sunnuntai 3. helmikuuta 2013

Rule variants

Here are a couple of rule variants that were tried during the design process. New ideas for variants are highly appreciated.

Move from corner

If a bead is run into a corner hex, it still can be moved according to the general moving rules. This means the players can move it to an empty hex next to the corner hex, or jump over a bead that is in a hex next to the corner one. The strategic value of corners changes a bit.

Move along my edge

The players can move beads along the edge they own. This gives the players a chance to steal beads from the corners (using Move from corner -rule) and make room for beads that have been stacking next to the edge row.

Jump off the board

The beads are not stored on the outermost hex row, but moved off-board. The edges still have owners and the player owning the edge where the bead goes off-board gets the point. This changes the size of the playable area of the board, but also the significance of corner hexes, since the bead can be moved to either edge from a corner.

Checkers move chaining

When player jumps over a bead, she can continue jumping, if there are legal jumps possible. Only jumping over beads can be chained, not moving to the adjacent hex.

What is this?

Trickle is a new, abstract board game in the spirit of the classic games, such as Chinese Checkers, Checkers and Go. It has very simple rules, but a lot of varying gameplay emerges from the simplicity of the game.

All of the game items can be controlled by any player, so there are no dedicated pieces for each player. This gives the game a unique strategic touch.

You can find the official rules here, or behind a link on the right.

Print a prototype game board for yourself.

Here you can find a Finnish text about the design process of the game.

The game has been designed by Jaakko Kemppainen (that's me).