurs by displacement

Winther also includes some tactical advice:

This game seldom ends in a draw. It is sometimes worthwhile to sacrifice material if you can gain an attack on the Commander. When the pieces become scarce, the Commander is more vulnerable to attack. As it can only move four ways, it cannot easily escape. The Lance with the three forward directions is especially suited to attacking the Commander. Remember that you can also win by capturing all enemy pieces except the Commander.

The game can also be played with Ludii.

The official rules:

Here is a review of the game at Games & Puzzles #22:

The game was seriously promoted as shown by this full-page ad in The General magazine #13:

There is a similar game, but played on a hexagonal board, Michael Flynn's Omnigon (1998):

More information about this game at chessvariants.com.

The commercial offsprings of Chess: Smess

Smess, aka All The King's Men, is a 1970 game by Perry Grant and Reuben Klamer, published by Milton Bradley among others.

The game is played on this 7x8 board. Each army has twelve pieces: One King called Brain, four Numskulls, and seven Ninnys. Initially, the two Brains are placed at d1 and d8. Each Brain has two Numskulls at each side, and the seven Ninnys occupy the second row (just like Chess pawns).

The rules:

• On her turn, each player moves one friendly piece in a direction printed on its current standing square.
• Brains and Ninnys move only one square per turn,
• A Numskull can move in a straight line as many empty squares as possible
  
• Nb: only the initial standing square determines the possible moving directions
  
• Captures are by replacement (and not mandatory, just like in Chess).
• A Ninny that reaches an initial square of an enemy Numbskull is promoted to a previously captured Numbskull (if there's no Numbskull captured, the promotion does not happen).
  
• Wins the player that captures the enemy Brain. The game is a draw if only the two Brains remain on board.
  

The game was also known as Take the Brain. There's a review of it in Abstract Games Magazine #9.

The commercial offsprings of Chess: Wendo

FIDE Chess is the most played abstract game in the Western hemisphere. It is not unexpected that publishers try to use this fact to create and promote their own commercial Chess-inspired games. Modern games like Kamisado, Arimaa, and Onitama are examples of this trend.

This is the first post on a series that describes some older Chess-like games.

Wendo is a 1977 uncredited game, published by Brain Center. It is played on a 7x8 board (plus two home bases), and each player controls an army of ten pieces with exotic movements.

the initial setup

The pieces move as described in the tiles, and their move capabilities are described in next diagram:

The leftmost piece is the Hydra, which is the game's King. There's also a tile named Barrier. 

• On his turn, the player moves one friendly piece to an empty square, or rotates it, or even flips it over (the pieces are transparent).
• Pieces can move over friendly pieces, including the Barrier.
• Pieces can also move over the enemy Barrier if it is unprotected.
• A Barrier is protected if it is in the movement range of a friendly piece
  
• Captures are by replacement. The exception is the Barrier that cannot be captured.
• Barriers cannot move but can be pushed by friendly pieces. The push happens if the Barrier is on the way of the moving piece, and all the intervening squares are empty. The Barrier will stop at the next square, after the piece's final square.
• When a piece reaches the last row, the piece can optionally be promoted by being replaced with any piece previously captured. The promoted piece is placed with the direction the player prefers. This must be done at the turn the piece moves into the last row.
  
• A player wins by capturing the enemy Hydra, or by capturing all its army (except, of course, the Barrier).
  

Tic-Tac-Toe redux

In December 1985, the french magazine Science & Vie #819 listed several variants to be played on the standard 3x3 board of Tic-Tac-Toe. 

Here are some:

• Decentra: the first player cannot play at the central square. Does the second player wins by playing himself there?
• Misera or Toe-Tac-Tic: this is the misère variant, the one that makes a 3 in-a-row loses
• Doulima: each player must place one, two or three pieces or either color on a given row or column; the last player to move wins
• Nullita: game is played normally, but one player wins if any 3 in-a-row is made (of either color), while the other player wins otherwise
• Toucha: the first player forced to place a piece touching one of their own on a horizontal or vertical side loses the game.
• Connecta: this is the opposite of Toucha, the first player placing an isolated piece (ie, not connected to any friendly pieces) loses (except for the first turn).

The article has even more variants:

§

Another, older, variant of Tic-Tac-Toe is 1943's Tic-Tac-Tics by Henry Lewis which uses a score approach. The game is played on a 5x5 board, where each 3, 4 and 5 in-a-row scores an increasing amount of points:

  

Even with the central placement restriction for the first player, there still might be an advantage to start. One possible approach, simpler than the 'inning' system the rules propose, is to play just two games, where each player starts in one, and sum the two scores to decide the winner.

Bantu

Bantu is a 1955 uncredited game, published by Parker Brothers.

Bantu is a race game where players must traverse the following circular board:

 

Each player has four pieces labelled from 1 to 4, which determines each piece's moving range.

Games & Puzzles #68 reviewed the game and its rules:

 

Here's also a review from Games International #4,

 

Check the official rules. 

The game made the cover of Abstract Games Magazine #15.  Check also this blog post about the game.

Atchin

"Atchin, new amusing conquest game" is a game from the Netherlands published in 1874. The name Atchin refers to Aceh, a province in northern Sumatra (in Indonesia). The goal of the game is to protect or conquer the Kraton, the Sultan's palace.

The next rules are my interpretation of the ruleset written in the board (nb: I don't speak Dutch):

• The ten black pieces, the Indonesians, are placed in the red circles with a black dot. The nine blue pieces, the Dutch, are placed in the outer semicircle also marked with black dots.
• Black moves first. Black pieces move to an empty adjacent space over the red lines, while Blue pieces do the same but only across the black lines.
• If any piece (black or blue) lands on a Fort (Benting) it may capture an adjacent enemy piece by jumping (Checkers-like) over it (black pieces over the red lines, blue pieces over the black lines). 
• Black pieces can capture pieces on a Village (Kampong) by jumping over them along the red lines. This rule also applies to the red circles with white dots.
• Black wins by occupying all nine spaces in the inner circle around the Kraton. Blue wins by moving one piece from the inner circle to the interior of the Kraton.

There was a war launched by the Dutch at Aceh in 1873, the First Aceh Expedition, which probably was the event that gave the theme to this wargame.

The rules in Dutch (sorry for any typo):

VERKLARING VAN HET NIEUW VERMAKELIJK VEROVERING-SPEL.

Men bepaalt den prijs voor den inzet en stelt de schijven als volgt: De zwarte of Aschineezen aan weêrszijde der pot of Kraton op de roode cirkels, welke met een zwarte stip zijn geteekend, de blauwe of Nederlanders op de onderste halve cirkel waar de cirkeltjes met een zwarte stip zijn aangeduid. De zwarte speelt het eerst en zorgt dat hij het halfrond om de pot of Kraton bezet krijgt, en mag daarom in alle richtingen zetten, terwijl de blauwe alleen de zwarte lijnen volgen moet. Wanneer de blauwe of zwarte op een Benting of Fort staat. moet hij de nevenstaande van zijn tegenpartij slaan: doch de zwarte alleen in de richting der roode lijnen en de blauwe in de richting der zwarte lijnen*. Terwijl allen de zwarte naast een Kampong of Dorp staande, daarover heen mag springen in de richting der roode lijnen, doch alleen wanneer zij onbezet zijn; dit geldt ook voor de vijf roode cirkels met witte stip in het bovenste halfrond. Wanneer er slechts één blauwe in den pot of Kraton komt, dan heeft hij het spel gewonnen. Terwijl dezen het verloren heeft, als de zwarten de negen punten om den Kraton voor de toegang der blaauwen hebben afgesloten.

* Het slaan geschiedt even als bij het damspel.

Gimel

Gimel is a 1980 game by Manuel A. Widmaier, published at Bütehorn Spiele, and later at Hexagames.

It is played on a 8x18 board -- I suppose a shape emulating Senet's -- and each player has 24 pieces between three types:

• Eight scarabs or beetles (represented as disks) that move like chess Kings
• Eight bastets, i.e, the cat gods (as pyramids) that move as chess Knights or as a single 2-step orthogonally
• Eight horus pieces (as cylinders) each moving to any place on the perimeter of a 3x3 square centered in the moving piece (see picture below)

Initially the board is empty. On his turn, each player might do one of the following actions:

• Drop a friendly piece (still in reserve) on an empty square
• Move a friendly piece (already on board) to an empty square
• Capture an enemy piece by replacement
  

The goal is to score points by capturing enemy pieces: scarabs value 1 point, bastets 3 points, and each Horus values 6 points. If players have the same score, win the one with more pieces captured.

The game mixes the typical two phases of dropping the army, then moving. This can make it hard to plan ahead, since any new piece can appear at any place, anytime. Shogi has this mechanism but is much more controlled, because usually there are few pieces in reserve to drop, and they are achieved afterwards, as captures in the middle of the game. Not with Gimel!

Here's a positive review on Jeux et Strategie #2:

The review on Games & Puzzles #78 is less enthusiastic: