So last week I looked at a very old board game, one most of us will have at least seen, if not played at least a little, that being checkers.
Some see checkers as too simplistic and flawed in that good players can often end up in draws.
Those concerns have meant a number of designers have tried to improve on the base game, creating variants.
Three of the more interesting ones will be looked at here this week.
The first offering is Eximo, created early in 201 by designer Matteo Perlini.
The game has orthogonal and diagonal movement and capture. There are no kings, only men. Men can jump without capturing. When a man reaches the last row, it frees another man (you can replace one of your captured pieces back onto the board).
Eximo is played on an 8x8 square grid. Each player starts with 16 pieces.
The object of the game is a bit different from traditional checkers. You must capture all your opponent's pieces by jumping over them, or stalemate the opponent so he has no moves.
On a turn a player can make one of the two actions: move or capture.
On a move a piece can move one space straight, or diagonally forward.
There are two types of moves: ordinary move and jumping move.
An ordinary move is to an open adjacent square, while with a jumping move a checker jumps over an adjacent friendly piece if the next square in the same direction is empty, placing the jumping checker on the next empty square. If the same player's checker can continue moving by jumping another friendly piece then it must do so. During the jumping move that checker cannot capture.
You can capture a checker in the three forward directions, or move left, or right.
A checker jumps over an adjacent opponent's piece if the next square in the same direction is empty, placing the jumping checker on the next empty square. The opponent's piece is removed from the board immediately. If the same player's checker can continue capturing by jumping another opponent's piece then it must do so. Capturing is mandatory, and you must keep capturing as long as it is possible.
When a checker reaches the other end of the board, it is removed from the board immediately and the player gets two extra-moves to make instantly: dropping two new checkers in any empty starting square. So you basically restart the piece which crossed the board, and regain a lost piece as well.
The game has some different mechanics to explore, but inexperience, or very experienced players may find achieving either win condition takes a lot of time, as pieces are regenerated. Eximo might be a bit long-winded if things don't go smoothly.
Next up is Croda, which came out in 1995 from designer Ljuban Dedi, a Croation mathematics professor and Draughts with a goal to create a draughts game with a smaller margin of draws.
Basic pieces move straight forward or diagonally forward one space, while kings move and capture at a distance.
Pieces capture by jumping, as in draughts, but capture is only orthogonally, not diagonally. Capture is enforced. A player must capture the largest number of pieces when different ways of capture are possible.
Croda certainly expands the depth and strategy of basic checkers, and was a step forward in that regard.
But then Croda in turn sparked Dameo, a 2002 release from Christian Freeling ( http://mindsports.nl/index.php/arena/dameo/ ).
Dameo has dramatic movement in that there are literally dozens of options on a turn.
A man moves one square forward, either straight or diagonally. The diagonal move of a man is the only diagonal move in the game. All other moves, whether capturing or non-capturing, are orthogonal only.
If a man ends its move on the opponent's back rank, it promotes to king. This marks the end of the move.
On a move, a player may shift a linear group one space as well. This linear movement drastically alters what can be done in Dameo.
A king moves any number of unobstructed squares horizontally or vertically, like the rook in Chess. Kings may not move diagonally.
The flying king, which is used in traditional draughts games such as Turkish Checkers can be devastating, and really spices up end game play.
Capture takes precedence over a non-capturing move. Only if the player to move has no capture to make, may he move a single man, or a line of men, or a king.
In fact, I'd put Dameo in the top-10 abstract strategy games among the hundreds out there, because the rules remain simple, the game is easy to play with available checker boards and anything for checkers, and has tons of depth and replayability. Love the game. It gets the highest recommendation.
