Any pieces in the way of the piece being entered are pushed in the direction toward which the entering piece is moving, and any piece pushed off the board returns to the stockpile of its owner who may enter it again. The object is to achieve a row of five pieces of your color, either orthogonally or diagonally. The original equipment for Slide 5 is cleverly made so that the pieces slide into the frame and click into place easily, and all the pieces in front move just where they should even though your finger never touches them. Pieces pushed off the board roll into a little tray. You can sometimes find it at rummage sales or on eBay, but the equipment would also be easy to improvise (assuming you’re willing to push the pieces with your fingers, and can dispense with that satisfying “snap”). Since the options at any move are limited, I suppose a computer would play this game well -- it wouldn’t be too hard to create a Zillions of Games application for it. Is 5x5 really the best size, I wonder, or could Milton Bradley have been biased toward an order-5 board by the euphony of the name “Slide 5”? Any serious gamers who investigate this game might also try it on an order-6 board. Another possible variation would be to increase the number of dimensions: on a 5x5x5 board there would be even more scope for moves along one dimension to impact lines being formed along other dimensions. Roger Winstanley, after reading this page, has implemented both Slide 5 and “Slide 6” as a Javascript applet, which you can play against a friend at your computer on his website. The program does not yet have the capability to play against you. You can also find on his site an original game he calls Revolution, which is a kind of Pente with a twist (literally). If you know more about this game (such as the inventor’s name), or have additional thoughts or findings, I’d be glad to hear from you. |
