Ins & Outs

Ins & Outs is a 1984 game by Jim Winslow, published at Spear's Games.

The game is played in the following 6x6 board showing a spiral path,

One player starts with four pieces at the center, the other starts with his four pieces at the other extreme of the spiral.

Rules

• The pieces move along the spiral path indicated by arrows in their respective colors.
• A piece can also move backward along this path to free a blocked piece (see blocked pieces below).
• Only one piece may be moved per turn.
• Pieces can only move to empty fields. Fields occupied by another piece are skipped over.
• Two pieces cannot occupy the same field.
• Jumping
• A piece may jump over one or more empty fields along the spiral, as long as the start and end positions lie on the same straight (horizontal or vertical) line (see diagram below).
• Blocked Pieces
• A piece that has no other friendly or opposing pieces in a straight line next to it is considered blocked and cannot move.
• The player who owns that piece may, if it is their turn, move another piece backward to a position where it is again in line with the blocked piece.
• On their next turn, they may then move the formerly blocked piece again.
• The winner is the player who first moves all their pieces to the opponent’s starting fields.
• The final move to a target field does not need to match the exact number of spaces that could have been moved.

The original rules:

diagram caption: the black piece can move over 3 empty spaces

 

Ins & Outs is like a version of Lines-of-Action turned into a race game. A curious mix of old Senet-like games, especially Mehen, and modern ideas (in this case, line-of-sight).