Abstract Strategy

In Cappuccino, players use stacks of coffee cups to capture other players' coffee cups.

Cappuccino features 64 beautiful plastic coffee cups in four different colors, with each player owning one color. At the start of the game, place all the cups face down on the table, shuffle them, then group them together. On a turn, a player can capture a stack that's adjacent to one of his own stacks as long as his stack is the same height as or taller than the adjacent stack. As long as a player's color stays on top of the stack, he controls that stack. If one or more stacks are isolated from the main group and all of these stacks are controlled by the same player, he can take possession of them, removing them from the game. When all the cups have been captured, players stack all of the cups they captured and whoever has the highest stack wins.

From the publisher:

A beautiful and beautifully simple game of laying a tile before your own token to continue its path on each turn. The goal is to keep your token on the board longer than anyone else's, but as the board fills up this becomes harder because there are fewer empty spaces left... and another player's tile may also extend your own path in a direction you'd rather not go. Easy to introduce to new players, Tsuro lasts a mere 15 minutes and actually does work for any number from 2 to 8.

Theme:

Tsuro has an Asian spiritual theme - the lines representing the "many roads that lead to divine wisdom", and the game as a whole representing "the classic quest for enlightenment".

This theme is very light and the game essentially plays as an abstract.

Gameplay:

The game consists of tiles with twisting lines on them, a 6x6 grid on which to lay these tiles and a token for each player. Each player has a hand of tiles. On your turn you do two things: place a tile from your hand onto the board next to your token and move your token as far as it can go along the line it is currently on, until it is stopped by an empty space with no tile in (yet), the edge of the board or colliding with another player's token. If your token reaches the edge of the board or collides with another player's token, you are out of the game. The aim of the game is to be the last player left with a token on the board. Strategy therefore consists of trying to drive your opponents either into each other or off the board whilst extending your own route in directions that will make it difficult for your opponents to do the same.

Other notes:

Tsuro was originally patented by McMurchie in 1979 under the name Squiggle Game, but was apparently not published at that time. Somewhat similar to Metro and Spaghetti Junction.

In this third addition to the GIPF Project players compete to acquire sets of multi-colored balls. This is mostly accomplished by jumping one ball over one or more others, Checkers-style, on a hex board. A player's turn consists of either jumping (which can be forced) or placing any color ball on the board and removing an empty space from the edge of the board. In this manner, the play space continually shrinks, giving the endgame an almost claustrophobic feel.

This game is part of project GIPF.

Home Page: http://www.gipf.com/zertz/index.html

The players each start with 5 rings on the board. Every time a ring is moved, it leaves a marker behind. Markers are white on one side and black on the other. When markers are jumped over by a ring they must be flipped, so their color is constantly changing. The players must try to form a row of 5 markers with their own color face up. If a player succeeds in doing so, he removes one of his rings as an indication that he has formed such a row. The first player to remove 3 of his rings wins the game. In other words, each row you make brings you closer to victory-but also makes you weaker, because you have one fewer ring to play with. Very tricky!

TZAAR is a game about making choices. Both players have 30 pieces, divided in three types: 6 Tzaars, 9 Tzarras and 15 Totts. The 3 types of pieces form a trinity: They cannot exist without each other. The aim is either to make the opponent run out of one of the three types of pieces or to put him in a position in which he cannot capture anymore. The tricky question the players will have to ask themselves on each of their turns is: “Shall I make myself stronger or my opponent weaker?” Meaning: Will you capture an opponent’s piece and make him weaker, or will you jump on top of one of your own pieces and make yourself stronger? If you choose to jump on top of your own pieces too often, you will probably leave your opponent with too many pieces on the board. On the other hand, if you capture too often, you may end up with pieces that are not strong enough at the end of the game. What to do? Up to you to decide!

TZAAR is the most recent game in project GIPF, replacing TAMSK which was felt to not quite fit in with the others due to its use of sand timers.

Online Play

Boardspace.net (real time, against human or robot opponents)
Gamerz (turn-based, play by email or play by web)
Boîte_à_jeux (turn-based, play by web, robot opponents also available)

Local Computer Play

HTZAAR (made from Haskell, OpenGL, and SDL; can be compiled for Windows or Linux) (NOTE: this is no longer maintained)
http://www.dcc.fc.up.pt/~pbv/stuff/hstzaar HsTZAAR: improved version of HTZAAR with better AI and better graphical interface. Source code in Haskell; can be compiled for Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
http://www.johannes-schwagereit.de/tz1 TZ1: A program to play TZAAR, developed in Java.