This is a fun little game with an interesting mechanic that should provide some unique entertainment. There are many games called “Snail Trail,” and to the best of my knowledge this one was invented in 2001 by Don Green. It is slightly reminiscent of Amazons, although it is a much shorter and more simplistic game with intuitive rules that will have you up and playing in no time.
Equipment
The game can be played on a standard chessboard (print one here), or a grid board of any size and shape. You’ll need two tokens to serve as “snails” and quite a few more to serve as the trail -- you can use Go stones or beads or whatever you have lying around. You shouldn’t need more than thirty or forty, but may need up to sixty if both you and your opponent are good (those numbers are for a standard 8 x 8 board; your mileage may vary).
Rules
The game is very simple: each turn, you must move your snail a set number of moves. On the first turn, you move it one space. Then your opponent moves his two. Then you move yours three, and your opponent has to move four, etc.
Each time the snail moves a space, it does so diathogonally in any direction, like a Chess king. You can change direction as often as you want during the course of your movement.
However, here’s the catch: as the snails move, they leave trails behind themselves. So each time a snail moves into a new space, you place a token in the space that it previously occupied.
Now, snails cannot move into spaces that already have tokens in them. So if a player can’t move the correct number of spaces required on that turn, he loses the game.
8 moves, but only 6 are available
