Abalone is a two-player abstract strategy board game designed by Michel Lalet and Laurent Lévi in 1987. Players are represented by opposing black and...
Abalone is a two-player abstract strategy board game designed by Michel Lalet and Laurent Lévi in 1987. Players are represented by opposing black and white marbles on a hexagonal board with the objective of pushing six of the opponent's marbles off the edge of the board.
Abalone was published in 1990 and has sold more than 4.5 million units. The year it was published it received one of the first Mensa Select awards. It is currently sold in more than thirty countries.
The board consists of 61 circular spaces arranged in a hexagon, five on a side. Each player has 14 marbles that rest in the spaces and are initially arranged as shown below, on the left image. The players take turns with the black marbles moving first. For each move, a player moves a straight line of one, two or three marbles of one color one space in one of six directions. The move can be either broadside / arrow-like (parallel to the line of marbles) or in-line / in a line (serial in respect to the line of marbles), as illustrated below.
A player can push their opponent's marbles (a "sumito") that are in a line to their own with an in-line move only. They can only push if the pushing line has more marbles than the pushed line (three can push one or two; two can push one). Marbles must be pushed to an empty space (i.e. not blocked by a marble) or off the board. The winner is the first player to push six of the opponent's marbles off of the edge of the board.
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SANTORINI
Santorini is an abstract strategy board game for 2-4 players designed and released in 2004 by Gordon Hamilton and republished via Kickstarter in 2016...
Santorini is an abstract strategy board game for 2-4 players designed and released in 2004 by Gordon Hamilton and republished via Kickstarter in 2016 by Roxley Games. Inspired by the architecture of cliffside villages on Santorini Island in Greece, and primarily designed for two players, the game is played on a grid where each turn players build a town by placing building pieces up to three levels high. To win the game, players must move one of their two characters to the third level of the town.
Each turn of play involves moving one of your two pieces around a 5-by-5 grid each turn and then placing a tile adjacent to the moved piece, building up that spot of the board. On subsequent turns, pieces may be moved onto one of these built-up tiles, but only one level up at a time. Pieces may also be moved down any number of levels. Players may also place a special dome tile on top of a three-level building, which prevents a player from moving onto that spot for the remainder of the game.
The primary winning condition is to get one of your pieces onto the third level, though players may also win if their opponent is unable to make a move.
The Roxley Games version of Santorini introduced a god powers variant, which gives each player a unique way to break the rules.
After being directly released and sold by Hamilton in 2004, Roxley Games ran a Kickstarter campaign during March-April 2016, drawing over 7,100 backers and raising over C$700,000, the most successful Kickstarter campaign ever based in Alberta. While the original release used plain white blocks as components, the Roxley version featured an enhanced cartoon-like look to the game, which Hamilton credits for success of the Kickstarter campaign. The game was released in retail outlets in January 2017.
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