This is cool, bizarre game from Java, of all places. It uses one of the most interesting boards of any game I’ve seen, which looks like a freaky cloverleaf highway system sort of thing. It’s also called Roundabouts by some, although Surakarta is the more “authentic” name.
Pieces
Each player needs 12 tokens, and the game is played on a freaky board. It’s basically just a 5x5 square grid, but the intersections are connected in a way that I really don’t know how to verbalize. Just...you can see in the pictures. Stop being so needy. You can download the board here, and use little bits of wood and pocket lint for the pieces.
Rules
The pieces are setup in a fairly standard position, with each player filling their closest two rows. Like most games, the pieces occupy the intersections on the board.
Each turn you can either move one of your pieces, capture one of your opponent’s pieces, or pass. Movement is pretty basic: pieces move one space orthogonally or diagonally, and cannot move across the loops.
Capturing is bit more complicated. When performing a capture, you can only move orthogonally, and can move as many spaces as you want. However, you must move around at least one of the loops surrounding the board, and you cannot move through a path that is blocked by another piece. So, for example:
Whoever captures all of their opponent’s pieces first is the winner. Alternately, if you pass and then your opponent passes, the game is over, and whoever has captured the most pieces wins. (If there is a tie, a draw is declared)
Weird game, right? It will help if you don’t think of the board as a grid with extensions, but rather as a system of loops:
