The Game of Passo

The Game of Passo is a 1919 game by Leonard Budd Gaylor, which was self-published.

The game is played on a Checkers board, so only the pieces were sold,

Each player has ten pieces and one ball. The pieces are concave on top and can hold the ball.

This is the initial setup:

The balls are placed at e1 and d8.

• The player, on his turn, either (a) moves one friendly piece, or (b) passes his ball to another friendly piece in moving range (assuming it didn't have the ball).
• A piece without the ball can move like the Chess Queen.
• A piece with the ball can move one step diagonally (forwards or backwards) .
• There are no captures.
  
• Wins the player that either moves his ball to his last row, or surrounds the enemy ball such that it cannot be passed.
• If a player blockades all access to his first row, on his half of the board, he loses the game.

I find it interesting that the rules acknowledge an obvious drawish strategy of blocking all ways to pass through. They still leave that possibility in the opponent's area, which seems fair, since it is quite difficult to achieve that. The rules feel quite modern, despite the game is now a century old.

A rule page from that time:

The game was patented as US1363769 in 1920. Here's the visual description of the two types of pieces:

More about the game and the author in AGPI Quarterly volume 8 [1].