If you are a gamer trying different games is usually high on your interest list.
So when looking for something different for a snowy afternoon, sorry those days are on the near horizon, it is not a bad idea to look to the past.
In this case I am talking the long past with the old game Fox & Geese.
The game dates back to around 1400, at least some sources suggest that although dating such things is far from a perfect thing.
The water is muddied, in terms of when, because the game has a number of regional versions.
Fox and Geese is a hunt game played on a cross-shaped board of thirty-three points connected by vertical, horizontal, and alternating diagonal lines.
Yes, the board is quite specific, but is easily found online for a print ‘n play option. Pop it in a laminate sheet and it is going to last.
So, as noted, with a number of regional variations, the number of pieces and their starting positions can vary, but the general play of the game is the same: one player controls a single piece, the fox, the other player controls the geese (usually 13 to 17). That said there are variations out there which actually have two foxes and 20 geese.
Generally the fox player tries to remove all of the geese from the board by jumping them, by a move similar to checkers, with multiple captures possible.
The geese player tries to prevent this from happening by pinning down the fox so that it cannot move.
One of the more interesting variations runs counter to the norm. The norm today has the game simplified as the game has evolved in the last century, or so, into a children’s game, and therefore simplified.
The older variation, perhaps with Norse roots, has two foxes and 20 sheep pegs.
This version has slightly different objectives for the defender (sheep), which is to reach a certain destination on the board, the square of nine squares across the board.
The attacker’s (the foxes) objective is to stop the defender from reaching it.
The sheep may only move forward or sideways, again very much a checker mechanic, while the foxes may move in any direction, even backwards.
If a sheep is in front of an empty hole, the fox has to jump over and capture the sheep, again as in checkers. The capturing is mandatory, as are repeated jumps if possible.
The sheep have won if they manage to fill the paddock, paddock square.
In the English-speaking world a simplified version is known as Fox and Geese. In this more familiar version, the objective of reaching a certain location has been removed and instead it all comes down to capturing each other’s pieces. It is not mandatory for the fox to capture the opponent’s pieces, and there are no restraints on the defender’s (the geese’s) movements.
Try both versions, try different numbers of geese, and explore a very old game which has survived through the centuries.
