 Close-up of a game in play | |
| Designers | Kris Burm |
|---|---|
| Publishers | |
| Genres | |
| Players | 2 |
| Setup time | 2 minutes |
| Playing time | 30 minutes |
| Chance | None |
| Skills | Strategy, tactics |
GIPF is an abstract strategy board game by Kris Burm, the first of seven games in his series of games called the GIPF Project. [1] [2] GIPF was recommended by Spiel des Jahres in 1998. [3]
The game board has a hexagonal shape with 4 intersection points per side and 37 intersections altogether, connected by a triangular grid. The playing area is surrounded by an array of 24 dots that are used to introduce pieces into play. [4]
To start, players deploy three pieces each, alternating colors, at the corners of the playing area, and turn the board so that a corner with the player's color is closest to them. In the starting position shown here, the White player is seated at the bottom of the board while the Black player is at the top. White takes the first turn. [5] There are 18 pieces of each color; the basic game uses 15 (or more) while the standard and tournament games use all 18 for each player. [5]
In each turn, players introduce a piece onto the board from one of the surrounding dots, then push the new piece into the playing area along a line connected to the dot. When a piece is pushed onto the playing area, any pieces ahead of it are pushed ahead along the same line as well. [4] There are several restrictions on this movement: [5]
In the most basic form of the game, each player has a reserve inventory of 12 pieces in addition to the 3 on the board for the starting position. To extend the length of the game, each player could add one, two, or three extra pieces to their reserves; alternatively, as a handicap, the less-experienced player could be given up to three extra pieces in their reserve. [5]
Forming a continuous line of four pieces in the player's color results in three actions: [4]
Once one player runs out of pieces in their reserve, the other player is the winner. [5]
The standard game follows the basic rules but includes GIPF pieces, which are each two stacked pieces. The starting position is the same, but all six pieces on the board to start are double-stacked GIPF pieces. Each player still starts with 18 basic (single) pieces, but the revised starting position with six GIPF pieces means each player's reserves start with 12 basic pieces. [5]
The basic pushing and 4-in-a-row mechanics remain the same, with the following exceptions: [5]
As in the basic game, exhausting the opponent's reserves is one winning condition. The other is eliminating all of the opponent's GIPF pieces. [5]
As a suggestion, in tournament play, the following modified rules can be used: [5]
Players take turns pushing tokens (one player taking black, the other white) from the edge of the tri-gridded, hexagonal board, with pieces already in play pushed in front of the new placements rather than allowing more than one piece on any space.
The game is lost if a player has no more tokens to play, and since each starts with a set number of tokens, it is clearly necessary to recycle pieces already positioned to keep playing. This is achieved by contriving to line up four pieces of the same colour in a row on the board, at which point those tokens are returned to their owner, and any opposing tokens extending from the line of four are captured.
Because a single player will often move several pieces and change numerous on-board relationships, it is remarkably difficult to predict the state of the board more than one turn ahead, despite GIPF being a game of perfect information. Play tends to be highly fluid and there is no real concept of long term territorial or spatial development.
The game can be expanded with extra pieces (available separately) called Potentials, which allow different kinds of moves to be made. [2] These are named for the other games in the GIPF Project, though the other games are not actually necessary in order to utilise the Potentials named after them.
Baroque chess is a chess variant invented in 1962 by Robert Abbott. In 1963, at the suggestion of his publisher, he changed the name to Ultima, by which name it is also known. Abbott later considered his invention flawed and suggested amendments to the rules, but these suggestions have been substantially ignored by the gaming community, which continues to play by the 1962 rules. Since the rules for Baroque were first laid down in 1962, some regional variation has arisen, causing the game to diverge from Ultima.
Mak-yek is a two-player abstract strategy board game played in Thailand and Myanmar. Players move their pieces as in the rook in Chess and attempt to capture their opponent's pieces through custodian and intervention capture. The game may have been first described in literature by Captain James Low a writing contributor in the 1839 work Asiatic Researches; or, Transactions of the Society, Instituted in Bengal, For Inquiring into The History, The Antiquities, The Arts and Sciences, and Literature of Asian, Second Part of the Twentieth Volume in which he wrote chapter X On Siamese Literature and documented the game as Maak yék. Another early description of the game is by H.J.R. Murray in his 1913 work A History of Chess, and the game was written as Maak-yek.
DVONN is a two-player strategy board game in which the objective is to accumulate pieces in stacks. It was released in 2001 by Kris Burm as the fourth game in the GIPF Project. DVONN won the 2002 International Gamers Award and the Games magazine Game of the Year Award in 2003.
The GIPF Project is a series of seven abstract strategy games by designer Kris Burm.
ZÈRTZ is the third game in the GIPF Project of seven abstract strategy games. The game features a shrinking board and an object that promotes sacrifice combinations. It is impartial: since neither player owns on-board pieces, maintaining the initiative is of fundamental importance.
YINSH is an abstract strategy board game by game designer Kris Burm. It is the fifth game to be released in the GIPF Project. At the time of its release in 2003, Burm stated that he intended it to be considered as the sixth and last game of the project, and that the game which he had not yet released, PÜNCT, would be logically the fifth game. However, the series was later expanded to seven games with the release of LYNGK.
Tamerlane chess is a medieval chess variant. Like modern chess, it is derived from shatranj. It was developed in Central Asia during the reign of Emperor Timur, and its invention is also attributed to him. Because Tamerlane chess is a larger variant of chaturanga, it is also called Shatranj Al-Kabir, as opposed to Shatranj as-saghir. Although the game is similar to modern chess, it is distinctive in that there are varieties of pawn, each of which promotes in its own way.
Heian shōgi is a predecessor of modern shogi. Some form of the game of Chaturanga, the ancestor of both chess and shogi, reached Japan by the 9th century, if not earlier, but the earliest surviving Japanese description of the rules dates from the early 12th century. Unfortunately, this description does not give enough information to actually play the game, but this has not stopped people from attempting to reconstruct this early form of shogi.
PÜNCT is a two-player strategy board game. It is the sixth release in the GIPF project of seven abstract strategy games, although it is considered the fifth game in the project. It was released in 2005. PÜNCT won the Games Magazine Best Abstract Strategy game for 2007.
Daldøs [dal'døs] is a running-fight board game only known from a few coastal locations in southern Scandinavia, where its history can be traced back to around 1800. The game is notable for its unusual four-sided dice. In Denmark it is known as daldøs in Northern and Western Jutland, and possibly as daldos on Bornholm. In Norway it is known under the name of daldøsa from Jæren, where, unlike in Denmark, a continuous tradition of the daldøs game exists. Daldøs has much in common with some games in the sáhkku family of Sámi board games. Sáhkku is known to have been played among Sámi on the northern coast and eastern-central inland of Sápmi, far away from Jæren and Denmark. Otherwise, the closest relatives of this game appear to be the tâb games from Northern Africa and South-western Asia, possibly apart from one unlabelled diagram in a codex from Southern England.
Camelot is a strategy board game for two players. It was invented by George S. Parker late in the 19th century, and was one of the first games published by Parker Brothers, originally under the name Chivalry.
Russian draughts is a variant of draughts (checkers) played in Russia and some parts of the former USSR, as well as parts of Eastern Europe and Israel.
Pasang is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Brunei. The game is often referred to as Pasang Emas which is actually a software implementation of the traditional board game. The object of this game is to acquire the most points by capturing black and white tokens on the board. Black tokens are worth 1 point, and white tokens are worth 2 points. The board is initially laid out with all 120 black and white tokens in one of over 30 traditional patterns. Players choose a piece called a "ka" which is used to capture the tokens on the board. Each player's "ka" moves around the board capturing as many tokens as possible. As a note, the "kas" are the only mobile pieces in the game. The other pieces are stationary, and are captured by the "kas". Players must capture token(s) during their turn, or lose the game. When all tokens have been captured from the board, the player with the most points is the winner. However, if there are any tokens left on the board, and none can be captured on a player's turn, then that player loses the game, and the other player is the winner.
Lines of Action is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Claude Soucie. The objective is to connect all of one's pieces into a single group. The game was recommended by the Spiel des Jahres in 1988.
Awithlaknannai Mosona is a two-player strategy board game from the Zuni Native American Indian tribe of New Mexico, United States. It is unknown how old the game is. The game was described by Stewart Culin in his book "Games of the North American Indians Volume 2: Games of Skill" (1907). In this book, it was named Awithlaknan Mosona. Awithlaknannai Mosona resembles another Zuni board game called Kolowis Awithlaknannai with few minor differences. The former having a smaller board, and depending upon the variant, it also has less lines joining the intersection points. The rules are the same. Awithlaknannai Mosona belongs to the draughts and alquerque family of games as pieces hop over one another when capturing. It is actually more related to Alquerque, since the board is made up of intersection points and lines connecting them. It is thought that the Spanish had brought Alquerque to the American Southwest, and Awithlaknannai Mosona may have been an evolution from Alquerque. However, in Stewart Culin's 1907 book, the Zunis claim that they had adopted a hunt game from Mexico similar to catch the hare and the fox games of Europe, and transformed it into Awithlaknannai Mosona. In these games, one player has more pieces over the other, however, the other player's piece has more powers. The Zuni's equalized the numbers of pieces and their powers, and also may have transformed the board making its length far exceed its width. Diagonal lines also replaced orthogonal lines altogether. However, the hunt game from Mexico may have used an alquerque board even though the game mechanics of their new game, Awithlaknannai Mosona, were completely different.
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.
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.
Diamond is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Larry Back. The invention was inspired by the game Kensington, which uses a similar board pattern and game objective. Rules for Diamond were conceived in 1985 and finalized in 1994. Diamond introduces a new board geometry and neutral pieces, with the aim of enhancing the game dynamic and lowering the potential for draws.
Bashni, also known as column draughts, multi-level checkers, and rarer Chinese checkers, is a variation of draughts, known in Russia since the 19th century. The game is played according to the basic rules of Russian draughts, with the main difference being that draughts being jumped over are not removed from the playing field but are instead placed under the jumping piece . The resulting towers move across the board as one piece, obeying the status of the upper draught. When a tower is jumped over, only the upper draught is removed from it. If, as a result of the combat, the top draught changes colour, ownership of the tower passes on to the opposing player. Based on Bashni, but according to the basic rules of English draughts, world chess champion Emanuel Lasker developed the draughts game "Laska" and, in 1911, published its description. Lasker described towers that can only be "double-layered": i.e. there can be no alternation of colors. He also showed that during the game the number of game pieces either remains constant or decreases. Column draughts are a subject of interest for the mathematical Sciences: combinatorics, theory of paired zero-sum games, etc.
