Board Game Ideas

Since one of BrainKing public opinion polls shows that there is a group of people who would like to play domino games on our site, we present a domino type game proposal this time. Created by Andy Lewicki, this time.

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Name of the game: Forky

• The game starts with 21 domino stones by removing all the doubles.
• BrainKing draws one of the stones, opens it in front of the players and the player that faces the bigger half of the stone, starts the game.
• The drawn stone is placed
  on the left side of the screen in such a way that the bigger half is closer to the middle of the screen. This tile is the beginning of the whole "train" and other stones can be attached to the this stone only from one side, starting from the bigger half.
• The winner of the initial draw may match the bigger half in a specific way only: Let's say the bigger half is an odd number, for example 3. He can match this stone with another stone bearing number 3 and the other half MUST be an even number or zero - so, now we have the situation that an even number is exposed and the next player has to match it, exposing an ODD number or zero.
• The game alternates, matching one half and exposing either even or odd numbers on the other half.
• A zero plays a special role. When a zero is exposed it plays a role as a joker - any number, either even or odd can match it and of course another zero.

This game is kind of open game, although, opponent's pieces are not exposed during the game. We have the situation with perfect information and the whole idea is to outsmart the opponent and play all the pieces before the opponent or block the game with fewer points on hand.

This game doesn't require good memory, since everything is clear from the very beginning and this fits perfectly for a turn-based site. The name Forkt reflects the skippy idea of allowed stones to be exposed.

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I would like to remind that opinion poll results don't make us obliged to do anything based on them, so although we plan to make some domino games in the future, nobody promises any dates. But it is a nice game proposal, anyway.

Right, Mr. Andy Lewicki strikes back again. This time we have a proposal of a dice-only game, which might be welcomed especially by players of Dice Poker and similar "no board, no pieces" games.

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Name of the game: Risky Die

• Each player has 6 dice, which are grouped to 3 sets of 2 dice.
• A game consists of 10 rounds. BrainKing randomly sets values of all 6 dice in the beginning of every round (for example, 4/2, 6/5 and 1/1). It is important to point out that both players get the same combination of dice values.
• The goal is to make the least possible "gap" (difference of values) between dice of each set.
• During a round, a player has 2 options to do with every set of 2 dice:
  • Do nothing and just use the current "gap" as a score.
  • Select one die and roll it. If the rolled die shows the same number as it had before the roll - the player is busted and gets a penalty of 5 points. Otherwise, the difference of values is counted as a score.
• The player collects points from every set of every round. When all 10 rounds are completed, the player with smaller total score is the winner.
• (Optional rule to be discussed) In order to avoid "empty rounds", a player is obliged to make at least one roll per round, even if it means to destroy a good pre-rolled combination.

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Comments?

This game has been submitted by Mike Mallette. It has simple but interesting rules and it could be worth trying out.

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Name of the game: Rush

1. The game is played on a standard checkers board (8x8 squares).
2. Each player has 32 checkers (pieces).
3. Every player has a "flag" which can be placed anywhere on the first row.
4. Pieces can move one space in any direction.
5. Only one piece can be moved per turn.
6. The game object:
   1. To capture opponent's flag, or
   2. To have your flag reach opponent's first row.
7. During a turn, the player has three choices:
   1. To pick a piece to move, then pick an adjacent opponent's piece to attack. Both players roll a die and if the attacker wins, the opponent's piece is removed from the board and the attacker's piece is moved to the removed piece position. If the defender wins, the attacker's piece is removed from the board and the defender's piece stays where it is. If both players roll the same number, nothing happens and pieces stay where they are.
   2. To move a piece to an empty square.
   3. To pass the flag to another piece one space in any direction.

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This interesting proposal of a Chess variant comes from Andy Lewicki (surprise, surprise ) and, as he says, the idea came to him suddenly while thinking about Dice Chess improvements:

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Name of the game: Mad Chess

Rules:

1. The game starts with a regular Chess setup (board 8x8 squares, all the pieces like in traditional chess).
2. Two dice are used and the moves are executed as described below.
3. Chess pieces correspond to numbers on each die as usual - 1 stands for pawn, 2 for knight, 3 for bishop, 4 for rook, 5 for queen and six for king.
4. After the two dice are thrown, a player has a choice to choose one die as a master die but actually move like the second die indicates. Example: we got 6 and 3, so we can use a king (6) and move it like a bishop (3) or choose bishop (3) and move it like a king (6).
5. Any double limits a move to specific figure, and for example, 4 and 4 would move a rook only once.
6. There are possible "empty" throws, unlike in regular Dice Chess. For example, when there are no more knights and queen, any throw 2 and 5 is just a pass for the player.
7. The goal is as usual, to eliminate (capture) opponent's king. There is just one restriction - pawns can eliminate the opponent's king only when 2 dice show 1 and 1. The reason is that the set of Chess pieces contains too many pawns (8) and the game would be too short if they can capture a king with other piece capabilities.
8. This game can end very fast indeed, but many surprises awaits as well.

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Comments? From my point of view, I like this idea very much because the luck factor is not as strong as in Dice Chess and it is possible to create many different strategies.

And the game of the day is created (again) by Andy Lewicki. It is called Big Bang:

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1. The game is played on a regular chess board.


2. Eight pieces for each side without pawns.


3. Queen and King of each color occupy the central square of the board, Kings and Queens facing each other diagonally. This is the beginning stage. Before the time began, packed, unmanifested energies wait for their Big Bang.


4. White King moves along the main diagonal one step back and at the same time in the quarter of the board he is now, three other white pieces appear, randomly.


5. This step is repeated for the black King and then for the white and black Queen respectively. The difference is, Queens can move any number of squares along the main diagonal.


6. At this stage we have all the pieces "on board" and the process of explosion (Big Bang) is ALMOST completed.


7. Creation forces created also 4 friendly black holes that can be used by either side in the way described below.


8. Now we are in the phase of expanding and creating galaxies. Players move their pieces one by one and trying to gather their pieces at the bottom row of their halves of the board and put the in EXACT traditional chess starting position. Who accomplish this task first, is the winner.


9. Black holes usage: if a player has a chance to move into black hole, he may do this and this friendly black hole can teleport this piece to another black hole which is possibly closer to the place the player would like to be in the present moment of the game. It's my interdimensional travel fantasy transfered into chess.
   
   IMPORTANT: After every usage of the black hole, the system rearranges the position of all 4 black holes.


10. That's the end of creation - galaxies escape each other and who knows what awaits us.

Some additional rules:

• Bishops stand on different colors, like in chess.


• Queens and Kings are positioned closer to opponent's first row.


• If after a Big Bang players occupy opponent's target row, they have to move out of these positions first and cannot move back to this row, to prevent possible endless blocking of the game. This is a race game by nature and blocking can take place only outside of the target rows.


• Pieces placed on player's target row and in correct position are frozen and cannot move anymore.

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Comments are welcome.

Another very nice game idea from Andy Lewicki is the subject of today's entry.

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Name of the game: Fourmate (or Fourmation, which one is better?)

Rules: (a combination of several different games)

BORROWED from Fisher Random Chess:
- initial position (random), without pawns.
- no castles
- no "killing" other pieces
- no checks
BORROWED from 4(5) in line:
- players trying to arrange exactly 4 (no 5, 6, ...) of their pieces either in a row (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) or in a square 2x2.
- above formation MUST NOT have more than 2 pieces on player's half of the board.
BORROWED from Connect 6:
- white moves first ONE of his pieces anywhere on the board according to chess rules.
- black moves TWO of his pieces anywhere on the board but these two pieces cannot touch each other, they have to be at least one squares apart.
- white moves again ONE of his pieces anywhere.
... and so game continues this way.
GOAL:
The player who assembles 4 pieces (exactly) as a first in a way prescribed above, becomes the winner.

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I am always glad to see a new idea which is based on Chess but does not require real Chess playing skills. And I am sure that everybody can learn how to move Chess pieces.

This is another game proposal by Andy Lewicki and since BrainKing has no domino games yet, it might be worth a discussion about this topic. Or maybe not - anyway, this proposal sounds very interesting.

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Name: Dominate
Initial info:

• From the whole set of 6x6 domino (28 tiles) set all the doubles (7 in all) are removed and not take part in the game.
• Game is to be played on a grid 6x6 giving 36 fields, which divided by 2 gives 18 double fields - this is the number of domino tiles distributed evenly to players.

Rules:

• Each player gets 9 tiles of domino and keep them unseen for the opponent and 3 domino tiles are left unused till the end of the game, face down.
• First player puts any domino tile on the board on any chosen place, either horizontally of vertically.
• Second player puts any chosen tile on any chosen place on the board, with restrictions below:
  • No row or column may have the half of domino tile with the same number of pips at any time of the game.
  • When the player has no more available moves, he loses the game

This simple game has enormous depth of strategic possibilities, players may guess only a portion of what tiles might be in opponent's hand (three of them are removed from the game but players do not know which).
It's highly unlikely that the game will be drawn. To fill the whole board with 18 tiles players would have to cooperate (solitaire-like mode) which will not be the case. So, prepare yourself for fierce fight from the very beginning.

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And since I am not a domino player at all, perhaps someone who is more experienced would post a comment about this idea.

This proposal of a version of the popular Knight Fight game has been created by MadMonkey and tenuki. It seems that people like Knight Fight so much that they would like to try new variants of this original game as well - and since we already have some of them in our collection of hot tips to be implemented, there is a good chance to make them satisfied.

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Dark Knight Fight

1. Board set up exactly same (with exception of all double values 00, 11, 22 etc....are now replaced by Stars).


2. In addition opponents can NOT see each others scores.


3. Game start, only Top & Bottom Rows are visible to both players (all others values hidden). This is the only point both players can see both Rows of numbers.


4. Player A starts by picking any square on his first row as normal.


5. 1. All other visible squares (Top & Bottom Rows) are now hidden from him.(Point - make notes)
   2. Once he has selected, he gets those points and ONLY then are his next available squares shown to HIM (note: ONLY him, not his opponent).
   3. When Player B makes his first move the same happens, he can see BOTH Rows to start, once he selects his square they are hidden from him as well.
   4. When Player selects number, the mirror is deleted as normal. This mirror is shown to the opponent for just the following move before being blanked out.(Point - make notes to keep track of opponents score)


6. Play then carries on as the normal game. Once a player selects his move, any other squares showing are hidden, and his next ones shown to him.


7. Exceptions are the 10 Star squares. These will NOT be on either first starting Rows. Under these will be 10 values (5 of them will be +100 points, 5 will be -100 points). A player choosing to land on a Star, takes a gamble to gain 100 points or lose 100 points.


8. Game over as normal, when no valid squares for a player to move to. Most points wins.

After some thought we decided that squares used, will be shown as used & also Stars will be shown to both players (i.e. +100 or -100) to keep track of how many used.

The basic idea is to make the game more fun, but also include the chance to take a gamble (the stars). Also great emphasis is being put on players to keep notes (if they want to win). Opponents are only shown Mirrors for their go following so it is down to them to keep note of there opponents score if they wish.

It may take some testing as we did have to think about certain things (e.g. should used squares be shown or left blank so players could trap themselves).

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Well, anybody wants to comment this?

This variant of classic battleboats game has been proposed by lukulus and, according to the author's words, it could make the game much more dynamic. Well, the description follows:

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Name of the game: Admiral Battleboats

• The game is played on a bigger board - 15x15 squares.


• Each player has 3 aircraft carriers (5 squares long), 1 submarine (4 squares) and 6 destroyers (3 squares). This number of ships should maintain the optimal ratio of water and playing pieces.


• A player has 1 shot for every own ship which is not sunk (just like in Battleboats Plus) except the submarine which gives the player 2 shots.


• As an addition, a player has bonus shots on the admiral's behalf - if the admiral stands on an aircraft carrier, the bonus is 3 shots, if he resides on a destroyer, the bonus is 1 shot.


• In every turn, a player can (after making all available "normal" shots) either take advantage of the admiral bonus shots, or move the admiral to any other ship except a submarine.


• If the ship which is hosting the admiral is sunk, the admiral dies too and his owner (player) loses the possibility of bonus shots.


• In order to eliminate the white (starting) player's advantage, he can use (during the first move) only shots of aircraft carriers and submarine, not destroyers.


• The game ends when one player cannot make more than 2 shots in one turn - his fleet is too weakened and decides to retreat.

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Just a side note - the answer to my question "how can the admiral jump from a sinking ship to another one over the whole board?" is "he is using a helicopter".

This game has been suggested by Mark Steere who is the creator of many interesting board games and offers all of them for a free implementation on game sites (you can find more games at MarkSteereGames.com page).

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INTRODUCTION Rush is a territory game which is played with a Go set. Any size board with an odd number of rows and an odd number of columns can be substituted for the Go board. Play begins on an empty board, as shown in Figure 1. Each player takes possession of all of the stones of one color. Draws and ties cannot occur in Rush. Mark Steere designed Rush in May, 2007.

STONE PLACEMENT Players take turns placing their own stones on unoccupied points. A “connection” in Rush is formed when a stone is placed horizontally or vertically adjacent to an on-board stone. If a player adds a stone which forms either no connections or only one connection (to either color stone), that player’s turn is concluded.

A player may place a stone on the board which forms two or more connections only if at least one of those connections is made with an enemy stone.

A player may never, under any circumstances, place a stone which forms two or more connections with his own stones and no connections with any enemy stones. Figure 2 shows all of the legal placements available to White, marked with W’s.

If a player forms two or more connections with his newly added stone, he is required to add another stone to the board while it is still his turn. He must continue to add stones during his turn until his most recently placed stone forms less than two connections, or until there are no more placements available to him, at which time his turn is concluded.

Each player will always have at least one placement available at the outset of his turn, and must make at least one placement on his turn.

A player is never required to make a placement which forms two or more connections unless his only available placements each form two or more connections.

Figures 3a through 3c show a series of stones added by White during one of White’s turns. Each placement is marked with a W.

OBJECT OF THE GAME When the board is completely filled with stones, the player with the majority of stones on the board wins.

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Comments please. From my point of view, I like all game ideas which don't require any absurd license fees, and I like to support all authors who like this idea as well. Our experiences from the past confirm that this is the best approach.

Although BrainKing already supports 123 different games and one would think that it could be enough for everyone, every good proposal of a new game (which can be implemented later) is always welcome. And this is another game suggestion by Andy Lewicki.

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Name of the game: Num Bears

1. 100 tiles arranged in 10x10 square


2. Numbers from 0-9 are distributed randomly on these tiles.


3. Two players, one at the South side, the other on the North.


4. 4. South (S) starts first and can take two tiles from the first row on his south site OR one tile from his site and one from the North's first row according to the rule explained below ... taking two tiles from the opponent's site is NOT permitted.


5. tiles can be taken if: two tiles taken add up to 10 (9+1, 8+2, etc) OR have the same face value (6+6, 2+2, etc).


6. There are two SPECIAL pairs of tiles:
1. (5+5) belongs to the group that add up to 10 AND to the group of the same face value and counts for 20 points.
2. 0 (zero) counts as 10 points and can be taken individually OR as a pair and counts 20 points.


7. At every moment of the game, available tiles to be taken by either player are those completely open at the bottom of their site and at the top of opponent's site.


8. If a player has no available tiles to play, he has to pause, and the other player makes a move.


9. If the second player has no available move, the game ends and the player with more collected points wins.

The whole idea in this game is to be careful when taking tiles, every taken tile exposes another tile which can be used by the opponent to his advantage. Two major ways of taking tiles coupled with 20 open tiles create the whole range of possible plays and strategy that can be utilized.

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Well, it seems to be another nice member of the Knight Fight family. When I have some free time, I want to try it out.

This is a proposal of the third (and final) "knight game" created by Andy Lewicki. Since the original Knight Fight has become a really popular game (currently the 19th most played game out of 120 total), there is a good change that people will like its variants as well.

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This game, named Knights 64, is full of fierce exchanges of blows, however, during the game there are quiet waters suddenly intertwined with rapid falls. I think in this game I achieved a good balance and elegance ... this is a game with equal chances for both side:

1. Board 8x8 is used.


2. Two Knights of different color.


3. 8 sets of numbers from 1 to 8 (which give sum of 64) are distributed randomly across the board before the game starts (so we will have 8 8s, 8 7s ... and 8 1s).


4. Play starts by white player as usually at the bottom of the board and black respond in the same manner.


5. Knights collect points as they jump and they are not allowed to jump to an empty square or within a reach of opponent's jump (everything looks familiar so far).


6. Goal is to reach 64 points or more as the first player with following clarification:
   • When black player reaches 64 (or more) game ends immediately.
   • When white player reaches 64 (or more), white has to "hold his horses" and wait, black has one more move! And only after this last move winner is the one who got more points, the game also ends when either of the players has no more moves available, just like in Knight Fight, and the one with more points wins the game.


7. Now, about some excitements:
   • Every digit appears 8 times on the board.
   • The first 4 of each of them are collected without any consequences.
   • When either of the players collect 5th of any digit, he collects automatically 6th,
     same is with 7th in each category and the 8th belongs to the owner of the 7th (both numbers, 5h and 6th as well as 7th and 8th disappear from the board).

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Comments?

My first intention was to write about rules of new games (implemented yesterday) but since the rules are still not posted yet (due to more important work to do) :-D, let me present another game idea of Andy Lewicki:

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I would like to propose a fast adaptation of Knight Fight, this time on a smaller board, 8x8. It was suggested by some players that 8x8 may have some advantage over 10x10 board - frankly, it was my original idea which I gave up for a bigger board due to elegant usage of all digits from 0-9. Board 8x8 has its own limitations because the numbers with digits 7,8,9 cannot have their own mirrors. So, I had to modify some usage of these numbers. Rules are basically the same as for Knight Fight so let me talk about differences.

Out of 64 numbers there are:

• 40 numbers that have their mirrors (example: 34-43)


• 18 numbers that do not have their mirrors (example: 27-72)


• 5 doubled numbers (11,22,33,44,55)


• 1 STRANGE number, namely 56, which for this game is attached to doubled numbers - that's the only number that doesn't have 7,8, or 9 in it, but still its mirror goes beyond the set of numbers from 1-64

Management of these sets:

• Numbers with mirrors behave exactly like in Knight Fight (mirror is taken out of the board)


• Numbers without mirrors behave exactly like doubled numbers in Knight Fight (after jumping on non-mirror numbers, player is asked to choose another non-mirror number to be taken out of the board)


• 5 doubled plus number 56 ( there is no consequence after jumping on these numbers)

This game is very aggressive and fast moving due to relatively large number of non-mirror numbers and list of choices we will have. The board is smaller and this also contributes to the pace of this game.

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My own opinion is that a game of this kind can satisfy players who like (as the author says) an aggressive fight which can be quickly over, so the games would not last weeks, months or even years. Which is what most users really like.
Comments please.

This game has been sent by Michael Coan and it belongs to a multi-player game category (a good example is our Run around the Pond and its variants).

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Game Details:

Based: Game is some-what based on the card game War - where each player flips over a card, highest card wins.
Number of players: Between 2-10 players (works best with 5-7 players)
Game lasts: 13 rounds
Setup: Each player gets 13 cards - one of each "suit": 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,J,Q,K,A (Ace high, 2 low). (Player can see that cards in their hand & can see what cards the other player has left)

Scoring:

• 2-10 = 2-10 points (face value)
• J (Jack) = 11 points
• Q (Queen) = 12 points
• K (King) = 13 points
• A (Ace) = 14 points

Game Play:

Round: Each round, a player chooses 1 card to play from their hand. The goal is to have the highest UNIQUE card. You can only use each card once.

Round 1 example:

• Player 1 = 5
• Player 2 = 8
• Player 3 = K
• Player 4 = 2
• Player 5 = 8

Round 1 example (cont): In this round, Player 3 wins this "war" with the highest card of a K. So Player 3 gets 5+8+13+2+8 points (36 points). Lets continue on with a round 2 example:

Round 2 example:

• Player 1 = A
• Player 2 = Q
• Player 3 = A
• Player 4 = 4
• Player 5 = Q

Round 2 example (cont): In this round, Player 4 wins since he has the highest UNIQUE card. The two Aces take themselves out, and the 2 Queens take themselves out - leaving the winning card the 4. (So player 4 gets 56 points!)

Continue for a total of 13 rounds. The goal is to have the highest played unique card each round. At the end of the game, the person with the most points win.

Special Rules & Notes:

ALL TIE RULE: If all cards tie another (example of 5 players: A,8,8,A,8) - then those points are rolled over to the next round - making the next round a VERY important round. If a tie like this happens on the last round, then those points are just "lost on the battlefield"

ROUND TIME-OUT RULE: If a player times out during a round, by default the HIGHEST card left in the hand is used as a sacrifice - BUT the card does not count nor does this player win anything from this round. The card is just added to the "pot" for the others to win. So for example:

• Player 1 = A
• Player 2 (timed out) = so computer picks highest card left, A
• Player 3 = 4
• Player 4 = 8
• Player 5 = J

So for that example, Player 1 wins. Player 2 was not really playing, but just sacrificed their best card (14 points) to the battlefield for someone else to collect. So if a player does time out for 1 round, they would still be able to come back and continue the war... but at a slight disadvantage by losing their best card.

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I like this idea because BrainKing does not have many games for more than 2 players and it could be a great fun for everybody. Do not hesitate to add your comments.

This new game proposal has been sent by Andy Lewicki, the author of the game called Cheversi, which is already implemented on BrainKing.

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The game of Knight Fight is played on a 10x10 board. 100 squares are assigned, in a randomly fashion, numbers running from 00 to 99 (00, 01, 02, ..., 97, 98, 99). Each player has one knight of different color.

The game starts by placing a (let's say white) knight on any chosen square on the board. If the chosen square is numbered with two different digits, let's say 57, then, as a consequence a mirrored number 75 is erased from the board making this square unusable for further game, which means, no knight may land on it till the end of the game.

If a knight lands on a "double" number, let's say 66, then any other "double" number can be erased and the player decides which one depending on his/her strategy. After a player leaves a square to jump on another the square, the square he/she resided so far, becomes unusable for further game.

A knight cannot land on an empty (unusable) square and also cannot land on a square which is under direct attack of the opponent's knight.

The whole idea behind all the jumps is to outsmart the opponent and by choosing correct square to jump on trying to corner the opponent and leave him without a square to jump to.

Game ends when on of the players has no place to land and the other player is a winner.
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Any comments would be appreciated.