Trap

Trap, by Ideal Toy Corp., 1972 (author uncredited)

Trap is played on an order-6 hexagonal board of 91 cells. The equipment provided by Ideal included a sturdy plastic board with slots dividing the hexes from one another. There are three Red and three Blue pieces, which begin in the hexes shown.

The two actions available to a player on his turn are placing a wall between two hexes, and moving a knight to an adjacent hex that is not blocked by a wall. On each turn a player may and must perform two actions: e.g., move one piece and place one wall; or if he prefers, he may place two walls, or move two pieces one space each, or move one piece two spaces (not necessarily in a straight line).

There is no shortage of walls. Knights cannot occupy the same space. A player wins when his opponent is no longer able to move any of his knights.

This game has been out of print a long time, but it would be pretty easy to construct equipment for it. It is available on auction sites, but only rarely. Often it goes so cheap that the board alone would justify the sale price; I’m considering getting a second one and painting the hexes three colors for hexagonal chess, which is also played on a 91-cell hexagon (see the Chess Variant Pages for rules to that game). So used, the Ideal board would be the right size for a small chess set.


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