Dot Dash

Game Play

On a player’s turn, the player must move a stone at least three empty points away from its starting location in any orthogonal or diagonal direction. Following the move, two more stones from the player’s reserve are placed in the opposite direction of movement. This creates a 3-in-a-row formation. See Figures 1 and 2.

There is no capturing and no jumping over stones of either color.

A player may not pass a turn.

Winning the Game

There are two ways to win. Players win, if at the start of their turn, they have more 5-in-a-rows of their own color on the board than their opponent. Players also win if their opponent is unable to move.

Any two 5-in-a-rows of like color may share at most one point. For example, a 9-in-a-row contains two creditable 5-in-a-rows which share the middle stone.

When a player creates one or more 5-in-a-rows, the player must declare these by turning the stones of the 5-in-a-rows 45 degree - from square to diamond orientation. This makes it easier to count.

Later on in the game, players may turn the stones back to their original positions and move any of these stones but must then create or point out another 5-in-a-row to compensate; otherwise the player would lose the game. See Figure 3. This is referred to as shifting a 5-in-a-row. Shifting can be a decisive maneuver when used to free up stones that initially were frozen.

Variants

Frozen stones: All the rules above apply but once a stone is declared part of a 5-in-a-row it may never be moved again. This is a simpler version, since players do not have to take into account shifting 5-in-a-rows.

Sacrificial Capture: All the rules above apply except the moving stone may landing on an opponent stone. Both the moving stone and the opponent stone are returned to their owners. Following the sacrificial capture, two stones from the moving player's reserved are placed in the normal manner.

Designer Comments

Dot Dash is a dynamic Gomoku variant filled with tactical possibilities. After play testing it every which way that I can think of it still fascinates me. Here are some of the reasons why.

It is balanced, dynamic, and has a surprising number of tactical maneuvers. There are also basic strategies of blocking, area enclosure and efficient packing of 5-in-a-rows.

Dot Dash improves upon the balance of the basic game of Gomoku in which the first player has a slight advantage. It does this in three ways, all of which have been used in other games but probably not all together.

As a first step in balancing the game, the pie swap rule prevents any gross advantage at the start of the game and encourages varied openings See swap2 comments under Theoretical generalizations at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomoku.

Secondly, with the move and drop two stones rule, neither player has a prolonged material advantage as is usually the case with single drop games (games with drop sequence, 1,1,1,...), where the second player is always playing catch-up. The drop sequence of 1,2,2,... leads to a temporary advantage of one stone following a turn for both players.

Finally, the last mechanism to balance the game is the winning condition that a player must have an outright lead in 5-in-a-rows at the start of his or her turn. The opponent always gets one chance to catch up.

Why are all these balancing mechanisms needed? Despite these efforts, the first player's initiative is still tough to contend with. The first player ipso facto gets the first 3-in-a-row which can morph into a powerful 'V' structure with multiple 4-in-a-row possibilities. The second player must actively block or try to build a counter stroke. Tension between players starts immediately and last through out the game! I believe this to be a very good attribute for a game, although some would prefer slower developing games.

Dot Dash is dynamic because players move a stone before placing two stones. Moving often leaves a hole in one's defense but sometimes can lead to a discovered threat. So there is a slight cold element to the game.

Here are some strategies that can be used. Blocking is the defensive strategy that is best implemented by vertical and horizontal moves and must often be used at the start of the game by the second player. The trick with blocking is to create threats while blocking, otherwise your stones tend to lack communication. An enclosure strategy facilitates endgame play, if you can survive that long. The more room you have to yourself, the easier it is to find a move late in the game. Lastly, the strategy of effectively coordinating your 5-in-a-rows is very important. Have your lines intersect. This usually wins the game because eventually you will get a chance to create two 5-in-a-rows simultaneously or in successive turns. Your opponent will be hard pressed to match them.

I really like this game. So much so, I decided to give it a grade of 'A'. Not only does the game title Dot Dash signify the basic mechanism of the game, coincidentally, it also means 'A' in international Morse code!