Sternhalma, commonly known as Chinese checkers or Chinese chequers, is a strategy board game of German origin that can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners. The game is a modern and simplified variation of the game Halma.
Checkers, also known as draughts, is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve forward movements of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers is developed from alquerque. The term "checkers" derives from the checkered board which the game is played on, whereas "draughts" derives from the verb "to draw" or "to move".
Breakthrough is an abstract strategy board game invented by Dan Troyka in 2000 and made available as a Zillions of Games file (ZRF). It won the 2001 8x8 Game Design Competition, even though the game was originally played on a 7x7 board, as it is trivially extensible to larger board sizes.
Crossings is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Robert Abbott. The rules were published in Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games. Crossings was the precursor to Epaminondas, which uses a larger board and expanded rules.
Martian Chess is an abstract strategy game for two or four players invented by Andrew Looney in 1999. It is played with Icehouse pyramids on a chessboard. To play with a number of players other than two or four, a non-Euclidean surface can be tiled to produce a board of the required size, allowing up to six players.
Janggi, sometimes called Korean chess, is a strategy board game popular on the Korean Peninsula. The game was derived from xiangqi, and is very similar to it, including the starting position of some of the pieces, and the 9×10 gameboard, but without the xiangqi "river" dividing the board horizontally in the middle.
Jetan, also known as Martian chess, is a chess variant first published in 1922. It was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a game played on Barsoom, his fictional version of Mars. The game was introduced in The Chessmen of Mars, the fifth book in the Barsoom series. Its rules are described in Chapter 2 and in the Appendix of the book, with an actual game partly described in Chapter 17.
Hasami shogi is a variant of shogi. The game has two main variants, and all Hasami variants, unlike other shogi variants, use only one type of piece, and the winning objective is not checkmate. One main variant involves capturing all but one of the opponent's men; the other involves building an unbroken vertical or horizontal chain of five-in-a-row.
Whale Shogi is a modern variant of shogi. It is not, however, Japanese: it was invented by R. Wayne Schmittberger of the United States in 1981. The game is similar to Judkins shogi, but with more pieces, and the pieces are named after types of whale.
Gess is an abstract strategy board game for two players, involving a grid board and mutating pieces. The name was chosen as a conflation of "chess" and "Go". It is pronounced with a hard "g" as in "Go", and is thus homophonous with "guess".
Ploy is an abstract strategy board game for two or four players, played on a 9x9 board with a set of 15 pieces (2-handed) or 9 pieces per player. Pieces have various horizontal, vertical or diagonal moves somewhat like chess pieces, except directions of movement are limited; pieces change directions of movement by "rotating". Object of the game is to capture the opponent's Commander, or all of his other pieces.
Kōnane is a two-player strategy board game from Hawaii. It was invented by the ancient Hawaiian Polynesians. The game is played on a rectangular board. It begins with black and white counters filling the board in an alternating pattern. Players then hop over one another's pieces, capturing them similar to checkers. The first player unable to capture is the loser; their opponent is the winner.
Neutron is a two-player abstract strategy game invented by Robert A. Kraus. The game was first published in the Playroom section of Games & Puzzles 71 in July/August 1978. It is a game where each player moves two different pieces in a single turn without the use of dice.
Zillions of Games is a commercial general game playing system developed by Jeff Mallett and Mark Lefler in 1998. The game rules are specified with S-expressions, Zillions rule language. It was designed to handle mostly abstract strategy board games or puzzles. After parsing the rules of the game, the system's artificial intelligence can automatically play one or more players. It treats puzzles as solitaire games and its AI can be used to solve them.
Tuknanavuhpi' is a two-player abstract strategy board game played by the Hopi Native American Indians of Arizona, United States. It is also played in many parts of Mexico. The game was traditionally played on a slab of stone with the board pattern etched on it. Tukvnanawopi resembles draughts and Alquerque. Players attempt to capture each other's pieces by hopping over them. It is not known when the game was first played; however, the game was published as early as 1907 in Stewart Culin's book Games of the North American Indians Volume 2: Games of Skill.
Onyx is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Larry Back in 1995. The game features a rule for performing captures, making Onyx unique among connection games.
Dameo is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Christian Freeling in 2000. It is a variant of the game draughts and is played on an 8×8 checkered gameboard.
Hostage chess is a chess variant invented by John A. Leslie in 1997. Captured pieces are not eliminated from the game but can reenter active play through drops, similar to shogi. Unlike shogi, the piece a player may drop is one of their own pieces previously captured by the opponent. In exchange, the player returns a previously captured enemy piece which the opponent may drop on a future turn. This is the characteristic feature of the game.
This glossary of board games explains commonly used terms in board games, in alphabetical order. For a list of board games, see List of board games; for terms specific to chess, see Glossary of chess; for terms specific to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems.
