Nov 26, 2025

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. 

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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.

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