CREEPER

Copyright (c) 1997 Graham Lipscomb

Creepers is played on a 6x6 grid of octagons, which can be translated to a square board of 13x13 with the following setup:

There are 36 white and 36 black soldiers off board.

HOME BASE - Each player owns two home bases on opposite diagonal corners (the green and red dots in the diagram). CONNECTION - Two friendly soldiers are connect if they are both horizontally or vertically adjacent to the same empty cell. MOVE - On each turn, each player must move one of his Kings. A King may: Orthogonally move two cells into an empty cell. Diagonally jump over one cell and land on an empty cell. If the jumped cell is empty, drop a friendly soldier there. If the jumped cell is occupied by a enemy soldier, remove it and replace it with a friendly soldier. Orthogonally jump over three cells over an enemy King, capturing it, and landing on an empty cell. Jumps are not mandatory and are not multiple (as far as I can tell). GOAL - Wins the player that connects his two home bases with friendly soldiers (the home bases should be occupied) or captures all the enemy Kings.

 

An initial move Red moves one of his Kings with a diagonal jump. Since the jumped cell was empty, he drops a red soldier there.

Making a chain Red's turn. The red King and c7 can jump over the green soldier at d6 (landing at e7), changing its color. After that move, Red just needs to put a red soldier over its bottom-left home base to achieve a winning connection. However, Green can capture the red King at e3 with a jump from g3 to c3, making things a bit more difficult. A better first red move would be to jump a1-c3, placing a red soldier at b2 and protecting e3, or even capture g3 with e3:i3.