One side’s cubes are marked somehow, perhaps with a spot on each face. Reed suggests marking both armies with distinct indices, such as Dot and Bar. If my suggestion for grooving the edges is followed, you might distinguish the armies by coloring the grooves distinctly; I would color the grooves black and white, and change Reed’s white cube-face to yellow. But in Reed’s version, all cubes of both armies have pairs of opposite faces marked in blue, white, and red. The initial position is as shown, with blue faces up, red to the sides, and white front and back. A cube can move one or two squares in a turn by rolling, exposing a different face each time it enters a new square. Only a cube with a red face up at the beginning of its turn can capture an enemy cube, which it does by rolling into its square. A cube with a white face up is immune from capture. A capture need not be the end of a move. If a player captures a piece on the first square of his move he can still move to another square, or even back to his starting square. He may even capture a second piece if the position allows it. But each move must effect a change in the board, so a player may not roll a cube away and back to its original square without making a capture. Adjacent-square captures, if any are available, are obligatory. The object is to capture or immobilize all the enemy cubes, but if one side is reduced to a single cube the other player has only a set number of moves (say, 10) to win or the game is declared a draw. Reed gives an example game in his patent. I’ve had this game in my files for years and at one point I wrote to the address on the patent for more information, but the post office returned the letter to me with no word of the inventor. It sounds like a promising game, and Reed seems to have given it some study, so I hope it doesn’t fall into oblivion without being tried out. If anyone knows more about this game’s inventor or history, I’d be interested in hearing from you! |
