SLIDES OF ACTION 

Copyright (c) 2003 Clark Rodeffer

Slides of Action is played on the following 4x4 square board. 

Each player chooses a color. The third remaining color is neutral.

TURN - On each turn, each player shifts a line of 1, 2 or 3 stones towards the empty cell. KO - The board cannot repeat the previous position  GOAL - A player wins if he connects his stones into one single group (orthogonal and diagonal connections are valid) even if he also connects the stones of one of the other colors. If the neutral stones get connected first, the game is a draw.

 

An example Red's turn in a Red vs. Yellow game. If Red moves a4 into a3, he wins in the next turn, because Yellow can only make a left shift of the 4th row (the forward shift of the 1st column is not valid due to the KO rule). If Yellow shifts the 3 stones, he loses immediately (red stones get connected). If he shifts 1 or 2 stones, then Red moves the red stone at d4 to the left and wins.

The author designed Slides of Action as a piecepack game combining Lines of Action with a 15-Puzzle. This game can also be played with 3 players, in this case there are no neutral stones.