OSHIQI

Copyright (c) 2003 João Neto

This game is played on the following 13x13 square board. The middle stone is called the neutral stone.

 

GROUP - One or more orthogonally connected stones of the same color. EDGES - Black owns the top and bottom edges. White owns the left and right edges. MOVE - On each turn, a player drops a friendly stone on an empty cell, provided: The dropped stone becomes part of a group of N >=1 stones where at least one of its stones is in an orthogonal line of sight with the neutral stone, with at least N empty cells beyond it. Then, the neutral stone moves N cells away from the stone mentioned (the player may choose, if there is more than one direction) GOAL - Wins the player that pushes the neutral stone to one of his edges or stalemates his opponent.

 

	An example White's turn. After the last drop (the marked white stone) the neutral stone moved from i9 to i8 and White wins by stalemate. Black's j7,i6 or h7 would imply a move of more than one cell, which is invalid.
	Another example White dropped the marked white stone. Now, Black can only drop at d11 or d12, pushing the neutral stone to d9. Then White wins by dropping at f9 moving the neutral stone 3 cells into the left edge

Cameron Browne noticed that: This is a type of constrained connection game: as well as propelling the neutral piece, [...] (each move makes) a virtually connected wall that blocks off one of my edges. The pieces will eventually form a maze that we have to navigate around.

This is a variant of Iqishiqi.