This is a fantastic, simple game that’s only about 120 years old. It was invented by George Howard Monks and Thomas Hill, and was a modification of an old English game called Hoppity. However, Hoppity has apparently not survived in any known form, so I’m not sure just how similar it is. The name Halma comes from the Greek word for “jump,” which is pretty fitting given the gameplay.
Although you’ve probably never heard of Halma, I’ll bet you’ve heard of Chinese Checkers. That game is a direct spinoff of Halma, which which is playable by up to six people and takes place on a hexagonal grid. Halma is simpler and can be played on a standard chess set, making it far, far superior to Chinese Checkers. Seriously, that game is from Germany and has nothing to do with Draughts. I’m not a fan.
Pieces
The game can be played on any size square grid board, although you might have trouble with less than a 6 x 6, and even sizes are recommended. Each player also needs a number of pieces depending on the size of the board -- 10 for the 8 x 8 version presented here.
If you want a longer game, play with a larger board and more pieces. The game was originally designed to be played on a 16 x 16 board with 19 tokens each, which you can create by arranging four standard chess boards in a square. Or you can just play with a normal chess board. It won’t hurt at all, and will make the game easier to learn and more approachable for beginners.
I’ll be using a standard 8 x 8 board here, because it makes for a decent length game. You can download and print one free here, and use coins or whatever as the pieces. Although the board in the pictures has the starting position highlighted, this isn’t at all necessary. Just thought it would look pretty.
Rules
The game is very simple: you’re trying to get all of your pieces to the opposite corner, in the same configuration that your opponent’s piece start in. Pieces are arranged filling each corner (although different starting arrangements are possible with larger boards).
Each turn you either move one of your pieces one space into an adjacent square (orthogonally or diagonally), or jump over other pieces on the board to get somewhere. Jumps can be in any direction, and you can jump as many times as you want in a turn, even changing direction in the middle of a jump. You can jump over friendly or enemy pieces, and it does nothing to either -- there is no capturing in this game.
The game is over when one of the players manages to fill in his opponent’s starting squares (his "camp") with his pieces, at which time he is victorious. Once a piece enters the camp, it cannot leave, althoughit may move around inside it.
The game has a potential flaw: if one player doesn't move his pieces out of his camp, the other player is in trouble, and this can lead to stalemate (a player can just move one of his pieces around while keeping the rest of his pieces safely in his camp). To prevent this, a common rule is imposed: if any of a player's pieces are still in his camp after 50 turns into the game, he loses. However, most people don't want to count moves, so I play with a different rule: if there are no empty spaces in your camp, you must move a piece out of it. So if you've moved three pieces from your camp, and those three spaces become filled with your opponent's pieces, you must immediately free another space. This prevents players from keeping pieces in their camp indefinitely while eliminating the need to count moves.
The game can also be played by four people, each controlling one of the corners and striving to fill in the opposite corner. Bigger boards are recommended, although small ones still work. It’s also recommended that you play with a reduced number of pieces to keep the game from taking too long and the board from getting too crowded.
