Checkers, also known as draughts, is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves 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".
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.
Epaminondas is a strategy board game invented by Robert Abbott in 1975. The game is named after the Theban general Epaminondas, known for the use of phalanx strategy in combat. The concept of the phalanx is integral to the game.
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.
Fields of Action is an abstract strategy board game for two players.
Focus is an abstract strategy board game, designed by Sid Sackson and first published in 1963 by Kosmos. The game has been re-published many times since, sometimes under the titles Domination or Dominio. Focus won the 1981 Spiel des Jahres and Essen Feather awards. The game appears in Sackson's A Gamut of Games in the section New Battles on an Old Battlefield.
Ludus latrunculorum, latrunculi, or simply latrones was a two-player strategy board game played throughout the Roman Empire. It is said to resemble chess or draughts, but is generally accepted to be a game of military tactics. Because of the scarcity of sources, reconstruction of the game's rules and basic structure is difficult, and therefore there are multiple interpretations of the available evidence.
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.
The Game of the Generals, also called GG or GOG or simply The Generals, is an educational war game invented in the Philippines by Sofronio H. Pasola Jr. in 1970. Its Filipino name is "Salpakan." It can be played within twenty to thirty minutes. It is designed for two players, each controlling an army, and a neutral arbiter to decide the results of "challenges" between opposing playing pieces that have their identities hidden from the opponent.
Ming Mang is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Tibet. Ming Mang is also a general term for the word "boardgame" in Tibet. The correct name and spelling of the game may actually be Mig Mang(s), but pronounced Ming Mang or Mi Mang. The term Mig Mang is also applied to Tibetan Go with both games using exactly the same board which is a 17 x 17 square board, and black and white pieces. Mig is in reference to the chart of the board, and Mangs refers to the notion that the more charts are used on the board, the more pieces are needed to play the game, but some state that it means "many eyes". The game may also be known as Gundru. The game was popular among some Tibetan monks before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, and the uprising in 1959, and among aristocratic families.
Blue and Gray is a strategy board game for two players invented by Henry Busch and Arthur Jaeger in 1903. They obtained a patent for the game, but may never have published it. The name Blue and Gray "refers to the uniforms of the South and the North in the Civil War and in the original game the playing pieces of the contestants were of those colors." Blue and Gray is a variant of checkers.
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.
Jul-gonu is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Korea. It is one of many gonu games. The game has a relatively small board, and yet offers a challenge at different levels. The game could be played on a larger board, however, it tends to be tiresome. Jul means "lines", and the lines of the board are often drawn on the ground. The game is also referred to as "ne-jul-gonu", i.e. "four-lines gonu", referring to the four lines in each direction.
Wali is a two-player abstract strategy game from Africa. It is unknown specifically which African country the game originates from. Players attempt to form a 3 in-a-row of their pieces, and in doing so capture a piece from their opponent. The game has two phases: Drop Phase and Move Phase. Players first drop as many of their pieces as possible in the Drop Phase, then move them to form 3 in-a-rows which allows them to capture the other player's pieces in the Move Phase.
Cinc camins is a two-player abstract strategy game from northern China. Although played by children, there is a complexity and uniqueness to the game that adults can appreciate. The game may be related to the gonu (kono) games of Korea. These games use small boards, and have unique capturing rules.
Brax is a two-player abstract strategy board game. It was invented in 1889 in America by Frederic B. Denham of New York City. The board design is unique. The players move their pieces along paths on the square board; each path is one of two colors. A piece can move one or two spaces in a turn depending upon whether it matches the color of the path. Players attempt to capture each other's pieces.
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.
Dala is a two-player abstract strategy board game from Sudan, and played especially by the Baggara tribes. The game is also called Herding the Cows. It is an alignment game with captures similar to that of the game Dara. Players first drop their pieces onto the board, and then move them orthogonally in an attempt to form 3 in-a-rows which allows a player to capture any of their opponent's piece on the board.
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.
The Generals, or The Generals Electronic Strategy Game, is an electronic abstract strategy game published in 1980 by Ideal Toy Company. It implements the gameplay of the 1970 game Game of the Generals, in which two players contest control of spaces on a game board by moving game pieces with ranks hidden to their opponent and challenging opposing pieces; the results of challenges are determined by the hierarchy of ranks of those pieces, in a manner similar to Stratego, and decided by an electronic arbiter.
