The Game is Nirtz
The Game is Nirtz is a 1961 uncredited game, published by Ideal.
The game is played on a 8x8 board,
and each player has 10 pieces, marked 1 to 5 (each player has two of each).
This is a 7 in-a-row game (!) where pieces are not placed but moved. The number label determines the piece's moving range.
Here are the official rules:
Besides the seven in-a-row requirement, the row must be orthogonal to the piece's initial setup (so, no diagonals also). The designer must have felt that leaving the direction to be decided would make the goal too easy to achieve. On first glance, it does not seem so, since making a seven in-a-row, especially on such a small board, is usually very hard if not impossible.
However, the winning pattern can use the opponent's pieces, which is a quite original take on this genre. Also, the largest pieces are very flexible, since they can zig-zag while moving.
4 comments:
Thanks for allowing me to discover this game. The board is 9x9 but I am wondering if the players are allowed to play on the exterior part of the board with an other color or if they must play inside the 7x7 board. All the examples show the winning 7 row in the center. But in the second example, there is one disc on the exterior part...
Probably the outer ring will not be much used, given the initial setup, but it's legal to move in there, according to the rules.
The 7x7 restriction seem to be only in making the winning pattern. Perhaps that's the reason the designers show the outer ring with a different color.
Yes, this seems to be the most likely interpretation.
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