Introduction

Introduction

What is a board game?

A board game is a recreational and intellectual activity in which players use a specifically marked surface, or board, to define the placement, positions, movements or powers of playing pieces and attempt to achieve a competitive objective. Usually, the players compete against each other, but not always. Some games are a competition against the game itself (solitaire). In almost all board games, all pieces are in view of all players by placing them upon the board (Mastermind and a Chinese Chess variant are exceptions to this rule). Although the pieces are laid (or dice thrown) by hand, they attain their positions by either pure mental endeavor or by chance determination from dice, rather than by any exertion of dexterity, athletic skill, or strength. This is the key feature distinguishing a board game from sport game. Although it may seem only gross semantic to talk of the basketball court or football field as a large board in which men and women are the pieces played, confusion could definitely ensue with activities such as the modern and popular game Jenga, darts, the game of marbles, etc., all of which are here considered sport despite using a board and/or pieces for play. Even with this exclusion, the general ‘board game’ still applies to a large variety of activities, many more of which must be excluded in this treatise in order to find completion.

What other types of games are excluded here?

This work deals primarily with positional board games, a term I have borrowed from David Parlett’s Oxford History of Board Games. This term is often used as an equivalent to abstract board games, but some confusion concerning the latter term may be skirted with the former. The most important characteristic of a positional board game is its distinction from a theme game, which includes an enormous variety of games such as Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, and Risk, to name just a few of the more popular ones. This distinction is often very difficult to make as many theme games are little more than elaborate race games, here considered positional. It is not so easy as to proclaim theme games as those which are proprietary and positional board games as historical and non-proprietary. Indeed, many positional board games are copyrighted and as time passes and more are invented a greater and greater proportion of them will be proprietary and commercial.

The key characteristic differentiating positional board games from theme board games that seems to be entirely overlooked by many of the game historians is that of language. Almost all positional board games may be played entirely without the use of spoken or written word. Indeed, almost all games are passed on through culture and language as this is the most convenient and effective way that humans have devised for the dissemination of information and knowledge. When purchasing any positional board game such as Chess, Checkers or Backgammon at your local market, a list of rules in some language or languages describing game play is almost always included but this is only to make the learning and understanding of the game simple.

Albeit much more challenging, Chess, Checkers, Backgammon or any other game described in this work could be learned and even mastered in another manner: by watching and/or participating in the play of it. This is the reason why so many of these games have crossed international borders and cultures to be named and played in various parts of the world. Any theme game will require the use of reading, writing, speaking and/or understanding the notation of a position on the board, a playing card, a magazine or other written implement. Further, the cultural context of a theme game may be incomprehensible in different parts of the world. A primal indigenous tribe in Africa may be lost at understanding the buying, selling, and trading of houses and motels in Monopoly, just as some business entrepreneur in America may be completely dumbfounded at an imaginative theme game utilizing the totemisitc powers of African flora and fauna devised by the Maasai tribesmen.

It may be argued that Chess and many of its variants are thus somewhat outside of the range of positional board game as “check” and “checkmate” (for the English version) are spoken aloud upon endangering or completely entrapping the king, but these simple statements could easily be replaced by any non-verbal action including knocking over the opponent’s King piece. Another key argument may state that the high degree of variability seen in the pieces of some games including Chess, Chess relatives (Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Chess all use written symbols to differentiate their pieces), The Jungle Game, and a few other board games have a borderline specificity approaching language. These games may at least present an unattainable challenge to learning non-verbally. I deny this but am wide open for any scientific investigation proving contrary and believe this hypothesis to be completely testable.

In addition to theme games, another important exclusion I make here is that of tile games, those played with marked, colored, or enumerated tiles including Dominoes, Mah Jong, Pentominoes, Triominoes, and Tangram. There are also many interesting modern games such as Octiles™, and the connection game called Ta Yü™ which utilize tiles but are not described here. A more specific type of tile is the playing card which is implemented in a gargantuan number of games including all the classics of Poker, War, Euchre, Patience, Old Maid, Rummy, Canasta, Uno, etc.

I exclude games in which the board is used as a score board for a game in which the primary play is made with cards, including Cribbage.

I exclude games played strictly with dice, although dice are used for several race games and be used for many games to determine the player who goes first.

For verification, also excluded are fantasy and role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons or Magic; word games such as crossword puzzles, cryptograms and Scrabble; logic and mental puzzles including the newly famous Sudoku and Kakuro puzzles[1]; mechanical puzzles such as Rubik's Cube or the Fifteen Puzzle; and games designed primarily for computer play (sorry Tetris).

A large portion of my objective in the writing of this work is to show a large variety of games that can be easily constructed from simple, natural, or household materials. If I felt that the board or pieces required to play the game were beyond normal capability of manufacture I excluded them here.

Three games, or rather, families of games in particular have enjoyed extreme popularity throughout much of history: Go, Chess, and Mancala. Indeed, archaeology is demonstrating that Go and Mancala are likely to be at least similar to the first board games played by humankind as sufficient intelligence evolved for such endeavors. Throughout the years, these games have themselves evolved into countless variations. Each of these games in turn deserves its own tome (indeed, a few have already spawned) as an attempt to document these variations. In order to approach finality, however, this will not be my objective here. Nonetheless, I will try to describe a great deal of the important regional and historical variations of these games to at least give a good overview of these subjects.

To summarize, types of games excluded from this work include:

• Sport games

• Theme games

• Tile Games

• Card Games

• Games only utilizing the board to keep score

• Dice Games

• Fantasy and Role-playing games

• Mechanical Puzzles

• Word Games

• Computer Games

• Rare, obscure or uncommon variations of Chess, Go, or Mancala

• Games of complex manufacture including complex piece or board design

With all of these exclusions and exceptions to every definition, it starts to become apparent that any definition given for "game", "board game", or "positional board game" can be slippery at best, impossible at worst. I have given a good set of boundaries for games that I will include in this work and I am certain that there are many that lie near these boundaries that some may feel should have been included or excluded. I will not, however, be apologetic for the inadequacies of the English language (or human language). In short, I am certainly not above saying that the games included in this work are there because I felt that they needed to be.

About the name

I capitalize the names of all games mentioned in this book, regardless of their current copyrighted, trademark, patent or proprietary status.

About the rules

Note that some games mentioned here are ancient and the rules or setups governing them have changed through the years or millennia. In short, there can be many ways to play one game. Many board games are going the way of the Dodo and in reality it will never be determined how these games were played to an exact degree. It seems innately human to want to make a mark on a game and your play it your own style, and thus the variations often carry right down to the individual. In some cases, the rules mentioned here are extrapolated from scant resources. It is highly probable that all rules, regulations, and specifications, of playing these games described here are not the same as those used in older times in remote places of the world. The extrapolation, however, is useful in providing us a source for reference so that we all may once again play board games that might otherwise have been forgotten.

About the players

Positional board games vary greatly in their complexity both in terms of ease of rules and ease of play. Indeed, some games have relatively quite simple rules that even a child can understand but unfold into a game of extraordinary complexity which may take a lifetime or more to master. Most of the games herein are played by two players. I have, however, included many solitaire board games and there are also a few games which can be played by more than two players (Chinese Checkers, Kensington).

About the board

First, it must be said that the term board is used in a liberal sense of the word and does not strictly apply to materials constructed from planar wood. Most of the games included herein are games which can be played with a two-dimensional board constructed with regular geometric figures such as lines, circles and arcs, triangles, squares, pentagons, and hexagons. All of these boards can be drawn by a person of moderate artistic ability and some patience. Boards have archaeologically been constructed with an enormous variety of materials. They may be sculpted in stone, painted or carved on wood, drawn in dirt or sand, or simply drawn on paper or cardboard. Most gaming boards are designed to be set upon a preexisting table or counter, despite the fact that tables designed solely for the play of a game (often Go or Chess) are common. It is interesting that many boards used for historical European war games from the Tafl family were designed so as to be played by lying on the knees of two players seated and facing one another. It is still common in the early 21st century for games to be drawn in the sand or dirt and played with pebbles or other crude implements. This is especially common in the rural parts of Asia and Africa and is far from primitive as this simplicity adds to the versatility and fluidity of the games. More specifically, this means that new and exciting ways to play the game more easily come about when the board is always being recreated and the rules are always from memory. It is at least a little bit sad that it is increasingly common today for almost all boards for board games to be manufactured. The soft cardboard or plastic used for these manufactured boards may be somewhat durable but makes the game that is played on it more permanent and does not lend as well to inventing new ways to play. These manufactured boards may themselves be giving way to the play of board games on the a computer screen via the internet or some software such as Microsoft Classic Board Games or Bicycle Board Games.

Although quite rare as anything other than a curious mental exercise, board games are occasionally played upon an imaginary board existing only in the minds of the players. For example, two players of invisible Chess may be heard to have the following conversation:

Genius 1: "White Knight moves from G3 to F5."

Genius 2: "Black bishop moves from C8 to F5, capturing white knight."

Normal mortals who wish to play imaginary board games are encouraged to start with a simpler board game, such as Tic Tac Toe.

About the dice

Dice (die, singular) include but are not limited to modern six-sided cubes with a separate number of dots on each side. Dice are used in games as a sort of Random Number Generators (RNG's) to bring an element of “chance or luck” (depending one’s deterministic view of the world) into a game by the creation of an event with multiple predictable and describable outcomes. Their true history is no doubt embedded in the religion and rituals of primal cultures for the use of divining rituals with which one could determine a future course of action. Divining by dice, or cleromancy, is a practice common in ancient cultures nearly worldwide and is still present in modern Western culture with the practice of flipping coins, e.g. to determine the kicking or receiving team at the start of a game of American football.

Note that the number of sides a die has may be represented by putting it in number form after the letter "d". For example, a six-sided die could be called a d6.

The simplest kind of die is dual, or binary, in the probability of its outcomes, a d2. For most Westerners, a typical coin is the most familiar form of a binary die. It can be tossed to land with a maximum of two possible outcomes: heads or tails as we say today in the USA. The coin tossing tradition to settle all manner of problems was used in ancient Rome where the possible outcomes were navia aut caput (ship or head). The "coin" used for the toss need not be an item of currency, any disc-shaped object will suffice so long as it is marked differently on different sides.

Probably even more ancient, but still common today is the use of round stick of wood or other object split in half lengthwise. This type of die will here be referred to as a half-cylinder and is binary in its outcome upon being tossed. Here again, a toss insures one of two possible and (ideally) equally likely outcomes: a rounded side up or a flat side up. These half-cylinder dice have been and are still used for games such as Nyout, Puluc, Tab, Tablan, Senet and Tau. This half-cylinder probably gradually evolved into sticks that were simply flat on both sides with different markings on opposite sides. The use of these types of divining sticks or counting sticks is well-documented among Native Americans by Stewart Culin in his book Games of the North American Indians.

Evolution of Board Games

Understanding the evolution of board games can be more difficult than one would think. The common mistake that historians will make is in the viewing two related board games, noting that one is more complex in its design or rules and deciding that it must then be the more modern of the two. Just like biological organisms, board games may evolve to become increasingly complex or may find a niche for success in increased simplicity. A very common theme in the evolution of board games is their hybridization with other games. It may not even be overly fanciful to say that every single board game known today came about as a hybridization or evolution of a pre-existing game. This is actually good for you and I as it will make the understanding of a large amount of abstract games more simple as so many of them will utilize the same mechanisms of play.

Types of Positional Board Games

Backgammon and Race Games

This family of games is comprised of almost all games played with dice, there are also a very slight few which are not played with dice. Some of the oldest board game relics from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt are race games which are likely the ancestors of today’s backgammon.

Jump and Capture Games

The most well-known of these games is, of course, Checkers (Draughts). It will be seen, however, that checkers is merely one twig on the tree of a complex family of board games that has spread worldwide.

Solitaire Games

Positional board games that can be played by a single person, although they not always are.

Traversal and Attainment Games

Often this is considered a sub-category of Row and Pattern Formation games, as it is a special case of those games that involves moving all of ones counters to another position on the board. Another way of looking at these games is as a competition in a maze or labyrinth. Chinese Checkers is probably the most famous of these types of games.

Hunt Games

Hunt games typically allot unequal numbers of counters or different powers for counters for the two players. Often, the goal of the player with the larger number of counters is to immobilize the smaller but more powerful opposing counter(s). Fox & Geese is one of the best known of these games.

Pits and Pebbles Games

A unique attribute of these games of which Mancala is one of the best-known (to speakers of English) is that the counters (beans, pebbles) are neutral and are not owned by either player at the beginning of the game. The objective is typically to capture, during the course of play, more counters that your opponent.

Row and Pattern Formation Games

Tic Tac Toe is probably the simplest game of this family which also features complex games in which the goal of both players is to form their counters into a pattern such as a line.

Running Fight Games

Most of the games of this variety are obscure. It includes Tab and a Native American game, Awithlaknakwe. They can be thought of as a hybrid of race and war games, as the counters are racing across the board in order to achieve another position in the board and capturing opposing counters along the way.

Nim Games

These deceivingly simple games are favorites of recreational mathematicians and those who study Game Theory. Usually, the premise is to take turns removing counters until one is left. The player removing the last counter is the winner or loser, depending on the version played.

Blocking Games

Often simple children’s games, their objective is typically to limit the movements of their opponent’s counters. A player loses when they have no more legal moves available.

War Games

Chess is the most familiar of this family of games in which the play, whether intentionally or not, resembles a battle. Often war games feature a high degree of variability of the powers of different pieces. The objective is to capture the opponent's counter(s).

Connection Games

A relatively recent type of board game, it began with the game of Hex invented in the 1940's. Since its beginning, Hex has spawned numerous related variants that are typically increasingly complex. The objective is simple, to make an unbroken chain of counters from one part of the board to another.

Territory Games

The objective of these games is to control the largest amount of territory on the board. Chief among these games, if not chief among all board games is Go. Go offers the richest strategy of all board games and is the most difficult game to master, despite its rather simple rules. Also in this game family are the two nearly identical games of Reversi and Othello.

New Wave Games

Admittedly, somewhat of a hodgepodge of games, these games share the common themes of being of relatively recent invention and utilizing as of yet unseen methods of placement, movement and capture or objectives.

“Across the Board” Rules Applying To All Games

All of the games listed in this work will have their individual rules accompanying them, but there are a few general rules which players would find helpful to discuss and determine before beginning play. In a friendly or family game these ideas may not be important, but if the game is part of a tournament or if wagering is involved it would certainly be wise to establish very specific rules.

Finalizing the move

In placement and movement of counters, a counter moved and left in a position should be considered finalizing the move. Even more conservatively, any counter moved at all should be required to be the counter moved.

Time control

Especially in games of tournament or wagering, it is wise to establish time limits for plays prior to commencing.

For example, The World Chess Federation, FIDE, sets a single time control for all major FIDE games: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one. Japanese Go and Shyogi tournaments utilize an official system called Byoyomi (second counting), where a typical time control is "60 minutes + 30 seconds byoyomi", which means that each player may make as many or as few moves as he chooses in the first hour of the game, but after that, each move must be made in thirty seconds or less. To enforce byoyomi, a third person or a game clock with a byoyomi option is necessary.

A typical game clock consists of two adjacent clocks and buttons to stop one clock while starting the other, such that the two component clocks never run simultaneously.

Note that quick (or slow) time limits per move in a board game can often have dramatic effects to the game play. Another dimension can be added to almost any board game by allotting little time per move, as in blitz chess (aka lightning chess, fast chess). At the other end are time limits placed on correspondence chess (chess by mail), which may entitle a player up to several days to make a move.

Draw by repetition of moves

A few games will have specific rules dealing with this situation but it will often have to be determined that the game is a draw (tie) when play does not advance. In some situations, the win is then determined in another factor, such as who has the most counters remaining.

Ko Rule

Ko is a Japanese word adopted into English usage. It is originally and primarily used to in the game of Go, but can be used for other games as well. Ko, sometimes translated as Eternity, describes a situation in a board game where the same scenario or state of the game is being repeated. While this may be advantageous to one player to keep the game from ending, it would generally be considered rude or annoying and a rule prohibiting Ko can be useful. This rule effectively prohibits a player from recreating the same board position more than once resolving the situation.

Who Goes First?

Board games will often allot some degree of advantage to the player with the first move, and occasionally to the player with the second move. Mathematicians often love to calculate these specific advantages for different games and can sometimes demonstrate the exact numerical advantage or disadvantage a first move player will have. (The stipulation, as in Chess that the white will go first only diverts the question to "who gets to play white?")

I here list some of the following methods to counteract an order of play advantage. Some games will have some variation of these rules specifically stated in their rules, others may not. These are not to be regarded as set in stone rules for any board game, but only as suggestions which players or tournament officials may wish to discuss prior to an official game.

Coin toss

A randomizing event such as a coin toss or dice roll can often be used to determine the player that gets the first move. With dice, the higher roll typically wins. A mental strategy purist may object to a coin toss as it may introduce an element of chance into an otherwise perfectly mental endeavor.

Pie rule

Also known as the swap rule, the pie rule works to take the first player advantage away and equalize fairness for both players. Using the pie rule, the second player has the option of swapping colors after the first player makes the first move. The second player would then become the first player, as if that move was theirs and the game proceeds from that opening position with the roles now reversed. Alternatively, the second player may allow the opening move to stand, in which case they are retained as the second player. This encourages the first player to play a mediocre position of power for their first move.

This rule is particularly useful for the game of Hex and games related to or derived from it, including Y, Poly-Y, Star, Onyx, and Havannah. These games have been mathematically demonstrated to give strong favor for winning to certain opening positions, such as placement in the middle of the board in Hex. The name refers to the idea of one person cutting a pie in half, and the other person choosing which half to have.

Equal turns rule

Some games will specifically and strictly prohibit this and say that the game is over once a player has achieved the objective and won. Some games, however, may allow more liberty in this regard and can occasionally be found to be made more interesting or fair if both players are allotted the same number of turns. What this means is that if the player who went first has just achieved the primary objective of the game and "won", the second player may then force a tie if they can also achieve the winning objective on their next move.

No dynasties rule

This is a phrase of my own invention and simply means that the losing player from the proceeding game is entitled to go first in the subsequent game. It works as a method of handicap for all varieties of games, from Checkers to Ping Pong.

Just don't let all of the rules and formalities get in the way of having fun and learning, which should be the main objectives of any board game in my philosophy.

Game on.

Board Games Terminology

Alignment, Position, Orientation and Movement on the Board

How the players are seated or positioned around the table can bear on the terminology described below. In a normal arrangement for a board game each player is positioned or seated at one side of the board. This is different than being seated at one corner of the board, and there are a few games that will call for just such a setup. Further, a normal arrangement for most games will entail starting with all of one player’s counters arranged at or near their side; that is, the side where they are seated; while their opponent begins with their counters at the opposite side. For example, it would usually be considered disorienting, confusing or just wrong to position the two players for a friendly game of checkers such that each player commences with their own counters at their left hand side and their opponent’s counters at the right hand side.

If all of the protocol are followed for the normal arrangement and if a square or rectangular grid composed squares is used for the board it is then useful to refer to the rows and columns of the board. Here, a group of cells in a straight line going across the board from the player’s left hand side to their right hand side may be referred to as a row (a.k.a. rank or horizontal). A group of cells in a straight line starting at the side where the player is seated and terminating where the opponent is seated is then called a column (a.k.a. file or vertical). Diagram

Again, please be cautious that inverting a rectangular board forty-five degrees and seating the players at the corners of the board, using an initial setup of counters where a player’s counters are not positioned at their side at the start of the game or using a non-rectangular (e.g. hexagonal or triangular grid) makes these terms confusing or even useless. I will try and be extra cautious using terms like horizontal, vertical, column or row when describing these games but, for now, be aware of potential confusion in their descriptions.

Orthogonal

It is often useful to think of orthogonal movements as a collective term for both vertical and horizontal movements but it probably best used this way only when dealing with square grids. Technically, orthogonal movements are those where a counter crosses the “side” of the cell it is currently residing in and moves across the side and into a cell adjacent to it. If a line were drawn showing an orthogonal movement of a counter, it would cross the borders of its cell at a perpendicular or ninety degree angle upon entering the new cell or cells. When playing a board game in which counters are placed at the intersections rather than on the cells, orthogonal and diagonal movements lose meaning, as typically, the intention would then be to move counters along the lines.

Diagonal

A diagonal is a line joining two nonconsecutive vertices of a polygon or polyhedron. Note that a reference to diagonal movement can be confusing on a rotated (diagonal) or hexagonal board, (see Queah, Hex). Diagonal should not be thought of as movement at a 45 degree angle as a diagonal movement on an inverted board may be along the four cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west or 90, 180, and 270 degrees if you prefer). Rather, it is helpful to think of diagonal moves as those where a counter, starting at a cell, is moved across one of the vertices of that cell to the next cell which shares that vertex but does not share a side. Diagonal moves should only be used to refer to moves on a square grid or triangular grid. On a hexagonal grid, every two cells that share a vertex also share a side.

Contrary

A term mostly applying to race games. First imagining that the path a counter follows along on the game board is stretched out into a single line, if two opposing (or just two different) counters move in directions opposite to or against one another along the path of the board they are said to be moving contrary to one another.

Note that if the path of the counters is folded on the game board they may, at times, be moving along the same cardinal direction. It is important to distinguish between moving in contrary directions and moving contrary on the game board.

Parallel

The opposite of contrary and applying mostly to race games. Here, the counters follow the same route around the board. If the board is folded or compacted in any manner it may be that counters are following the same direction and moving parallel while actually proceeding in different directions.

Boustrophedon

This is a style of counter movement particular to a few games such as Snakes & Ladders and Tablan.

Some linguistic experts may recognize this term as it also applies to certain kinds of written script that are read in the same pattern (including Linear B, Hungarian Runes, and Rongo Rongo). The word comes from the Greek "turning ox" and this style of writing or game play is said to resemble to the path an ox makes as it plows a field, turning at the end of each row to return in the opposite direction. Also of note, is that the term can be used to describe the arrangement of book shelves in a library or bookstore.

Flying

An atypical form of counter movement known almost exclusively from rule variations of the Nine Men's Morris and Twelve Men's Morris games. The “flying rule” as it is called there allows a player, on their turn to pick up one of their counters and move it to any vacant position on the board. The movement can be any distance on the board and does not require moving along a line.

Methods of Removing the Opponent’s Counters

Replacement

As typified in Chess, replacement is simply the capture and removal of an opposing counter by moving onto and occupying its position.

Short Jump

The short jump may be diagonal or orthogonal as decreed by the rules of the game being played. It is defined by jumping over an adjacent opposing counter to the necessarily vacant position (cell or intersection) just beyond, thereby capturing the opposing counter.

Long Jump

A standard long jump, as utilized in many variations of Draughts, involves a jump over an opposing counter that is any distance away along a orthogonal or diagonal row (as dictated by the specific rules of the game) and then landing any distance beyond the counter being jumped. A variation on this theme is the Long Jump and Stop used in Thai Draughts where it is required to land in the cell immediately after the counter being jumped. Some rules variations of Chinese Checkers allow for a Symmetrical Long Jump that requires the jumping counter to land at the exact distance from the jumped counter at which it started its jump from, i.e. if it starts its jump three cells away from the jumped counter it must land three cells beyond it to finish the move.

Line Jumps

Some games allow Line Jumps, jumping multiple counters with one a single jump. Note that the counter or counters being jumped over may or may not be captured depending the specific rules of the game.

Custodianship

Custodianship, occasionally called sandwiching, in board games refers to the capture or conversion of an opposing counter by surrounding it with friendly counters, usually two on opposite sides. It is common in ancient board games but is uncommon in modern games. Most likely, older board games utilizing custodianship were gradually replaced by the newer method of capturing opposing counters by jumping over them. The game will specify if the custodianship capture is orthogonal, diagonal, or both. Some games will allow for custodianship capture by landing a single friendly counter next to an opposing counter, thereby capturing it. This is Single Custodianship is practically identical to a method of capture known as Approach from the game Fanorona from Madagascar. Fanorona also utilizes Withdrawal to capture opposing counters. Withdrawal is effectively the exact opposite of Approach. Here, a player captures all opposing counters in a row by moving a friendly counter, also in that row at any uninterrupted distance apart from them, along the row in a direction away from the opposing counter or group. Capture by Approach and Withdrawal are unique to Fanorona.

Custodianship at the Corners and L-Shaped Custodianship

Custodianship capture of an opposing counter at the corner positions of a square grid presents a unique problem as a counter here could not be captured by the normal method. Some games utilizing custodianship will allow a counter to be captured at the corners if two opposing counters are at the two positions orthogonally adjacent to the corner or at the three positions orthogonally and diagonally adjacent to the corner. Other games, such as Gundru from Tibet, extend on this concept and allow for this L-Shaped Custodianship Capture at any position on the board, not just the corners. Utilizing this, if a row of counters comes to be at the middle of an L-formation with opposing counters at both ends of the L, they will become captured.

Multiple Capture Custodianship

Some games allow multiple opposing counters to be captured in one turn, provided they are all adjacent in an orthogonal or diagonal row. This should not be confused with Multiple Capturer Custodianship, which may be better called Multiple Captors Custodianship.

Multiple Captors Custodianship (Multiple Capturers Custodianship)

Some games will utilize Multiple Captors Custodianship where a counter must become surrounded on three or more sides by opposing counters in order to be captured. Triple Captors Custodianship on a triangular grid is utilized in the game of Bizingo. Quadruple captor custodianship is utilized to capture the King in some reconstructions of games of the Tafl family. Quadruple custodianship could be seen as a continuation of the concept of enclosure used in Go and other games of placement.

Intervention

Games utilizing custodianship sometimes allow a counter to move into a position sandwiched between two opposing counters without being captured while other games prohibit such a move. A third option is intervention, where the two sandwiching opposing counters are actually captured in this manner as a result of the move. This method of capture is known from the game Mak-Yek from Thailand and its Malaysian equivalent, Apit-Sodok.

Telekinesis (Morris and Yote)

In games such as Nine Men’s Morris, its relatives such as Twelve Men’s Morris, and the West African game Yoté players are rewarded for making certain plays by then allowing them to remove one of their opponent’s counters from any position on the board. The removed counters need not be connected in any way to the play. In Morris games, the removal takes place after a player forms a mill, or row of three friendly counters. The stipulation is usually that the removed counter is not itself part of a mill. Yoté allows a player to remove an extra opposing counter every time a jumping capture move is made.

Conversion and Enchained Custodianship Capture

Normally a counter that is captured via jumping or custodianship is captured and removed from the board for the remainder of the game. Games such as Reversi, Othello and the Tibetan game Mig Mang, however, utilize conversion where the captured counter is actually switched to the ownership of the capturing player. Games such as this will likely require a reversible counter, e.g. one that shows black on one side and white on the other. When a counter is captured it is then flipped over to show its reverse side. As a result of a counter switching ownership, further captures via custodianship may then be available to the capturing player using the newly converted counters as capturers.

Stack and Tow

Stack and Tow is a method of capture known from the games of Puluc and Lasca where a capturing counter lands at a position occupied by an opposing counter, is stacked on top of it to control it and attempts to drag the captured counter to a place where it will be removed from the board and game.

Huffing

For board games which require capture to be compulsory, a player may fail to make said obligatory capture on their turn as a result of reluctance or failure to notice the potential capture. If rules allow, the next player, as a bonus before their next turn may remove the counter that failed to make the capture, called huffing as traditionally a player would "huff and blow" (blow air) onto the counters as they removed it.

Suicide

A few games will allow a player to remove one of their own counters if it is advantageous for them to do so.

Various Other Board Game Terminology

Atari

Perhaps Atari is best translated as 'danger' or 'in a dangerous position'. The term is Japanese and originally applied to a state in the game of Go but can utilized for other games as well. In Go, it is a situation where a counter (there called a stone) has only one liberty left and may be captured on the next turn if no action is taken to modify its situation. It can be a verb for the act of placing a chain under atari, as well as an adjective to describe the status of a unit, as being "in (the state of) atari". It is sometimes considered similar to the action of placing the king under check or checkmate in Chess but it is not mandatory to call out when placing an opposing counter or counters in atari. It is actually considered rude to do so when playing Go.

Bear-off

Primarily used in Backgammon, but the term may be applied to describe the finish of many race games as well. The goal of the counters (checkers) in Backgammon is to take the counters around the course of the board and finally off of the board to complete their objective. The final act of bringing them off of the board is deemed bearing them off. It is akin to imagining that there is an additional cell beyond the last one shown on the board.

Compulsory

Compulsory is the term used herein for obligatory or mandatory. Typically, it refers to a scenario where a player is required to make a move on his or her turn that may not be beneficial for him. Many games, especially Draughts variants, have a compulsory capture rule which means that if a player is able to make a capture he is required to do so, even if the end result of that capture results in him being in a disadvantageous position.

Compulsory Maximum Capture and Compulsory Free Capture Rules

The Compulsory Maximum Capture Rule is known primarily from Draughts variants and a modern game called Triad. On their turn, a player may have two different moves available to them, both of which take more than one opposing counter. As an example, one move would capture four opposing counters while the other captures three, but the move with less captures leaves the player in a more advantageous position at its end. The Compulsory Maximum Capture Rule would require the player to make the move capturing that captures more counters. The Compulsory Free Capture Rule is also known primarily from Draughts variants. It deals with the same situation, but will allow the capturing player to choose any capturing move, provided that a capture is made and that an enchained multiple capturing move is completed.

Contiguous

Two cells, intersections or positions on a game board are said to be contiguous if they are next to each other, or adjacent, and share a side or uninterrupted connecting line between them. While it may be useful to speak of counters that are diagonally contiguous in games that allow for diagonal moves such as Checkers, the phrase is a contradiction in terms, could be confusing, and will be avoided here.

En prise

A French term meaning "in a position to be taken". When a piece is placed in a position to be captured wherein the enemy piece cannot be re-captured. Also called "leaving a piece hanging".

Komi or Komidashi

This is a concept applying to the game of Go, but it has been used for other games. It is often translated as handicap and it can indeed refer to extra points given to a player of lesser skill than that of their opponent in uneven matches. It is also translated as compensation or compensation points, which is probably more accurate. Komi is primarily given to the person playing White in the game of Go who is in the disadvantageous position of having the second move. It has been applied to other games of placement such as Hex, Y, Medusa, or Lotus as well. In Go, a typical value for komi is in the region of 5-8 points, and to prevent a drawn games, the komi is commonly set to a fractional value such as 6.5.

Liberty

Perhaps best translated as “breathing room”, liberty is another term primarily used for the game of Go, but may also be borrowed for other board games. In Go, a counter only remains "alive" on the board if it or the group it belongs to is not completely surrounded, that is, it has vacant positions adjacent to it. These vacant positions are called the liberties of the counter or its group.

Misère Game

A Misère Game is a game that is played according to its conventional rules, except that it is "played to lose"; that is, the winner is the one who loses according to the normal game rules. Such games generally have rule sets that normally encourage players to win; for example, most variations of Draughts (known as "Checkers" in the United States) require players to make a capture move if it is available; thus, in the misère variation, players can force their opponents to take a large number of checkers through intentionally "poor" play. The opposite of a misère game is a normal play game.

Normal Play

In a Normal Play Game, the last person who can make an allowed move wins. This is the opposite of a Misère Game.

Paper-and-pencil Game

A game that may be played or is intended to be played with paper and pencil is called a paper-and-pencil game. The distinction between these games and board games is often arbitrary and many games, such as Tic Tac Toe, may be both. Paper-and-pencil games are typically relatively simple and will not allow for movement or erasure of the counters (pencil marks) once played. Tic Tac Toe, Sprouts, and Boxes are all common paper-and-pencil games that will be discussed here. If one is capable of designing or purchasing a square or hexagonal grid on paper, a variety of other games where the counters do not move once placed, such as Hex, may be played as paper-and-pencil games.

Promotion

Mostly known from Checkers games of the Draughts family, promotion is the act of granting extra powers to counter. It is sometimes symbolized by adding another counter on top of the unpromoted counter in a stack or sometimes by reversing the counter to show another differently marked side. Some games will call for the counter, upon its promotion, to be replaced by a different counter. When improvising counters for a game that calls for counters to be promoted, it is important to make certain that counters are either stackable or marked differently on different sides.

Solved Game

A solved game is a game whose outcome (win, lose, or draw) can be correctly predicted from any position, given that both players play perfectly. Games which have not been solved are said to be "unsolved". Games for which only some positions have been solved are said to be "partially solved".

Tessellation

A tessellation is a repeating pattern of regular geometric shapes (called tiles) covering a flat surface or plane. A vast portion of all abstract board games use some sort of tessellation for the pattern of their board. A square grid is probably the simplest sort of tessellation and is widely used in board games but other polygons and shapes may be used for board construction such as triangles, hexagons, octagons and dodecagons (a twelve-sided polygon). A true tessellation, as mathematically prescribed, should have no gaps or overlaps of shapes. The pattern can be repeated and expanded out to an infinitely large size.

In common parlance most would say that such an object is a doughnut or doughnut-shaped. Modern intelligent board game designers have borrowed upon the mathematical concept of the torus for the design of game boards. An actual torus-shaped board would make game play difficult as it is three-dimensional and some of the counters would need to be placed on the underside of the board. As an idea for inventors, designing a felt toroidal board with Velcro counters might work. The problem can, however, be more easily surmounted by simply saying that a counter that has exited off of one side of the board enters back onto the board at the equivalent position on the opposite side of the board. Imagining a toroidal game board is a lot easier than making one. First, imagine that a flat or planar game board is folded or rolled so that the left side is now adjacent to the right side. Next, taking the tube or cylinder shape, bend it so that the top is now adjacent to the bottom. This is nearly impossible without warping, stretching or folding the board.

Zugzwang

Zugzwang is a German word meaning “obligated or compulsory move”. Specifically, it refers to situations where a player is at a disadvantage because they are required to make a certain kind of move that is not beneficial to their game strategy. It is typically applied to situations in the endgame of Chess, but may be applied to many other games as well.

Materials Required

A great portion of the games discussed here use simple circular counters of which there are two colors, although up to six colors of counters will be required for six players in Chinese Checkers and other games. A set of black and white Go Stones are sufficient to play a great many board games. Occasionally, one will need counters which can be stacked, e.g. to demonstrate the promotion to King in Checkers. Some games require the counters to be reversible, perhaps showing black on one side and white on the other as in Reversi and Othello. A few games will require the counters of both colors to be reversible and show a special mark on the reverse side. The games of Chess, Chess variants, Arimaa, Omnigon and Da Vinci’s Challenge utilize counters of the most complex manufacture comparatively, but even these can usually be easily improvised with everyday materials. Overall, most or almost all of the included games discussed here can be played with simple materials lying around the common household (or out in nature or the urban landscape), although they may possibly require some amounts of imagination or construction. For example, coins can be used as the counters for most games. While there is something to be said for an glass or crystal chess set of elaborate and expensive manufacture, or one of antique or exotic foreign make, this work sets out to demonstrate that a great deal of recreation may be had using simple materials. I will try and describe both traditional implements and makeshift ones used to create abstract board games throughout this work.

[1] After first mentioning Sudoku puzzles in an earlier writing of this work, these puzzles have gained tremendous popularity since and are now being marketed as competitive 2-player board games. I am not yet certain if any variety of these board games may be considered a true positional board game as defined here. It does, however, seem highly feasible that a true competitive positional board game could be devised from the concept of Sudoku.

[2] Also known as the perfect solids, they are the only types of three-dimensional objects that can have identical faces. They are: (1) the tetrahedron (pyramid) bounded by four equilateral triangles; (2) the cube or hexahedron with six equal square faces; (3) the octahedron with eight equal octagon faces; (4) the dodecahedron with twelve equal pentagons; and (5) the icosahedron with 20 equilateral triangles.