Slim, Slimmer, Slim

The title is in Dutch which means smart, smarter, smart. This is a 1977 game from the Clipper publisher.

Board and rules sent by Fred Horn. More info here.

Wu Lu

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

The rules in English:

• WU LU is played with six pawns for each player. 
• These six 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 pawns to an adjacent free point in any direction, but jumping is not allowed.
• Players try to capture an opponents’ pawn by encircling with three or four 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 three pawns left on the board loses the game.

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

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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)

[addendum] The game has patent GB 189324644 and a BGG entry. There is a ZRF available by Mats Winther.

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.