Mastergame

Mastergame is 1982 uncredited game published by Invicta Games.

It is played on a 8x8 board where squares are marked by card suits. Each player has eight pieces also marked with suits (two pieces per suit).

Rules (adjacencies are orthogonal and diagonal):

• The pieces are placed initially on the board (see review below)
• On his turn, the player moves one friendly piece to any adjacent empty square
• However, a piece cannot move to squares marked with their own suit
  
• Wins the player that makes a 4 in-a-row with friendly pieces but all with different suits

There's the saying that "a theory should be as simple as possible, but not simpler". I'm afraid the latter is the case with Mastergame. Anyway, the square-piece restriction is a nice touch, trying to make it a bit more difficult to make a 4 in-a-row with such mobile pieces.

This is a review from Science & Vie #781 (October 1982):