ATTANGLE

Copyright (c) 2006 Dieter Stein

This game is played on the following board.

 

STACK - A stack of 1+ stones of either color. The color of the stack's top stone determines its owner (e.g., a black top stone makes it a black stack). TURN - On each turn, each player must do one of the following actions: Drop a single stone at any empty cell, or Capture an enemy stack by moving two friendly stacks on top of it. Stacks can slide over a straight line of empty cells (no jumps). Stacks cannot have more than 5 stones. Stacks cannot split. GOAL - Wins the player owning three stacks of size 5.

These rules imply that stacks of size 5 are not capturable and cannot capture (and thus cannot move). Also, stacks of even size (size 2 or 4) cannot appear during a match. As a logical consequence of the other rules, the resulting stack always have a majority of friendly stones (2 vs 1 or 3 vs 2).

A capture example White's turn. He can capture the black stack by sliding two of its owns stacks at moving range. The result is a stack of size 5.

This game is the last game of Dieter's "Stacking Game Trilogy" which includes Abande and Accasta. Check Attangle's official rules.

One comment from Dieter: Attangle is not necessarily a stacking game. You can imagine a Mancala-style board (with buckets) where you place unstacked stones. It's the majority that counts, not the "top stone". This again is a subtle part of this game I like, it has a certain mutable nature.

---