Closing In

Closing In is a 1979 game by Sid Sackson, published at GAMES #14. 

This is a paper and pencil game similar to games like Press-Ups and Slimetrail, but with more dynamic moves.

The solutions from the puzzles:

click to zoom

The Game of Ancient Kingdoms

The Game of Ancient Kingdoms is a 1975 game by G. Tinley and Francis Tresham, published at Hartland Trefoil Ltd.

This is a boardless game, where players initially drop their tiles to make the playing surface:

Kingdoms can be played up to five players 

Each player has 16 plain tiles, one warrior (the side face) and one King (the full face).

Kingdoms is an early unification game where players, in their turn, swap tiles to try to join all their pieces together.

These are the complete rules:

This is an interesting game that should be better known. The ludeme of using hexagonal tiles as pieces in a boardless arena, predates Hive, the famous tiling Chess-like game. The warrior piece is also a prototypical implementation of a Chess-like piece. 

This is one of the first entries with an unification goal, after 1969's Lines of Action (the first one) and 1973's Cluster (the second one), and published in the same year as Shoulder to Shoulder, another early unification game.

 

Strata5

Strata5 is a 1984 uncredited game, published at Milton Bradley.

The game is played on a 8x8 board with stackable pieces that are able to created complex 3D structures.

Each player initially has six color pieces with a red side and a black side. These pieces also are numbered, each player gets the set of labels {2,2,3,4,5,6}. There's also 32 building blocks with area 2x2, which connect to each other like Lego pieces.

The idea is to build structures by stacking the building blocks up to the height of five levels. The color pieces are able to move within the structure (the number label determine their moving range). The rules are more complex and intertwined including blocking, capturing, and piece flipping ludemes. You can read the original rules here. Another nice and illustrated explanation is found here.

The main problem with this game is the lack of interaction between the players. The board is too big. If one player tries to create a path to get near the opponent, to capture some pieces, this delay is fatal, and the opponent will win by stacking to level five. Some players suggest reducing the playing area to 7x7, which forces structures to interact, giving opportunity for captures.

There is a 2000-word report by Chris Lynd trying to fix the rules of the game. I don't know if this fix produces better gameplay, but it is not a good look for the original design process.

Triade and The Game of Pegpen

Pipopipette or Quadratini are Italian names (at least in the 1980s) for Dots and Boxes (invented by François Edouard Anatole Lucas in 1889). The game is quite well-known being, perhaps, the second most famous of the pencil and paper games after Tic-Tac-Toe.

there were even published games for Dots'n'Boxes

I'm mentioning the Italian name because I found at Pergioco, issue of July 1981, a curious variant of this game, called Triade. The game is played in the same grid and colors, but players are also able to connect diagonals.

Rules:

• At his turn, a player makes a new connection between two corners of a square.
• A player scores for each triangle with all three sides drawn by him
• The value of the triangle is given by its area (e.g., the smallest triangles value 0.5 points)
• Notice that after a move, several triangles can be closed
• If a player scores, he does not play again (unlike Dots and Boxes)
  
• When the game ends, wins the player with highest score (players may also decide a fixed value to achieve a win)
  

The original page with the game description:

An automatic translation of the Triade rules:

The game represents the triangular equivalent of Pipopipette, but adds to the game a greater richness of strategic themes, ultimately being more varied and interesting than its predecessor. Here too, the material consists of graph paper and two pens of different colors, and the game begins by defining a playing area. Players take turns making a move, which consists of drawing a line segment in two possible ways: either by retracing a side of any square or by drawing one of the two diagonals, always of a square of their choice.

Points are scored in the ways shown in the examples in Figure 2; from these it is clear that only triangles with all three sides of the same color score points, and they have a minimum size of half a square. In Triad, unlike Pipopipette, the move does not remain with the player who has "closed" triangles, but passes alternately from one to the other.

In this game it is possible that with a single move, multiple triangles can be closed.

In the example in Fig. 3, the player with the solid line, by drawing the segment A-B, simultaneously closes the triangles E-F-G (worth 4 points), A-C-E (worth 1 point), A-B-C (worth ½ point) and A-B-D (also worth ½ point), thus obtaining 6 points with a single move.

In Fig. 4 we see a diagram that shows the situation of a game already in progress; in this situation, if it were the turn of the player with the solid line, he could, by drawing the segment A-B, obtain 2 and ½ points; if instead it were the turn of the player with the dashed line, he could draw the segment A-B to take away this good opportunity from his opponent, or, if he wanted to score points, draw the segment C-D and obtain 3 points.

Triad can be played until all possible moves are exhausted, but it is more fun and simpler to set a score to reach before the opponent.

§

The Game of Pegpen is a 1929 uncredited game, published at Stoll & Edwards Company.

This is also a variant of Dots and Boxes, but where instead of four moves to own a square, the players need eight moves (!)

The rules:

§ 

Another iteration of this concept is 1968's Squaresville by Cadaco Publisher.

 

The golden squares value two points for the player that surrounds them. Notice also that some walls are already placed, so the board does not start empty.

The rules:

Up & add'em!

Up & add'em! is a 1976 uncredited game, published at Aladdin.

The game is played on a central 9x9 area, with an outer layer where the pieces start.

Each player has nine pieces labelled from 2 to 4 (four 2s, three 3s and two 4s). These are stackable pieces. A stack ownership and move range is determined, respectively, by the top piece's color and label.

Rules

• Initially, players setup their nine pieces in any order they like.
• On his turn, the player moves one of his stacks.
• A stack moves the number of steps given by his label, going thru empty positions or even jumping over other stacks (each step costs one unit of movement).
• Stacks move orthogonally, and can change direction during their movement.
• Stacks can stop on top of enemy stacks, provided that (a) the final size of the two stacks together is four or less pieces, (b) the top piece of the moving stack is greater or equal than the top piece of the captured stack.
• The game ends when no more captures are possible. 
• A stack value is the sum of all its pieces 
• The player with the highest score wins the game 

The official rules:

I'm not so sure that the end condition is obvious to check in every situation. It is easy to verify that one player cannot capture enemy stacks (given the remaining numbers of their stacks with less than four pieces). But if, say, both players have one remaining stack of size two with a top-piece labelled 2, what happens then? Can one trap the other? I'm not so sure about that. Probably an extra stop condition is needed. Something similar to Chess, that after N turns without captures the game does end.

Rescue

Rescue is a 1983 game by R. Wayne Schmittberger, published in GAMES #36.

This is a stack-based game, played on a 9x5 board, with nine pieces each. Players need to reach their home squares to rescue their pieces:

Schmittberger was the author of the 1992 classic book New Rules for Classic Games.

Link-Up and Nebula

Link-Up is a 1972 uncredited game, published at American Greeting Co.

there are two unavailable positions, at d4 and e6

Each player has 31 tiles of three different type (check below). The goal is to score points by making lines of connecting friendly lines, either orthogonally or diagonally.

The rules:

The different tiles provide different threats of making points, which seems an interesting idea. However, it is doubtful that players are able to score six or more lines in a row, given the board's size.

don't know why there are two unavailable placements,
 but I assume there's a good reason

 §

A similar n in-a-row game, where larger sequences get larger scores, is 1976's Nebula.

L'enclos

L'enclos is a 1986 game by Michel Boutin, published at the magazine Vers l'Éducation Nouvelle, issue 402.

The game is played in the following board (and setup) has a tiling of hexagons and squares (the black triangles are not part of the game):

Each player has three pieces (les moutons, the sheep), and enough walls (a maximum of 90).

Rules:

• The player, on her turn, makes two actions by any order:
• Moves a friendly sheep to an adjacent hexagon (without walls in-between them)
  
• Drops a wall in an empty square
  
• Wins the player that stalemates the adversary
  

This game has the same essential ludemes as the classic Amazons, but L'enclos is older.

Panic Button

Panic Button is a 1978 uncredited game, published at Mego Co.

The game is played on a 8x8 board which is split in four rotating quadrants:

 

This is a Checkers-like game, with multiple short-jumps to capture adversary pieces. The original element is the possibility for a player to rotate the board within itself.

These are the official rules:

 

 

Attacco

Attacco is a c.1900 game by George Howard Monks (the inventor of Halma), published by Adolf Sala.

It is played in a 11x17 board with the following markers,

Each player has 22 pieces that start at the dotted squares. The filled square is the player's stronghold.

Rules:

• On his turn, a player selects one friendly piece and either:
• moves to an adjacent light-colored square (orthogonally or diagonally)
• jumps over any piece landing on the immediate next square, that must be empty and light-colored
• if the jump is over an opponent piece, this piece is captured
• jumps can be multiple but are not mandatory, and the player may stop jumping whenever he wants
• Dark squares are walls that cannot be moved in or jumped over
• Wins the player that moves a piece into the opponent's stronghold, or captures all enemy pieces
  

There is a (possibly less interesting) variant of the game [1], that only allows jumps over enemy pieces.

[1] Fred Horn - Attacco, AGPI Quarterly 8 [1] (2024)

Oktro

Oktro is a 1976 uncredited game published at Spear's Games.

Each player has twelve pieces, three for each one of the four colors (they have different shapes to be distinguishable).

Rules:

• Initially, the pieces of each player are placed, according to their color, in the big hexagons at the player's side
• On her turn, the player slides a friendly piece over an adjacent black line (no turns are allowed)
• pieces cannot jump over other pieces, and cannot stop at a position already occupied with a friendly piece
• a piece cannot go back to the original big hexes
• if the piece lands on a colored position, then the adversary, in her next move, must move one of her pieces of that same color
• Capture is by replacement (it is not mandatory, nor multiple)
• Wins the player that stalemates the adversary
  

Here's a small mention in Jeux et Stratègie #1:

Les Conspirateurs

Les Conspirateurs is a game that appears to be from late 18^th century France.

The game is played on a 17x17 board initially empty, with the following markings:

Each player has twenty pieces that start off board. The 5x9 rectangle is a safe area. The 39 gray squares at the board edges are the sanctuaries.

The rules:

• First, both players take turns to drop their stones on empty squares inside the safe area
• Then, at each turn, each player selects a friendly piece and either:
  
• moves it to an adjacent (orthogonal or diagonal) empty square
• jumps over an adjacent piece of any color to the opposite empty square; if other jumps are available, the stone can continue to jump in any direction (there are no captures, and jumping is not mandatory)
  
• A player wins when all his twenty stones are in twenty of the available sanctuaries.

The details about the game originate from R.C. Bell in his The Boardgame Book, pg 129:

Bell seems quite unsure about the game's origins, so this information might be wrong. As it is, it would make it 100 years older than Halma, the well-known 19^th century English game which uses the same types of ludemes. The only information besides the rules, is that Bell acknowledges Matthew Wurr as an artist, regarding Les Conspirateurs, which most probably means it was Wurr that drew the game images for this book. I also browsed the most probable books from the bibliography, without success.

In Discovering Old Board Games, a 1980 book also written by Bell, he states that the rules came «from a French text» translated by Miss Fiona Brookes. Unfortunately, nothing else is said.

I could not find any older sources that mention Les Conspirateurs. This is not a case where we don't know the rules of an older game. We do know the rules -- at least according to Bell -- the question is how old the game really is!

There is another reference I could not find online:

• Michel Boutin, Jeu de pions, les conspirateurs, Les Cahiers de l'animation #21, Ceméa, January 1998.

A game full of mysteries!

Swish and Morro

Swish and Morro are two games by Christian Freeling presented in GAMES #53 in 1984.

As said in the magazine article, both games use the same 8x8 board, material and also most rules, but each game has a different way to capture (one uses Checkers-like captures, the other uses custodian captures) which leads to very different dynamics.

Tricolor

Tricolor is a 1930 game by Maurice Kraitchik, and published at F.X. Schmid.

The game is played on a regular hexagonal board of size 5. The players have 18 pieces each that they place on their first three rows:

Definitions:

• Pieces are stackable and can be made of mixed colors. The stack owner is given by the color of the top piece
• The power of a stack is based on its size and the hex it is on
• The base power is the number of friendly pieces in the stack (up to a maximum of three)
  
• If the stack lies on yellow hex its power multiplies by 1; green multiplies by 2, red by 3
• note: the hex colors used in the post's setup diagram are not the same, please check the board below

Rules:

• On his turn, the player moves one friendly stack
  
• A stack with N friendly pieces moves up to min(3,N) hexes in a single direction (no turns are allowed)
• Stacks cannot jump over stacks (friend or foe) but can land on top of friendly stacks
• A stack can split when moving, leaving the bottom part in the initial hex (the part that stays may change owner, depending on its top piece); the moving range of the top part is given by its number of friendly pieces
• A less powerful enemy stack, in moving range, must be attacked (attacks take precedence to simple moves)
  
• The attacker moves on top of the attacked
  
• If the attacking stack is more than twice as powerful, the enemy pieces in the attacked stack are removed from the game (this is called killing)
  
• If not, the enemy pieces stay on the stack, and the order of the pieces remains unchanged (this is called capturing)
• If there are several attack options, the player decides which to execute
  
• Wins the player that captures and/or kills all the enemy pieces, or stalemates the adversary.
  

There is a price to pay for stacks with more than three friendly pieces, since these stacks stop having more power after three pieces. The only advantage is the ability to split the stack and maintain more moving range. Not sure if this is worth the risk of having many pieces in the same stack. However, the rule makes sense, to prevent players to build a singleton stack with immense power.

Ralf Gering comments on BGG referring some tactics: 

1. Force your opponent to capture on weak hexagons; 
2. A war is won by sacrifices; 
3. Invasions into enemy territory are more dangerous for the aggressor; 
4. Be smart when you dismantle a big stack!

§

Tricolor is one of the oldest stacking abstract games, after Bashni  and Laska (which inspired Tricolor). It also has an option for three players (check original rules below).

Here is the first reference of the game on Kraitchik's 1930 book, Le Mathématique des Jeux (the following pages are from Dover's second edition, 1953),

Here's a review on Games & Puzzles #32: 

This is one of the first hexagonal board games with stacking pieces. 

I know only of one older example, and it is from US patent 437838, by Heinrich Sperl, that designed a game that was never commercialized (afaict) and, so, is quite obscure: