New spin on checkers

When the game Octi arrived, an abstract strategy gaming bud and I sat down at a local coffee shop to give it some play.

The initial afternoon left me raving about the game, and he was equally impressed.

The game by designer Don Green, was first released in 1999, and has been recently re-released in a very nice edition from Foxmind Games, and so having remained in production that long I had expected a solid game.

So what is Octi all about?

Well in many ways the game will remind of checkers, and to my mind it is certainly a cousin in as much as movement and capture can both involve jumping of pieces.

The mechanics in Octi is rather interesting. The pieces when first brought into play cannot move. In lieu of moving, or adding another piece from your reserve to the board, you can insert a prong into a piece. Each piece can have up to eight prongs, corresponding with the eight directions of movement on the square grid board.

The Foxmind edition pieces are quite nice, and the board serviceable out of standard material.

The prongs work, although since each player has a set number to play with, two colours to help eliminate between game counting out would have been nice. I painted the tips of half the prongs to help in that regard.

The goal of the game, and there are varying levels to the game, and a reversible board, is to occupy one of your opponent's home squares. The toughest version requires occupying the three home squares to the win.

With the options on a turn to add a piece from your reserve, add a prong, move, or capture you would imagine the game is one of near limitless options. In theory that is true.

But in game play it became obvious Octi is very much an arms race. If player one begins to create a multi-pronged attack piece, player two for the most part has to respond in kind in order to offer some level of defence, or they will simply be overpowered.

The prongs are a tad fidgety to me to start with, and when the game bogs down into power build up, it feels worse.

The game quickly went from one which captured our interest, to one which is likely to get pushed to the back of the game shelf and not see a lot of future play since it competes for play time in a genre of games including gems such as Hive, Arimaa and Tazaar.

Check it out at www.octi.net

If anyone is interested in this game, or other board games feel free to contact [email protected]