Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Board games have been invented and played by men over many millenniums. Games such as Chess, Drafts and Backgammon predate the Christian era. In many of these prior art games, a player wins by either capturing his opponent's markers, or by advancing his markers to a destination before his opponent can do the same, or both. More recently, computerized versions of many board games are developed where a computer screen emulates the board and the markers or pieces used in board games, and the computer provides random number generating means to substitute the dice used in many such board games. In more advanced versions of the computer games one or more players are even substituted by the computer.
Many of the games such as Drafts and Backgammon teach the idea of moving markers from a starting position to a desired end position to achieve a desired result. However, none of these prior games require that the travel from the start area to the finish area be completed in a limited number of turns of play, failing which the marker would be removed from the play. This causes the game to take long time to complete as the players do not have a deadline within which a task must be completed.
The prior art games also do not teach the idea where a part of the game board is designated as a safe area for a player where his markers can survive indefinitely, and outside of the safe area they can survive for only a limited number of turns. As a result the player only focuses on advancing his marker to the goal and he does not have to balance that goal with one of returning the marker back to his safe area within the limited number of turns. This makes the games less challenging.
What is required is a more challenging game that can be played in less time.
This invention relates to a novel board game and, more specifically, to a board game where a play marker has limited number of turns within which it must advance out of its home region and penetrate a specified minimum distance into a hostile environment and then return safely return back to its home region to score points.
In a preferred embodiment, the game comprises a board of rectangular shape with a square grid, having a first region and a second region belonging to a first player and a second player respectively. Two distinct sets of pieces or markers, one set belonging to the first player and the second set of markers belonging to the second player, are placed on the board. One set of markers is placed in the first region and the second set is placed in the second region. While the markers can survive indefinitely in their respective home regions, outside of their home regions the markers can survive for only a limited number of turns, for example three. Two players take alternate turns to move their markers using a set of dice to determine the number of squares a marker can be moved. A player scores points by successfully moving his marker from his own region to a point deep in to the opponent's region, making a U-turn and returning the marker back to his own region within a specified number of turns. The deeper a marker penetrates the opponent's defenses the more point it scores. However, if the marker fails to return to its home region within the specified number of turns, it dies and does not score any points. Additionally, during its movement a marker may kill an opponent's marker by landing on it. Alternatively, it can be killed if an opponent's marker lands on it. Dead markers are removed from the board for the remainder of the game. A player wins the game when he either scores a specified number of points before his opponent or if he kills all of his opponent's markers.
The game which has been selected to illustrate the invention by way of example is hereinafter described in detail with reference to accompanying drawings.
1. Game Set-Up
Referring now to
The game also includes a number generating device in the form of a pair of tetrahedral dice shown in
The maximum roll, Nmax that can be obtained with two tetrahedral dice is 8 (4+4) while the minimum roll, Nmin is 2 (1+1). The probabilities of rolling a specific total number between 2 and 8 using two tetrahedral dice are listed below:
It is seen that the outcome of a 5 is most likely (NPmax), followed closely by the probabilities of rolling a 4 or a 6.
The game also includes two sets of playing pieces or markers for the two players as shown in
At the start of the game, the two sets of game markers are placed in their respective home regions as shown in
2. Rules Governing the Movement of the Game Markers
In the beginning, the two players roll the dice to decide who plays first, with the player with the highest roll playing first.
After that, each player alternatively rolls the two dice and moves one of his markers a number of squares equal to the roll of the dice.
Some of the moves that are not permitted under the rules are illustrated in
Other Restrictions on Game Marker Moves are:
At the end of a turn, only one marker belonging to either player can be outside of its home region. Hence a player can not move one of his markers out of his home region while another one of his own or his opponent's marker is on attack, unless the start of the second attack results in the capture of the opponent's attacker.
A move that does not use the full amount of the roll is not allowed. A player who can not make a legal move that uses up the full extent of his roll forfeits his turn.
3. Capturing of Opponent's Markers
A player can capture his opponent's marker by landing his marker on top of the opponent's marker at the end of the move.
4. Play of the Game
The objective of the game is to win the game by being the first player to score 5 points. Alternatively, a player can win the game if he captures all of his opponent's markers. In the event that both the players lose their last markers during the same turn, then the one with the most points wins.
Points are scored by invading the enemy territory and returning back without getting captured, and within three turns. Any move in which a marker crosses its home boundary on an outward bound journey starts an attack and that move is counted as the first turn. After that the attacking player has two more turns to bring his marker back in to its home region. If he fails to bring the marker back in to his home region within the three turns he loses that marker.
The number of points that an attacking marker scores depends on how deep into the enemy territory it reaches before returning. A marker that penetrates the enemy territory two squares beyond the enemy boundary gets 1 point, three squares beyond gets 2 points and so on. The points are awarded upon the safe return of the marker to its home territory within the three turns.
The opponent continues to take his regular turns while it is being attacked and both players can capture opponent's markers during an attack.
A player can not start his own attack while an opponent's marker is on attack. However, the second player can start an attack during his opponent's attack if the start of his attack captures the attacking enemy marker. This special case is illustrated in
Many other variations of the current inventions can be easily made based on the teachings of this application. The game board size can be made larger or smaller with more or less squares in the home regions and the buffer region. Instead of three regions two can be used, eliminating the buffer region between the two home regions. An example of a board implementation of the current invention without a buffer region is illustrated in
In an alternate version of the game in
In another embodiment of the current invention a game board 1313 for four players is shown in
In yet another embodiment of the current invention, the two player game of
Many other variations of the game are possible. The flat board may be substituted by a three dimensional structure incorporating multiple playing surfaces and where the different home regions are placed on different levels.
The tetrahedral dice can be easily substituted by hexagonal or other dice or other types of number generating devices such as electronic counters, roulette wheels, or a deck of special cards.
Instead of five markers, each team may start the game with fewer or more markers. The score required to win the game may be similarly reduced or increased from the number 5 used in the preferred embodiment. Alternatively the points scored can be changed from the current pattern of 0,1,2,3,4 to various other patterns such as 1,2,3,4,5 or 0,1,2,4,8 or 0,0,1,2,4.
The number of turns within which a marker must return to its home base can be increased or decreased. And in another embodiment if a marker exceeds the maximum number of turns allowed outside of its home region, it could be returned to its home region rather than removing it from the board.
Simultaneous attacks may be permitted. The rules on L-TURNS may be modified to allow multiples of them in a move. Wide U-TURNS can be allowed. Safe areas may be provided on the board where markers can not be captured.
And while the game has been described as a board game it can also be simulated on a handheld or desktop computer without deviating from the teachings. A computer program can be readily developed that displays the game board and markers on the screen of the computer. The game board shown on a computer screen would identify the different home regions and the grid. The markers will be initially shown in their starting position and as they are moved, their new position will be displayed on the screen. The computer would also provide a number generating capability to generate a roll. The markers would be moved either based on user inputs through a keyboard or a mouse or, in case where one or more players are represented by the computer, the moves would be generated by software residing in the computer. The computer would also keep track of the number of turns already taken by a marker on its attack and the scores. Many other enhancements are possible with a computerized version of the game such as on-screen documentation and help guide, play animation, interactive play with other players on the internet and selection of different levels of difficulties. These enhancements are self evident to one who is familiar with the technology of computerized games.
The invention has been explained with reference to specific embodiments. Other embodiments will be evident to those of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, it is not intended that the invention be limited other than as indicated by the appended claims.