Volo
Opening Position
No. of Players
Two
Equipment
A Volo board and sixty each of black and white counters are required for play. The counters are called birds in this game.
History
This game was created by Dieter Stein and is published on the internet at spielstein.com (see http://spielstein.com/games/volo). Volo is "dedicated to the nature and beauty of birds: Their colors, their singing, and the art of flight".
Objective
The objective of both players is to bring all of their birds together into one contiguous flock. It is possible that the objective will become unobtainable for both players with the game ending in a draw.
Play
The board is set up as shown above. Each player controls sixty counters of a specific color, but only begins with three of their counters on the board. Birds are played at the intersections of the board.
Alternate turns entail one of three options for a player: A player may enter a single new bird onto the board, "let the birds fly", or pass without making a move if no legal moves are available.
When entering a new bird, a player may place it at any vacant intersection on the board, but not adjacent to any other friendly bird already on the board and not into a region controlled by the opponent.
If instead the player decides to let the birds fly, a single bird or a straight line of connected birds of any size move inline or broadside, over any number of vacant spaces, but must always stop next to another friendly bird or bird(s). Friendly birds may be passed while flying, as long as the final stop is adjacent to another bird or birds. In this way, a flock of friendly birds is enlarged. Note that a flock is any group of birds that are all adjacent to each other, not necessarily in line. A single bird, unconnected to any other friendly birds on the board, may also be considered a flock. Only birds that are along a single line, however, may move together, but not every flock of adjacent birds is allowed movement en masse. Further, an existing flock of friendly birds on the board may never be split apart. It may, however, be rearranged meaning that part a it may be moved by the rules above on a turn as long as the flock as a whole is not split and is enlarged after the move.
If no legal moves are available, a player may pass their turn.
Three flocks of black birds are on the board. A flock of a single bird, a flock in line that may be moved as a whole to join with another flock, and a larger flock of seven that could not move as a whole.
The line of three black birds has two moves available to it: it may move inline to join the flock of two above it, or it may move broadside to join the flock of three.
A flock may never be split apart but a turn may used to rearrange it as long as it grows larger after the turn. Above, the flock of four birds may be rearranged on a turn to add the solo black bird at the left.
When a flock of friendly birds (one or more) becomes completely separated from all other friendly flocks in different regions of the board, i.e. there is no open path to any other friendly bird, they are said to "fly away" and are removed from the board. On a player's turn it is possible that they create more than two isolated regions of opposing counters on the board. After creating an isolated region or regions of opposing counters, the player must then remove all of the opposing counters in all but one of those isolated regions. It is possible that this removal will only result in the opposing player now having less counters on the board of which the entirety of them existing in one contiguous flock, thus causing a win for the opponent.
Usually, creating regions and removing opposing birds is only beneficial to the opponent.
Sources