This is a great little game with a unique and exciting mode of capturing. Moving into the same space, a la Chess too boring? Custodial capture (see Tablut) got you down? Jumping been done too much (see Alquerque, Konane, Peg Solitaire, Bagha Chal, etc)? How about...exploding?
Yes, in this game, which was just recently invented in 2003 by Chris Huntoon (to the best of my knowledge), your pieces are bombs, and they kill each other as bombs should -- by detonating themselves and taking out their surrounding enemies. Very cool.
Equipment
The game can be played on a standard chessboard (if you really don’t have one, print one here) or extended to any square grid. Each player will need 16 identical tokens -- use coins or beans or buttons or whatever -- or more for larger boards (2 times the width of the board used).
Rules
The game is very much like Breakthrough -- it is essentially a variant thereof -- but the gameplay and strategy couldn’t be more different. Your goal is again to reach the other side of the board, but there is another victory condition: to destroy all of your opponent’s pieces.
The initial game setup is identical to Breakthrough, as is the pieces’ movement (one step forward, either orthogonally or diagonally). However the capturing is, as previously stated, completely different.
On your turn, you can choose to either move or detonate a piece. Movement has been discussed already, so the good bit: if you choose to detonate a piece, it and all pieces surrounding it (including your own pieces!) are removed. So all pieces in a 3 x 3 square centered on the detonated piece are removed. As in, the piece and any piece diathogonally adjacent to it. Just look at the picture.
As previously stated, the winner is the first to reach the other side or to destroy all enemy pieces. Happy bombarding!
