Wu Lu

Another game that I couldn't find any digital info. Fred Horn sent me the next information:

 And the rules in English:

• WU LU is played with 6 Pawns for each Player. 
• These 6 Pawns are placed in front of the Player, sitting left and right, on the Board upon the six indicated points at their side. 
• Alternately each Player moves in his Turn one of his Pawn to an adjacent free point in any direction, but jumping is not allowed.
• Players try to capture an Opponents’ Pawn by encircling with 3 or 4 own Pawns, so this Opponents’ Pawn cannot move any more. This Pawn is captured; out of the Game and removed from the Board. 
• A Player with only 3 Pawns left on the Board loses the Game.

====================================

Be careful! When trying to capture one can be taken by surprise.

===

The most valuable points are those on the second line.

Translated from Dutch to English by Fred Horn  (12/02/2013)

Shan Tu

This is an old 3-player game which you wouldn't find much information in the internet. Until now thanks to Fred Horn!

He sent me the following pictures accompanied with the following message:


"And this 3 Player Game from Jaques & Sons in 2 shifts. I got the copied Rules from the Firm. I did sent the present Director, also a Jaques whom I met on BGS Oxford, a copy of the Board, because the Firm lost all their files in WW II. I only found the Board on a Church-fair, with 2 Pawns. Out of my reserves I was able to add the same Pawns for the 2 Player Game. The white Box is my own addition."

The next pictures are scans of the rules (click to enlarge)

A checkers' variant for kids (sent by Fred Horn):

And zooming the rules:

Colorito

Colorito is a 19th century game. Boardgamegeek has the following description:

 Each player has 20 numbered pieces / counters of two colours (blue & red or brown & yellow), which are put on the two first rows of a 10×10 grid of octagons (topologically similar to squares, but without the diagonal adjacency). The fields of these rows are numbered from 1 - 20, so each counter has its definite starting place, making one complete row of either colour. The spaces of the central six rows are coloured according to the counters, either red, blue, yellow or brown, and build up a regular pattern. Counters can step one space, jump across one other piece (also more than once during a turn) when landing eventually on a space of its own colour or doing a step plus a jump move in this order in a turn. Aim of the game is to get the pieces on the opposite side onto the octagon with the corresponding number (similar to Salta, which maybe adopted this idea from Colorito). This game was one of the favourites of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, mentioned in several letters/diaries about 1915.

Fred Horn sent me photos of two of his sets:

(as usual, click to enlarge)

The rules, also from bgg:

There are three basic moves:

1. the step, in which you can slide a counter in any direction into an adjacent octagon and stop there, provided that it is the same colour as the counter, or white (i.e. at the ends of the board);
2. the jump, in which you can jump over any counters in any direction as long as the octagon you finally end up on is the same colour as the counter;
3. the slide and jump, which combines both moves, meaning you can slide to any one adjacent octagon whatever the colour to start and then jump in the same move.

Although you are competing against another player, you are also partially dependent on each other, and game strategies are an interesting balance between exploiting your opponent for self-interest, and blocking your opponent. There are certain combinations of moves, particularly in the openings, which are optimal for a good middle game, and the end game also needs good planning to get the counters onto the right number octagon at the other end.

The winner is the one who has used least number of moves to get all his/her counters in the right places. Sometimes it is necessary to bring some counters out into the midfield again, in order to bring stragglers home.

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

SQUIRM

DROP - On each turn, pass or drop 1 or 2 stones into empty cells.
SNAKE - A maximal connected group of stones of the same color, with each stone adjacent to either 1 or 2 friendly stones.

GOAL - If two successive passes, the recursively longest snake wins.

    __OO_______XX___
 1.  .. e5    h4 h6
 2.  g3 g7    f4 f6
 3.  i5 d6    j4 j6
 4.  k5 e7    d4 j8
 5.  l4 k7    k3 m3
 6.  n4 i7    o3 o5
 7.  p4 l8    n8 k9
 8.  q5 m9    c5 p6
 9.  o7 g9    b6 h2
10.  i1 d2    f2 m1
11.  e1 e9    g1 k1
12.  g5 i9    resign

Final Position:

| abcdefghijklmnopqr
|     o x o x x       1.
|    o x x . . .      2.
|   . . o . x x x     3.
|  . x x x x o o o    4.
| . x o o o o . x o   5.
|  x o x x x . . x    6.
|   . o o o o . o     7.
|    . . . x o x      8.
|     o o o x o       9.
| abcdefghijklmnopqr 10.
XX resigns not because the 1st group is bigger. In fact, the first two groups will be equal: 1st have size 15, then the next groups have size 7. Only then, the 3rd o-group have size 3, while the x-group has size 2

If the players made all the moves, the board would become:

| abcdefghijklmnopqr
|     o x o x x       1.
|    o x x o . .      2.
|   . o o o x x x     3.
|  . x x x x o o o    4.
| . x o o o o x x o   5.
|  x o x x x x o x    6.
|   x o o o o . o     7.
|    x x x x o x      8.
|     o o o x o       9.
| abcdefghijklmnopqr 10.

SUPER-PENTE

12* (nonlinear restriction)

 If a line of two or more stones of the same colour become trapped by a newly-played and an existing stone of the other colour, they are removed.

First to make an ortho/diag 4-line (or more) wins.

Sample Game: 


|  j k l m n o p q r s t u v         OO        XX 
|  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   0   ---------------- 
|  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1   --  p6    p5  q7 
|  . . . . . x . . . . . . .   2   o4  r6    s6  o7 
|  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3   o6  r8    q6  n7 
|  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4   o3  p7    p8  o5 
|  . . . . . x x o . . . . .   5   q5  p7    o2  q9 
|  . . . . . o . x o x . . .   6   o9  q8    resign 
|  . . . . x x o : . . . . .   7 
|  . . . . . . : O o . . . .   8 
|  . . . . . O . x . . . . .   9 
|  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10 
|  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11 
|  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12 
|  j k l m n o p q r s t u v

TRUNCATED PROGRESSIVE CHESS

Basic progressive chess; but giving or releasing check, promoting or
capturing may not be done in a move series, except that the series be
voluntarily shortened to length one.  (Later series are unaffected.)

Sample Game
 1. e4
 2. d5 e5
 3. e:d5
 4. Q:d5
 5. c4 d4 Bd3 Nf3 O-O
 6. Qa5 Bd6 Be6 Nc6 Nf6 O-O
 7. d5 c4 Nd2 a3 Ng5 f4 Bb2
 8. h6 Nh7 f5 e4 Bf7 Ne7 c5 Qc7
 9. N:f7
10. R:f7
11. Be2h5 h4 g3 Qc1c3 Nf3e5 Rfe1 Kg2
12. d6:e5
13. Q:e5  (if Q:Q, B:Q)
14. Q:e5
15. B:e5
16. a54 b5 Nc8b6 Nf6g4 Kh7 g6 Rd8
17. B:g4     18. f:g4     19. B:d6     20. R:B
21. R:e4     22. b:c4     23. R:c4     24. R:d5
25. b:c5     26. f5 K...f5  R...c6  R...a5
27. Ra..d6 Rc..e5++

Final Position:

. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
. . r R . . p .
r . O . R k . p
p . . . . O p O
O . . . . . O .
. . . . . . K .
. . . . . . . .


Board Games in Oriental Exposition

From an oriental art and culture exposition at Lisbon (it was a surprise visit, so I only had the camera from my cell phone)

There was a Xiang Qi:

A board of Makru, the Thai Chess:

And a strange board that I don't recognize (the label was wrong, it said that was the Makruk which cannot be right):

CROSS

Game by Cameron Browne (2009)

12* moves & group restriction

Y play; the goal is to make a group connecting 3 non-adjacent sides.

The winner is whoever makes a Y;
or if no-one does, the player who first made a cross loses.

Game Sample

  ___xx_______oo___
1:  -- i6   k4 k6
2:  l5 l7   j5 k8
3:  j7 o6   g6 n7
4:  f7 m6   h5 g8
5:  n3 i8   m4 p5
6:  o4 f7   n5 d7
7:  f9 h7   e6 s6
8:  k2 h9   h3 r5
9:  h1 r7   j1 m2
10: t7 i2   l3 p7
11: u6 c8   q6 d9
12: q8 n9   l9 p9
13: m8 q10  o8 p11
14: r9 e8   o10 a6
15: resign

: abcdefghijklmnopqrstu
:      . x o . . . 1
:     . . x x o . . 2
:    . . o . o x . . 3
:   . . . . o o x . . 4
:  . . x o o x o o o . 5
: O . o o x o x x o o x 6
:  . o x x x x o o x x 7
:   x x o x o x o x . 8
:    o x x . o x o x 9
:     . . . . . O x 10
:      . . . . . o 11
: abcdefghijklmnopqrstu



ONE-HIT PROGRESSIVE CHESS

As FIDE Progressive Chess except:

Each player makes from 1 to the turn number, of moves, subject to
the condition that any capture, check or promotion ends the series.

Sample Game

     1. e4
     2. e6 Be7
     3. Qg4 Qg5 Q:e7+
     4. N:e7
     5. e4 Nf3e5c6:d8
     6. f5f4 O-O d6 Nc6:d8
     7. Bb5 Bd7 a4 b3 c4 f3 B:c8
     8. Na6b4 a5 c5 g5 h5h4 R:c8
     9. g4 h3 d5 Rh2 Rc3 Raa2 Bd2 B:b4
    10. b6 e5 Kf7 Rc7 Re8e7 c:b4
    11. c5 Rc4 Rac2 Kd3 c:b6
    12. Rb7 Rec7c5 Ke7 Ne6d4e2g1:h3
    13. N....h3
    14. Rb8 K..b7 Rbc8 R:c4
    15. K..b2 Rc1 b:c4
    16. K:b6
    17. Nf2 R...h3 Kb3 N...e7 N:c8+
    18. K..:c8
    19. c567 K...c6 R...b8++
    
Final Position:

. . k . . . . .
. . O . . . . .
. . K p . . . .
p . . O p . p .
O p . . O p O p
. . . . . O . R
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .

CADUCEUS

Played on an 8x8 board, each player starts with two stones, at opposite corners.  
Group-restricted 12* moves per turn.

For each move, a player removes the tail of one of his groups, then adds two successive rookwise-adjacent new stones on empty cells at the head of it.

A player loses if he cannot complete a legal turn.


The first moves (the '-' clarifies the chain structure):

                       _J___N_    _B___T_
. . . . . . . .    1. es   --    ee   ss
. j-j . . . . ,    2. es   nw    nn   ww
. . J . . T-t-t    3.
. . . . . . . .    4.
. . . . . . . .    5.
. . B . . . . .    6.
. . b . . . N-n    7.
. , b . . . . .    8.

and the entire game:
                       _J__N_    _B__T_
. . t-t-t-t-t-t    1. es  --    ee  ss
. . t . . ,-t-t    2. es  nw    nn  ww
. T-t . . . . n    3. se  wn    en  ww
. N-n-n-n-n . n    4. es  nn    ww  ne
b-b-b . . n-n-n    5. ss  en    ss  ee
b . B . . J-j-j    6. ws  es    es  en
b b-b j-j . . j    7. ee  sw    ww  ww
b-b-b j-j-j-j-j    8. ee  wn    nn  ww
                   9. nn  ww    ne  ws
                   10. ww  ww    es  sw
                   11. resign
                  
A better variant uses double removal and triple growth for faster moves (and a 10x10 board)

A game example:
                      
     _J____N_   _B____T_
1.  wws  ---   sss  nww
2.  ssw  enn   eee  wnn
3.  wss  nee   sse  nne
4.  sss  sww   nnn  sss
5.  eee  nnn   www  een
6.  sww  wne   nee  wnn
7.  wwn  ees   ees  www
8.  www  ese   ene  nee
9.  wnn  sww   see  ees
10.  nnn  see   nnw  sss
11.  nnn  ees   www  swn
12.  ese  swn   wss  nww
13.  ess  wsw   ssw  nee
14.  wss  nws   ses  nnw
15.  sww  wnw   enn  nee
16.  nen  swn   nen  sss
17.  wne  nee   wne  sss
18.  nwn  eee   nes  swn
19.  nws  ees   resign

Final Board:
j-j . . b-. b-b . B  1
j J j-j b b-b-b-b-b  2
j-j . j b b-b t-t-t  3
j-j j-j b b-b t-t t  4
j-j j b-b b . . t t  5
j-j j b-b b t-t-t t  6
j-j-j . b-b t T-t t  7
n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n t t  8
n n-n n-n n-. N t t  9
n-n n-n n-n . . t-t 10


This game was inspired by the light motorcyles from the TRON movies.

On Natural & Artificial Games

Can we use the terms natural/artificial for games, in general?

One way to look at this is to relate naturalness to simplicity. Simple games like Hex, Tic Tac Toe or, perhaps, Go, seem almost like discoveries, rather than inventions. But the fact that Hex was only "discovered" in the 1940s does give us pause to ponder. Simplicity is culturally dependent, just as are more obvious or trivial things - e.g. the positional numerical system, or the moral statement "slavery is wrong" -- which were not so in the past.

Another way to look at this is using History. Games, or game concepts, that seem to be invented independently are, at least, cognitively attractive to humans. Perhaps they are cognitively attractive to conscious beings in general, and so, they may even exist in alien cultures. Some examples of those are race games, or Tic Tac Toe/Gomoku variants. Possibly, seed games, Mancalas, also belong here. So, a natural game would be an instance of one of these archetypal game concepts. Of course, as usual, the frontier is blurred. Bao is a very complicated Mancala game. Overly baroque variants can hardly be seen as natural. Shall we include Checkers/Alquerque or Chess games? And how many add-ons can a game include and still be considered a natural one?

A third way to try to make sense of this separation between natural and artificial, is to look into the game's history.

Games like Chess, Go, Mancala and Checkers have evolved through centuries, absorbing gaming experience into their progressive adaptable rules. As in biological natural selection, these games are more like species, with their life trees,
their historical compromises, their multiple branches (cultural instead of biological). So, in this case, every game started in one or more human minds, in some raw artificial state, and was tested in a social environment. Like most species, most games must have become extinct quite quickly. But a few were able to adapt to the cultural intricacies of the memetic landscape of its inventors. And then, when society changed, games also changed, like any adaptable, flexible population of organisms. Of course, the analogy only goes so far. Unlike fossils, if they are rediscovered, games can be brought back and enjoy a new life eventually under new clothes. (The Game of Ur, and Senet, with their reconstructed rules, are famous examples).

Just as for the concept of species, we might differ our final judgement about our recent games. Perhaps Hex will have a biography (it already has thriving children, like Y). Game inventors, nowadays, have an immense set of game ideas and, like alchemists, they try to mix them, mould them into new games. Most of those, as in the past, will become extinct and never get beyond being artificial concepts. Others, because they say something to generations of players, will be carried along with our evolving society and will start to have a biography. They will, slowly and in unexpected ways, become natural concepts.

[also posted in rec.games.combinatorial]

Two Games for Three Players

Here are a couple of games to be played with three players:

Triad by Cameron Browne

Rules can be checked here.

An older game is Atride by Gauthier Fourcade:

More info can be read here (in French).

Board Games Studies 2011

This year edition of BGS happened in Brugge, Belgium. The meeting was held at the KHBO-Spellenarchief. The game archive has several thousand board games and has a database (in Dutch) which is being slowly uploaded with game information and, hopefully, game rules. Here are some pictures from their public section:

And here is a panoramic view (as usual, click to enlarge):

Lots of thousands of games were donated by the Dutch game collector and inventor, Fred Horn, who still collaborates with the Museum. Here is a picture of him (the middle guy, talking math & games with Jorge Nuno and Carlos Santos, two Portuguese friends):

Irving Finkel presented "On to Square Two – the question of dissemination" talking about how games travel between cultures. This travel is useful for game survival but has also the problem of game contamination. Some games may even replace and destroy old games. For a game Historian the modern waves of European migration (like colonists or missionaries) to the rest of the world meant terrible news.

In the colloquium a participant (I don't recall his name...) presented a rediscovered picture from an old book, picturing Adam & Eve in the garden of Eden. Some say they are playing a board game (I saw just them picking and eating grapes or something like that...). Anyway, the picture is pretty:

Michel Boutin made a nice presentation called "The structure of games" were he made an historical perspective of how games were classified in the past.

Fehde

Anyone knows Dutch German?

[Feb 2013] Fred Horn was kind enough to translate the rules:

Game-Rules

A Tactical Game for 2 Persons from 8 years on, with both two Knights and nine Squires.

Aim of the Game is to get your Knight occupying the Opponents Knights’ start-position; or tocapture the Opponents’ Knight by jumping over or in the same way capture all Opponents Squires.

The two Knights (Balls) start, at the beginning of the Game, on their same colored Field (Cirkle), the nine escorting Squires start on the 9 surrounding yellow Fields (Cirkles).

Players draw who begins and then Turns go alternately by moving in his Turn one Piece of the Players’ color. Moving goes in all directions, including diagonal.

A move is only to a next, free adjacent Field (Cirkle).

When it is a Players’ Turn and an Opponents’ Piece is adjacent to one of his Pieces and the Field (Cirkle) behind is empty, The Player MUST in this Turn jump over the Opponents’ Piece.

This Piece is captured and removed from the Board.

Does the Players have more than one opportunity to jump he is free to choose which capture he wants to make.

Only one Piece can jumped over and it is not allowed to jump over your own Pieces.

Knights can move or jump to all Fields –a color does not count-, but Squires are only allowed to occupy their own yellow Fields(Cirkles)-their start-position- or the grey Fields(Cirkles) =No-Mans-Land=. The Squires may jump over an Opponents’ yellow Edge only, when after the jump they occupy a grey Field (Cirkle).

Winning is by 

1. capture of the Opponents’ Knight; 
2. capture of all Opponents’ Squires or 
3. moving the own Knight on to the start-position of the Opponents’ Knight.

Translated from German to English by Fred Horn 12/02/2013

Transvaal

A Bavarian game from early 20th century (click to enlarge):

Chivalry

A 1887 game from George Parker (click to enlarge):

Playing Go

This is a photo from a Chinese restaurant near Lisbon where I sometimes eat:

and also a detail of the actual game:

CHICKEN HEXY

8 hex-hex board initially empty.
Players may drop only isolated non-edge X's in the preliminary phase; 1, 2 or 3 at his own choice.
On any turn, either player may take X and pass.
Normal alternation follows, and X wins by connecting three non-adjacent sides.
If X fails, O wins.

Sample Game:

0: h2 g5 c7, g7, j4 j6, 2nd player takes

: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy       _OO___XX_
|       . . . . . . .         1.   r8   p10
|      . x . . . . . .        2.   l8   k9
|     . . . . . . . . .       3.   n10  j11
|    . . . x . . o . . .      4.   n12  l12
|   . . x . . . . . . . .     5.   p4   p6
|  . . . . x . o x . . . .    6.   n6   m7
| . x . x . . x o . . . . .   7.   o7   p8
|  . . . . . o x . o 4 . .    8.   u11  t10
|   . . . x . . . . 2 3 .     9.   OO resigns
|    . . . . o x . x 1 .     10.
|     . . x . . . . o .      11.
|      . . x o . . . .       12.
|       . . . . . . .        13.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy