| HOME | ABSTRACT GAMES | CONNECTION GAMES | GAME INDEX |
| ABSTRACT GAMES | No luck. No draws. No themes. Simple, two player games. No hidden information. Generic equipment: the Checkers set, the Go set, dice, printed game boards and highlighters. The dice are used as playing pieces, not rolled, since there are no elements of luck in these games. |
| OUST | Intense game of annihilation. Oust is one of my very best games.
It has both magnificent architecture and outstanding quality of play.
See also square Oust. Same rules but played with a Go set. Equipment: Hex hex game board, Go stones. Played at: Oust strategy guide. |
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| REDSTONE | Go variant. Captures are made with red stones. Red stones are permanent. They cannot themselves be captured.
Equipment: Go board. Black, white and red Go stones. Played at: Igfip. |
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Unique capture-from-within mechanism. The dice in Cephalopod
are not rolled. Instead they're used as playing pieces. You can place a die to capture
up to four immediately surrounding, orthogonally adjacent dice. No draws possible.
Equipment: Printed board, 25 red dice and 25 blue dice. Played at: |
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| FLUME | Simple territory game. Similar to Dots and Boxes. Equipment: Go stones, square grid. Played at: |
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| TANBO | Game of roots. Root-like formations of like-colored stones dominate the boardscape
in Tanbo, played with a Go set. Roots grow, get constricted by surrounding roots, and die. Equipment: Go set. Played at: |
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| DIPOLE | Attacking game. Stacks of like-colored checkers capture enemy
stacks. Gameplay is tense. Equipment: Checkers set. Played at: |
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| SCRIBE (board) | Pattern forming. Mysterious non-occurrence of ties. Form patterns on an
array of 3x3 grids. Points are totaled for patterns formed, and there will
never be a tie, though it isn't obvious why not. Tie scores were "designed out", so to speak.
Scribe is extremely portable. You can play it on a cocktail
napkin, sharing a pen with your opponent. Equipment: Blank sheet of paper and at least one pen to share with your opponent. You can print out the provided board if you like, but otherwise it's an easy board to draw. Played at: |
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| RIVE | Heavily recycled stones. Territory dispute with tons of capturing.
Equipment: Hex hex game board, Go stones. Played at: |
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| Magnificent game for Checkers set. Checkmate / annihilation.
Equipment: 8x8 checkerboard, eight ivory colored checkers and eight cigar colored checkers. Played at: |
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| CAGE | High energy annihilation game. Cage borrows the jump and multiple jump from Checkers but there's no crowning race. The board starts out packed with "kings". Movement toward the center of the board assures the total annihilation of one color.
Equipment: 10x10 board + 100 checkers, or 8x8 board + 64 checkers. Played at: |