OCTATOL

Move sequence 36* with group restriction
(i.e., no two stones dropped in the same group/turn)

TO WIN: join 2 opposite groups, OR make a Y that prevents this.

Initial setup:

|   abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABC
|            X X X O O O        
|         O . . . . . . . X          1
|        O . . . . . . . . X         2
|       O . . . . . . . . . X        3
|      X . . . . . . . . .   O       4
|     X . . . . . . . . . . . O      5
|    X . . . . . . . . . . . . O     6
|   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    7
|  O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X   8
| O . . . . . . . . . . . .   . . X  9
|  O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X  10
|   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   11
|  X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O  12
| X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O 13
|  X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O  14
|   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   15
|    O . . . . . . . . . . . . X    16
|     O . . . . . . . . . . . X     17
|      O . . . . . . . . . . X      18
|       X . . . . . . . . . O       19
|        X . . . . . . . . O        20
|         X . . . . . . . O         21
|            O O O X X X          
|   abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABC


Game sample:

|   abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABC        OO starts
|            X X X O O O                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|         O x . . . o . . X          1.  ..   ..   ..   o9   l12  r12
|        O . . . . . . . . X         2.  j10  t10  m11  q11  o13  o15
|       O . x . . . o . . . X        3.  o7   p10  s11  r14  n12  i13
|      X . . . . . o . . .   O       4.  u9   j12  p12  s13  j14  n16
|     X . x . . . o . . . . . O      5.  o5   r10  k13  n14  f12  f14
|    X . . . o . . . . . . . . O     6.  f8   n8   o11  l14  q15  t16
|   . x . . . . o o . . . . . . .    7.  j8   g9   p8   g13  p14  u15
|  O . x x x o . x o . . . . . . X   8.  h8   f10  c11  i11  q13  s15
| O . o x o o . o o . . x .   . . X  9.  j6   i9   g11  l10  l16  t14
|  O . x x o x o . o o x . . . . X  10.  d10  k11  d14  g15  m15  w17
|   x x . o x x x x x o . . . . .   11.  m7   h10  w13  f16  i15  i17
|  X . x o . x o o x o . . . . . O  12.  d8   a11  e15  g17  m17  l20
| X . o o o o o o x x x . o . . . O 13.  q3   m9   h14  i19  i21  k17
|  X x x o o x x o o o o . . . . O  14.  k15  h16  j18  x18  m19  h20
|   . o x x o x x x x x o . . . .   15.  m13  f18  j20  l18  u17  u19
|    O . o x x o x . . x o . . X    16.  c7   d12  j16  q17  t18  q19
|     O . x o o x . x * o x . X     17.  c9   c13  c15  n18  r18  v16
|      O o o x o o x o x x x X      18.  e9   p18  v18  k19  v20  s21
|       X . o x x . x o o x O       19.  q1   p4   h18  p20  s19  u21
|        X x o x . o x * x O        20.  i1   i3   g5   c14  w19  r20
|         X o . . . . x o O         21.  OO resigns (x forces at one of the *s)
|            O O O X X X          
|   abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABC

This game is based on Atoll, a game from Mark Steere

The Siege of Paris

At 1870 Paris was sieged by Prussian forces and, in four months, took over the city and won one of the n wars between France and Germany. In the UK it inspired the creation of a game called appropriately "The Siege of Paris" (the game appeared also at 1870). Here's an original box (available at the Oxford Digital Library):

Here the initial setup:
and a better view of the board (from BoardGameGeek):
Also, at Oxford Digital Library, here the scan of the original rules (click to zoom):

At BoardGameGeek there's also the rules in text format:

The Siege of Paris

This interesting and amusing game of skill can be played by two, three or five persons; one takes the Garrison or Fort, the others the outside lines.

The positions of the Men are as follows :- The General on the right, the Colonel on the left, the Captains next,and the Lieutenants in the centre ; the placing of the Men in the Garrison is optional.

RULES OF THE GAME
1.-The Besieging party have 36 Men,viz., two Generals two Colonels, four Captains, four Lieutenants. to be equally divided, and to be in two colors, half to move on the Black Squares, and half on the White.
2.-The Besiegers cannot move backwards, Officers or Men.

THE MOVES OF THE BESIEGING PARTY
3.-The Generals move on White or Black Squares-one, two or three Squares at a time. straight, sideways and diagonally.
4.-The Colonel moves on White and Black Squares-one or two squares at a time, straight or sideways.
5.-The Captain moves on White or Black Squares-one square at a time, straight or sideways.
6.-The Lieutenants move diagonally-one or two Squares at a time.
7.-The Men move only diagonally whichever Square they are placed on.
8.-The Besieging party win the game by placing one Officer and three Men in the Garrison, and cannot be taken when inside.

RULES FOR THE GARRISON MEN
9.-The Garrison is occupied by eight Men, viz., one General, one Colonel and six Men, and win the game by taking 24 Men and six Officers.
10.-The Officers and Men of the Garrison cannot be taken, but the Men can be blocked in by the Besieging party, until they are relieved by their Officers.
11.-You are not compelled to take any Man; when any of the Besieging party are taken they must be unsupported, and place your man on the same Square.
12.-The Officers and Men of the Garrison to be Red.

MOVES OF THE GARRISON MEN
13.-The General can move any way-backwards or forwards, straight, sideways or diagonally, and take the same way one or two Squares at a time, either on Black orWhite Squares;
the Colonel moves on Black or White Squares, backwards or forwards, either sideways or straight, and takes the same way;
the Men move diagonally only, three on the white Squares and three on the Black, either backwards or forwards when outside the Garrison

Entered at Stationers' Hall

R.C.Bell provided a patch for solving some problems with the original rules (from BoardGameGeek):

Necessary additional rules and definitions for Siege of Paris. V1.0 May 2009

Win conditions
Garrison player: Capture 6 Besieging Officers and all Besieging Men.
Besieging Player: Having 1 Officer and 3 Men inside the Garrison. (Besieging pieces can not be taken once inside the Garrison.)
Or by blocking with Besieging pieces all legal moves by the Garrison forces. (Supported Besieging pieces can not be captured.)
Alternative win condition for Besieging Player: 1 Officer and 2 Men inside the Garrison.

Draw condition
When less than the pieces required for the chosen win condition remain on the board, then if 1 Besieging piece, or more, are inside the Garrison the game is a draw.

Starting position of Garrison pieces: These pieces may be arranged on the nodes inside the Garrison however the Garrison player wishes.

Turn order: Garrison, White, Garrison, Black, Garrison, White, ...

Alternative forced taking rule: The Besieging player can, if such a move is legal, command the Garrison player to take a Besieging piece.

Fort Gate: Entry to the fort is from the 2 squares (1 black square and 1 white) adjacent to the gates on each side of the fort.

Support: Besieging piece "A" is "supported" when another Besieging piece could legally move onto the square occupied by "A" but for the presence of "A". (Supported Besieging pieces can not be captured.)

Capture: As in chess, by moving the capturing Garrison piece onto the square occupied by the Besieging piece. (Garrison pieces can not be captured.)

---

More information at Jeux Strategie.

Hard Lines

Here is an abstract game from c.1861 (more information at GARD). A kind of pattern game with captures and (re)drops. Check the board and the rules:

Three old Knight games

At Michel Boutin presentation in the BGS, he mentioned a lot of 19th century board games that were patented in France, UK, Germany and in the US (and most already forgotten). Here are three related games using the Chess Knight, grouped together in a package called Rampant Knights.

These are the board (click to augment)

I found the rules at a Hoyle games edition. Here are the relevant pages:





He also mentioned a board game called "Jeu du Congo" (Game of the Congo) with a hexagonal board:

which was re-edited by Moulin in the French book Jeux de pions d’aujourd'hui. The rules can be found at issue 8 (Winter 2001) of the Abstract Games Magazine.

The Game

Fred Horn showed me a picture of an old 1970/80's abstract game called "The Game"

He mentioned the rules orally, as he remembered:

The board starts empty and each piece (each player has five) enters in the player's corner.

On each turn, each player enters a piece off board or moves one friendly piece.

A piece moves [up to?] five cells in orthogonal directions with, at most, two changes of direction [no jumps allowed, it seems].

One piece may land in top of another. The pieces not in the top of a stack become blocked.

A stack can have, at most, three pieces. When a stack of size three is made, the piece in minority is captured.

When all the player's five pieces are on the board, the player cannot stop a friendly piece in his own corner (but it can move the piece thru it during the move sequence).

Wins the player that moves one of his pieces to the enemy's corner.

Any extra information about this game is appreciated.

Games @ BGS 2010

In the Board Games Colloquium (BGS) it is always easy to find new abstract boards and ideas about games. Let me give a sample of this year, in Paris:

Herein you can see a game from Fred Horn, which basically can be seen as a Mancala kit.

These squares can be placed in any order the players like and every mancala board can be built this way. Of course, this game material can be used into many other types of games.

Here you can see Fred Horn (in the left) playing Fianco, another of his games:

A very interesting game is Nonaga, a 2008 invention by Víktor Bautista i Roca:

Visually, this reminds Zèrtz, but in this case, we have a pattern game and the board only changes shape (it does not decrease in size as in Zèrtz).

More info in Manqala.org, Juegos de Ingenio, Pseudolog.

Ancient Board Games @ The Louvre

Here are some nice examples of race games from Ancient Egypt:
This was the text related to this game:
The obscure Mehen:
And the more known Senet (at least the text said it was Senet, it seems a version, half-way to the game of Ur):




And finally some old, old dice:



(photos taken in April 2010)