From: peter@techbook.com (Peter Sarrett)
Subject: Re: Commercial Abstract Games
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 08:27:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.190230.19389@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
>I'm curious about how many abstract games are available commercially.
>
>Here (alphabetically) are ones I personally own, aside from things like
>chess, checkers and go:
>
>4th Dimension
>Abalone
>Arcadia
>Icehouse
>Kaliko 
>King's Table
>Lemma
>Plateau
>Scoozie
>Timeline
>Void

Aside from Abalone and Lemma, which I own, and Kaliko, which I've read about,
I've never heard of any of the above games.  I'd love to see descriptions of
them and, where possible, prices and addresses where they can be purchased.

I just bought the aforementioned Lemma and am eager to play.  Along with Lemma
I picked up Octiles and Proteus, all from Kadon Enterprises.

I haven't yet played Proteus (I expect to do so tomorrow), but I tried Octiles
today and enjoyed it.  A Games 100 selection, players compete to be the first
to get their 5 "runners" from their starting spaces to their 5 finishing spaces
on the opposite side of the board.  The game comes in two phases.  In the
Placement phase, players may either a) take an octagonal tile from the top of
the stack and place it in one of the 17 spaces on the board, or b) move one of
their runners.  The wooden tiles each contain 4 criss-crossing paths in such a
way that a path leads into (or out of, depending on your perspective) each of
the 8 edges of the tile.  In between the tile spaces on the playing mat (see
illustation below) are "stops".  Runners move from one stop to another (or from
a starting circle to a stop, or a stop to a finish circle) along the paths on
the tiles.  It is quite possible to create an unbroken path from a starting
circle to a finish circle and move your runner from one end of the board to the
other in one move.

The Placement phase ends when all 17 spaces are filled.  The Movement phase
then begins, wherein on their turn players may a) move a runner, b) rotate any
non-frozen tile, thus freezing that tile for a full turn, or c) replace any
non-frozen tile with the one space tile not currently in play, thus freezing
the new tile for 1 full turn.  The freezing of tiles, and a nifty rule
stipulating that if all players rotate or trade tiles for 2 full turns, the
next player must move a runner, prevents stalemates where players simply go
back and forth rotating the same tiles.

The game plays extremely well, and there are many interesting strategies.
Getting runners to the stops immediately in front of your finish circles is
crucial, since that puts you one tile away from your goal and limits the ways
your opponent can prevent you from getting in.

My biggest complaint lies in the lack of any rule which forces players to move
out of their starting spaces.  Since, in a 2 or 4 player game, your opponent's
starting spaces are also your finish spaces, the opponent can leave one of his
runners in a starting space for most of the game and prevent you from winning
until he decides to move out.  This inevitably leads to a game situation where
each player has only 1 runner left, in which case you might as well just start
out that way to begin with.  But a house rule can easily overcome this problem.

        __   __
       /  \ /  \
       |   |   |
       \__/ \__/
       /  \ /  \
       |   |   |
       \__/ / \__/

(ah, the limitations of character graphics...) The space in the middle is a
stop, while the 4 somewhat-octagonal =) spaces surrounding it are spaces for
tiles.

The other abstract strategy games I own are:

Domain
Shuttles
Pipeline
Stack (some randomness involved)
Passim (a circular Backgammon variant)

I also own G.O.O.T.M.U., but I'd put that with Wiz-War in the beer-and-pretzels
category.

===============================================================================
Peter Sarrett          |   "You don't stop playing games when you get old--
peter@techbook.com     |    you get old when you stop playing games."
(503)579-0873          |                                        - O. W. Holmes
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