MAN IN THE MOON

Copyright (c) 1890 McLoughlin Brothers

This game is played on an empty 5x5 square board:

 

DROP PHASE - On each turn, each player drops one friendly stone in an empty cell, except at the center. MOVE PHASE - On each turn, each player moves one friendly stone into an orthogonal adjacent empty cell. In the move phase, there are captures by custodian, i.e., the moved stone gets itself in a consecutive line of three stones, with an enemy cell in the middle and a friendly stone in the other extreme.  If a player cannot make a move, he must pass.  GOAL - The player with less than two stones, loses the game

 

An example Black's turn. By moving the marked black stone to d4, the player captures two white stones and reduces the White army to one stone, thus winning the game.