Confounded

Confounded is a 1977 uncredited game, published at Lionshare.

The game is played in a 3x9 board divided in three equal sections,

Each player has nine pieces, three labelled 1, three labelled 2, and three labelled 3, which start at the board (check setup below). Pieces move forward, and the label defines their moving range. There are three different possible ways to win the game: (a) by partial traversal, (b) by stalemating, (c) by capturing.

Here are the official rules:

 

An abstract game with too many winning conditions usually is a sign that the rules do not play well together, which I think it the case here. The same happens with the remaining ruleset: instead of going back to simplify and make the core rules work, the way was to add more special cases and different ways of capture...

I'm afraid it is not, in fact, the most intriguing game in centuries...