Welcome to Super Duper Games!

This is a simple game of shared pieces where forming lines of 3, 6, or 9 pieces in length wins you points. When the board is full, the player with the most points wins.

55Stones is a one-rank Mancala game from Germany with simultaneous movement and perfect information. Players try to capture the most stones. Draws are not possible.

Thank you, spielstein for coding this game for us!

Abande is an original abstract game of connected pieces. Place or move pieces and stacks to generate the highest score you can whilst always keeping the board connected. Both the orthogonal and hexagonal versions have been implemented.

This modern mancala game has several unusual features: capturing is compulsory, capturing is considered a complete move, and capturing occurs when you have an empty hole. Forced moves and sacrifices are the keys to success in this game.

Thank you, Lexicon for coding this game for us!

Alak is a close relative of the board game Go played on a one-dimensional "board". It was originally described in A. K. Dewdney's 1984 book The Planiverse; in 2001, Alan Baljeu modified the game to its present state.

Alien City is a fascinating Piecepack/Icehouse game that is set in the far future and concerns the building of a city on a newly colonized world. Cities in this future contain two types of structures, towers and domes. Towers are owned by the various guilds. Domes are smaller structures used to house the citizens. As with the towers, domes are always associated with a particular guild.

The game-play consists of the players alternating turns, placing a tower or dome each turn until either all available towers and domes have been placed or until there are no legal construction sites remaining within the city. Then scores are determined based upon the relative positions of the towers and domes.

The game is played on a square grid. Each player starts with four queens (as in chess queens) placed in predetermined locations on their side of the board. On a players turn, they move a queen and then fire an arrow from that queen (the arrow piece moves like a queen also). The space that the arrow lands on creates a permanent block on the board. Arrows can not be shot through queens or arrows. The first player who can not make a legal move (move a queen and then shoot) loses the game.

When Roman ships attacked Syracuse, the mathematician Archimedes showed the soldiers of Syracuse how to focus the sun's rays with their shields on the wooden ships, causing them to burst into flame. The game Archimedes is inspired by this legend. Players destroy enemy ships by focusing imaginary rays on them, while trying to invade the enemy port. Destroyed ships, though, can be rebuilt later.

Aries is a game of pushing and shoving your way to your opponent's corner. Pieces move like Chess Rooks and can push opposing pieces off the board or into allies. The first person to occupy their opponent's corner wins!

Thank you, spielstein for coding this game for us!

Attangle is an abstract stacking game for 2 players. This last game concludes Dieter Stein's Stacking Game Trilogy.

Attract is a simple game in which pieces are placed on an initially empty board and they attract the pieces around them. Clusters of pieces in a certain formation are winners. If at any time one player has more winning formations than their opponent, they win!

This is a game of pushing and shoving where you attempt to shove opposing pieces off the board and into your treasure stash. The game allows for 2-4 players (though only 2-player games are rated) and supports the Overloaded variant, where pieces exert a force equal to their strength.

Blockade is a Piecpack game of unequal forces where on player plays a runner and the other plays a blocker. The runner attempts to reach the far end of the board while the blocker attempts to trap the runner.

Branches and Twigs and Thorns (or "Barsoomite Go") is an elegant little strategy game for two or four players that uses Icehouse pieces. It is a turn-based game, unlike Icehouse or IceTowers; and there is no luck involved. Like Martain Go, it uses a chessboard, a set of Icehouse pieces for each player, and a collection of tokens (at least ten per player). Players seek to build chains of pieces of their own color and to force their opponents to branch off from opposing pieces of their opponent's colors, which results in a penalty determined by the sizes of the pieces involved.

Breakthrough has an extremely simply ruleset. Pieces move like Chess pawns and attempt to reach the opposite side of the board. The first to do so wins.

Byte is played with either a Standard or International Checkers set. It is not a variant, but a unique and robust alternative. Over the course of the game players create stacks of pieces. When a stack of 8 is formed, the stack is removed from play and the person who owns the top piece receives a point. The player with the most points at the end wins! No draws are possible.

Cannon is an elegant 2-player game of war. Soldiers attack an enemy city using individual prowess and cunning formations. This is a commercial game; hand-made copies of which can be purchased at the publisher's website. There also exists the Cannon Game Database where past games can be studied. An AI opponent is also available.

Some words from the author: For some time now [Apr 16, 2001] I have been toying with the idea of trying to model/abstract the flow of water carving out a mountainside. A related geometric pattern is the fractal on certain seashells. [...] The image in my mind is a root-pattern forming or tributaries of a river. [...] The game generalizes to any MxN board. Without more experience playing and "figuring it out" I don't know how M and N affect playability. My intuition suggests 8x8 (really 8x15 if you measured it at the bottom) is already nontrivial and 10x10 might be "tournament".

This is a simple game of trying to occupy your opponent's throne while protecting your own.

Castle Danger is a 2-player, turn-based strategy game. Each turn, a player gets to add another piece to his or her side of the board, move pieces, and shoot cannonballs at the opponent. Who will hit the other's King first?

This is a commercial game available for purchase from the designer's web site.

Cephalopod is a Mark Steere game that uses dice as the primary game component. The goal is to fill a board of various sizes with as many of your dice as possible. This is complicated by a capturing mechanic that keeps the board in constant flux. The game ends when the board has been completely filled. As with most Mark Steere games, draws and ties are not possible in Cephalopod.

Chase is a very unique game of movement and capturing. It may not be elegant, but it is certainly fascinating. You'll have to play it to understand. Prepare yourself for a real brain-burner!

This is a Connect-4 style game played on a narrower field and one whose columns never fill up.

This is another dice game with some allusions to Cephalopod. One attempts to promote one's own pieces and convert their opponent's to fulfil one of a number of victory conditions.

Copolymer is an ultra simple Mark Steere game for two players. A printed paper board, a pen of one color, and a pen of another color can be used to play. Any honeycomb patterned grid with an odd number of cells can be used, such as the regular hexagonal board used here. Players take turns coloring in cells on the (initially empty) board, at least one cell per turn. Once the board is full, the player who has claimed the most cells wins.

Crossway is an edge-connection game in which opposing pieces may not cross each other. Draws are not possible.

DareBase is a 2-player strategy game based upon the schoolyard team-tag game of the same name. It stirs in some capture-the-flag elements and uses interesting dice rules that give players a glimpse at near future possibilities. Several different scenarios are available to mix up how you play.

Delta is another 4-in-a-row game with an interesting movement/placement mechanic. It's fast-paced and aggressive.

Its time once more for Naval exercises on Lake Ashtapada to test what the new crewmen have learned about using sonar. They will be split into two teams red and black and will set targets to represent mines for each other to find. The first team to find the others mines wins the trophy the other will be scrubbing toilets.

This implementation is played on a 12x12 board, 5 mines, and allows for islands to be placed.

Similar to 3-6-9, you score points for completing diagonals. The person with the most points when the board is full wins.

This is an interesting game of territory claiming. Movement is done via spawning in diagonal directions and pieces are not captured, but transformed into walls.

Diffusion is a mancala game created by Mark Steere. Each player owns a block of pits and wins by emptying their block. As with most Mark Steere games, draws or ties are not possible in Diffusion.

Dipole is another excellent Mark Steere game and is played with either a standard or international draughts set. The object is to eliminate all of the opposing pieces through direct capture or attrition. Draws are not possible.

This is a game of enclosure and capture played on a circular board. This implementation has added support for 3 and 4 players as well. A variant has also been added called Blackout, where the cells in which pieces are captured are rendered impassable for the remainder of the game. To combat the inherently static nature of the opening, we have further implemented a number of alternative starting layouts.

Elasta is a simultaneous movmement game where one tries to push the battle-line to their opponent's ground. Players distribute their forces across the columns to determine movement.

Entropy is a 2-player game representing the struggle between Order and Chaos. The Order player tries to organize their board in such a way to score the highest amount. Chaos, of course, attempts to thwart Order whenever possible.

This implementation provides a simultaneous environment where each player has their own Order board. Each player places a piece on their opponent's Order board and then makes a move on their own board, both players acting as both Order and Chaos. The player with the greatest score wins!

Epaminondas is an elegant 2-player game of soldiers. The object is to start your turn with more soldiers on your opponent's home row than he has on yours. The primary movement mechanic is similar to the one seen in Cannon, namely by moving rows of pieces called phalanxes. This is a tremendously simple yet deep abstract that is sure to satisfy.

The capturing mechanic here is similar to Quadrature. When forming squares with your King and a Soldier, you capture opposing pieces. Destroy the enemy forces before they destroy you.

Fanorona is the national game of Madagascar, and it is believed to have been derived from the game of Alquerque. Alquerque is a game played in Arab countries, and archeological finds in Egypt suggest that it may date back more than 3,000 years. Alquerque could have been brought to Madagascar by traders and developed into Fanorona in the 17th century or even earlier.

Fanorona is a really intriguing board game. It has a long history, but it doesn't belong to a family of similar games like chess, draughts or mancala. Like Go it is a real one-off, with a unique method of capturing.

Fission is a game of mutual destruction. The idea, though, is to keep at least one of your guys left standing in the end.

Variants include: 'Random Start' which randomizes the starting position and 'Losing' which inverts the victory conditions.

Forms is a game of isolation where you attempt to force your opponent to capture all of your stones.

This is an abstract stragegy game for 2 players. The idea is to form 2 different formations using a custom set of cards to dictate movement options. This implementation also includes the Extreme variant which requires all 4 formations to win.

Frames is an interesting simultaneous placement game where you score points by enclosing sets of pieces in which you are the majority. Do this 10 times and you're the winner!

Froggy Bottom is another Piecepack game where competing frogs race to reach all of their lilypads and return home.

Generatorb is 2-player game played on a standard chess board. Players start in opposite corners and attempt to reach their opponent's generator core or occupy the majority of cells on the front line.

Golem won the 2004 About.com Board/Card Games / Abstract Games Magazine Shared Pieces Game Design Competition.

In the game, each turn consists of the following phases: (1) allocation, (2) orientation, (3) movement, (4) harvesting, and (5) regeneration. Players have 12 units to allocate per turn (to orientation, movement, harvesting, and regeneration). Points are earned for harvesting charms. Play continues until one player reaches 30 points.

Gorgon is a game of attrition where you attempt to deprive your opponent of any moves by slowly petrifying their pieces. The Gorgon board wraps around, so pieces exiting the far edge re-enter at your home row.

Using strategy and careful thinking, be the first to get through your opponent’s lines and place one of your pieces beyond the other side of the board.

Gravity is another 4-in-a-row game but one in which placed pieces gravitate towards the edges of the board.

This is a game where two populations compete for survival. Pieces have gender, can ‘mate’, give birth, age and die. The game is won by the player whose population lives longest or who connects two sides of the board. The longevity of pieces gets around the diagonal cut problem of playing a connection game using a board with squares. This has been solved elsewhere by going into three (physical)- dimensions, - here the extra dimension is time. The unusual theme of the game keeps it fun whilst also enabling considerable strategic variety and depth.

The goal is to move all your pieces such that they are all orthogonally adjacent to each other. First person to do so wins.

Guard & Towers is a stacking game where the goal is to either capture the opposing Guard or take over the opposing fortress by placing your guard on your opponent's starting square.

This game is available commercially from Clemens Gerhards (http://www.gerhards-holzwaren.de/). They do very nice editions indeed, with what appears to be metal bits.

Homeworlds is an abstract space exploration game for the Icehouse game system. This implementation allows for 2-4 players. The standard end-of-game condition is Last Man Standing but a variant also allows the game to end when you eliminate your left-hand oppoonent. Specific details regarding this implementation can be found on the wiki. Any ideas for expansion and variation should also be discussed there.

Impasse is another excellent Mark Steere game. Played with a standard checkers set, players attempt to bear off their pieces. A player who is deprived of any moves is said to be at an impasse and is rewarded by bearing off. This is a tense and exciting game with no draws possible.

Intermedium is a game of stacked towers that move along the diagonals attempting to surround their opponent's stacks and ultimately capture their city.

Linear Progression is a 2-player game of territory control where as your pieces move, they claim the spaces through which they travel. The winner will control the most spaces on the board when the last space is filled. A 'Blocked' variant is also available which introduces special pieces through which no other piece can move. One additional board layout is also provided in which the center 4 cells are rendered impassable.

This is a basketball-style game where one tries to score a goal against their opponent.

This is another game for 2 players. Players place their pieces in an attempt to connect four in a row. The problem is, as pieces are placed or moved, they exert magnetic forces on surrounding pieces (likes repel, opposites attract) thus the lay of the land is in constant flux. It will take planning and foresight to succeed.

I have implemented a "Weak Force" variation which will only attract/repel other pieces one space at a time, instead of as far as possible.

Mak-yek is a board game played in Siam and Malaysia (under the name Apit-sodok). It is a game of custodial capture. An 'Edges' variant is available that uses the edges of the board in captures.

This game looks like one of those sliding puzzle games at first. The idea is to capture opposing tiles by sandwiching them between your own. The first person to reduce their opponent to fewer than 2 tiles wins.

The rules were unclear about how many spaces a tile can move. I have coded it so they behave like Chess rooks. Playtesting may show that to be incorrect. We shall see.

Martian Chess is another Icehouse game created by Andy Looney. It is a chess-like strategy game in which location, rather than piece color, determines which pieces you may move. Like Chess, each type of piece has its own way of moving, and you capture by moving onto an opponent's square; but unlike Chess, you can only move pieces sitting in your own quadrant, and only attack those in other quadrants which may include your own former pieces. The game ends when someone runs out of pieces, and the winner is the player who captured the most points. A variant called 'Of Knights and Kings' changes the way Pawns and Drones move to create a very different strategic game.

Mastery is a unique and original chess-style game designed by S. John Ross. It uses only 3 piece types but allows for the temporary control of opposing pieces under certain circumstances. Two starting layouts are implemented. The goal is to either remove your opponent's masters, or to remove all the other pieces.

In this game for two, the players invent a pattern, and then one player tries to build it while the other tries to prevent him from doing so. It is played with stones of two (or more, optionally) colors on any tiled surface.

This is a unique 1-dimensional abstract strategy game involving checkers-like movement and captures.

Neighbours is a game of stalemating and blocking. The first person to have no moves left loses.

Node Ball is a soccer-esque game based on similar mechanics as Selva. You are trying to maximize your score by bumping as many of the three balls as possible through your opponent's goal area.

Numeri is a game of neutralization. Replicate stacks of pieces in an attempt to neutralize any one class of opposing stacks.

This is a game of capturing for 2 players. The game is interesting in that the board is different every time. Try to capture 3 of any one of your opponents piece types, or 4 opposing pieces in total. This game has great potential for variation by adding different tiles and piece types/powers. Post your suggestions on the Wiki!

This implementation is currently testing Bishop and Rook tiles. Pieces on these tiles can currently move like the chess piece but cannot capture.

Oust is played with a Go set. The board starts out empty in Oust, and the object is to capture all of your opponent’s on-board stones, a paradox. Draws and ties cannot occur in Oust.

Palisade is a game of territory capture using a Go board. Draws are not possible.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everybody loves seeing penguins sliding around on the ice. And soccer is the world's game, right? So take some cute families of penguins, give them an icy soccer field and a ball, and watch the slippery goodness that ensues. . .

This is a game of transformation where the goal is to have the most pieces on the board when the game ends.

Thank you, MrStickman for coding this game for us!

Phutball (short for philosopher's football) is a two-player board game described in Elwyn Berlekamp, John Horton Conway, and Richard Guy's Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays.

It is a soccer-esque game for 2 players where you attempt to get the ball across your opponent's goal line.

Phwar (short for Phase War) is an abstract game of war for two or three players. The board is a hexagonal grid of hexagons. Each player owns four negative particles (electrons), four positive particles (positrons) and one neutral particle with zero charge (neutron). Aim: The game is won by the last remaining player.

A fundamental change to the victory conditions has been implemented here. The first person to occupy the central hex (F6) with their neutron will also win the game.

Players hide "letterboxes" somewhere on the board and write clues for the other players. Everyone then attempts to find as many letterboxes as possible. A player gains victory points both when she finds other letterboxes and when other players find hers. The game ends when one player has found all other letterboxes. The player with the most victory points is then the winner.